Portable power station

[Dyotat100]

Ok

This has turned into a serious project. Biggest problem is I want it to be a nice setup when its done. Will be for my 5th wheel and a portable power station. Well portable but not a light one. Its going to have to be 2 pieces and will link together with a 350 amp anderson plug.

At first I was all for one box. But when I started adding up the parts I was looking at 160-170 lbs. So I went and grabbed the bathroom scale and pulled out my crate full of lead for casting slugs. It was 178 lbs. I lifted it and said no way could I get that in the trailer because its under the tongue.

So now it will be 120-125 lbs. Still a lot but that's going to have to do. 2 people will be able to put it in easy. Then the Victron 12v 3000 w inverter will go in same size enclosure. Will be able to stake and use a dolly to move them around. Inverter box will have all the 120 outlets on it and battery will have the 12 v outlets.

So one question is compression. I have looked and couldn't find any numbers of how much torque on a the bolts is enough and what it to much.

Good thing is it brought them all in and they are nice and snug together. The plate is .450" thick and it bows. I guess I should have gapped the cells and ran 2 in between.

Plan is to get it where it needs to be and remake the cross bars exactly what the gap is. That way I can just tighten until they at together.

Here is my lay out so far of my parts. There will be a nice piece of Baltic Burch plywood sitting on top of the batteries. Will have 1" copper bungs that will go up through the plywood to tie into. Hard part has been trying to lay it out where I am able to connect it all. Some will be connected with copper bars and some with 4/0.

Let me know if I'm doing something wrong or if something could be done better.

 

[Dyotat100]

So I just weighed the battery as in the pic. It's a 110 lbs. I weighed all the parts and they are 5.5 lbs. I will say 10 lbs with a couple of feet of cable, few DC plugs, and USB.

So thats 120 lbs. Looks like I'm looking at 140 lbs with a enclosure. Thats heavy

 

[Gazoo]

It is recommended to put some insulating material between the cells to keep them electrically isolated from each other in case the PVC wrap wears through. The same applies to your fixture. The aluminum cell case has positive voltage on it.

I can't advise you on compression. There are several threads discussing it and you might get a response if you asked in one of those threads.

 

[Dyotat100]

I ordered some thin delrin sheet to put between the cells. Will be here today and I will install between all battery surfaces.

I have been curious about how this battery will do. I'm still aways away from finishing. But I wanted to see how it works. I hooked it up last night and ran my house off of it. I don't have anything to put a good load on it. So I figured this would be something. I always back feed my house when the power goes out. So I used my setup instead of generator.

I hooked it up and ran the house on it for 3 hours. Was only pulling 40 amps. Battery seems to be well balanced. Cells got down to 3.302 v at first. What was weird was as it ran for awhile the voltage went up slowly to 3.307.

The load on it was my 85" TV, 2 direct TV boxes lights and the refrigerator seemed to run most of the time. I'm sure there was other stuff because the whole house was powered by the inverter.

Here is the studs I installed and the temporary battery posts until I get finally measurements for the copper ones. Was hard to find 1" copper bar unless I wanted to get 3'. I managed to get 6" so I will make them when final height is figured out.

 

[Dyotat100]

I did a discharge over a few days. I ended at 2.6 v on lowest cell. I don't have BMS hooked up so I had to baby sit it. I ended up with 551 ah.

Then I charged it to 3.55 v and got 558 ah into the battery. Had to stop because it got a little out of balance without BMS. Plus I was trying to figure out charge setup on my victron inverter. Will get the BMS on and set up end of next week.