Category Archives: 18650

Hoverboard Reborn For Electric Rollerblading

Posted on by

Rollerblading is fun, but who needs all that pesky exercise? Wouldn’t strapping on the blades be so much more tempting if you had an electric pusher motor to propel you along your way?

We have to admit that we raised a wary eyebrow as we first watched [MakerMan]’s video below. We thought it was going to be just another hoverboard hack at first, but as we watched, there were some pretty impressive fabrication skills on display. Yes, the project does start with tearing into a defunct hoverboard for parts, primarily one wheel motor and the battery pack. But after that, …read more

Continue reading Hoverboard Reborn For Electric Rollerblading→

OLED hacked power bank

Posted on by

In a feat of over-engineering, [Everett Bradford] hacked his power bank to add power monitor via an OLED display to show live current, voltage, temperature, and capacity information. The idea came when he learned about the INA219 chip. The INA219 is a current shunt and power monitor IC with an I²C or SMBUS compatible interface. The device is able to monitor both shunt voltage drop and bus supply voltage, with programmable conversion times and filtering. A programmable calibration value, combined with an internal multiplier, enables direct readouts of current in amperes. An additional multiplying register calculates power in watts.

With …read more

Continue reading OLED hacked power bank→

OLED hacked power bank

Posted on by

In a feat of over-engineering, [Everett Bradford] hacked his power bank to add power monitor via an OLED display to show live current, voltage, temperature, and capacity information. The idea came when he learned about the INA219 chip. The INA219 is a current shunt and power monitor IC with an I²C or SMBUS compatible interface. The device is able to monitor both shunt voltage drop and bus supply voltage, with programmable conversion times and filtering. A programmable calibration value, combined with an internal multiplier, enables direct readouts of current in amperes. An additional multiplying register calculates power in watts.

With …read more

Continue reading OLED hacked power bank→

Monstrous USB Power Bank

Posted on by

At some point, cleaning out the spare parts bin — or cabinet, or garage — becomes a necessity. This is dangerous because it can induce many more project ideas and completely negate the original purpose. [Chaotic Mind], considering the pile of  batteries he’s collected over the past decade, decided that instead of throwing them out, he would recycle them into a grotesque USB power bank.

Inside the bulk of this power bank are an eye-popping 64 18650 Lithium Ion cells, mostly collected from laptop batteries, and wired in a parallel 8×8 pattern with an estimated capacity of over 100,000mAh(!!).  The …read more

Continue reading Monstrous USB Power Bank→

Monstrous USB Power Bank

Posted on by

At some point, cleaning out the spare parts bin — or cabinet, or garage — becomes a necessity. This is dangerous because it can induce many more project ideas and completely negate the original purpose. [Chaotic Mind], considering the pile of  batteries he’s collected over the past decade, decided that instead of throwing them out, he would recycle them into a grotesque USB power bank.

Inside the bulk of this power bank are an eye-popping 64 18650 Lithium Ion cells, mostly collected from laptop batteries, and wired in a parallel 8×8 pattern with an estimated capacity of over 100,000mAh(!!).  The …read more

Continue reading Monstrous USB Power Bank→

DIY LiPo Protectors

Posted on by

Spiderman’s Uncle Ben was known to say, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The same holds true for battery power. [Andreas] wanted to use protected 18650 cells, but didn’t want to buy them off the shelf. He found a forty cent solution. Not only can you see it in the video, below, but he also explains and demonstrates what the circuit is doing and why.

Protection is important with LiPo technology. Sure, LiPo cells have changed the way we use portable electronics, but they can be dangerous. If you overcharge them or allow them to go completely dead and then …read more

Continue reading DIY LiPo Protectors→

DIY USB Power Bank

Posted on by

USB power banks give your phone some extra juice on the go. You can find them in all shapes and sizes from various retailers, but why not build your own?

[Kim] has a walkthrough on how to do just that. This DIY USB Power Bank packs 18650 battery cells and a power management board into a 3D printed case. The four cells provide 16,000 mAh, which should give you a few charges. The end product looks pretty good, and comes in a bit cheaper than buying a power bank of similar capacity.

The power management hardware being used here appears …read more

Continue reading DIY USB Power Bank→

Another Electric Longboard Goes the Distance

Posted on by

Looks like electric longboards are becoming a thing, with increasingly complex electronics going into them to squeeze as much performance as possible out of them. When an electric longboard lasts for 35 miles, can longboard hypermiling be far behind?

If endurance longboarding sounds familiar, it’s because we just covered a 25-mile electric that outlasted its rider. To get the extra 10 miles, [Andrew] cheated a little, with a backpack full of extra batteries powering his modified Boosted Board, a commercially available electric longboard. But the backpack battery was only a prototype, and now [Andrew] is well on his way to …read more

Continue reading Another Electric Longboard Goes the Distance→

Long-range Electric Longboard Outlasts Rider

Posted on by

What could be better than a holiday ride past the palm trees and blue waters of a Mediterranean resort town? Perhaps making that ride on a long-range electric longboard of your own design will ice that particular cake.

And when we say long range, we mean it – an estimated 25 miles. The only reason [overclocker_kris] couldn’t come up with an exact number in the test drive seen below is that he got too tired to continue after mile 20. With a bit of juice left in the 64-cell battery pack, built from 18650s harvested from old laptops, the board …read more

Continue reading Long-range Electric Longboard Outlasts Rider→

Cheap Chainsaw Teardown Reveals Buried Treasures

Posted on by

People seem to have a love-hate relationship with Harbor Freight, and it mostly seems that they love to hate the purveyor of discount tools. This is not without cause — any number of HF tools have fallen apart in our hands. But there are some gems to be found amid the dregs and dross of your local branch of the 700-store US chain, as long as you match the tool to your needs and manage your expectations.

Now, we’d normally shy away from any electric chainsaw, especially a cordless saw, and doubly so a Harbor Freight special. But as [Professor …read more

Continue reading Cheap Chainsaw Teardown Reveals Buried Treasures→