Spare LiFePo4 cells

[Rope103]

So long story short I have come upon 2 of these identical 500wh LiFePo4 batteries with xt60 connectors from power stations that I fried the circuits on, and I would like to turn them into a power station or solar charger. I know I will need a charge controller and inverter and I have some basic knowledge of soldering. But I don't know what connectors I will need to connect these batteries together and what other steps I may need to take. Any advise or info would be helpful to get me started.

 

[Rednecktek]

Well I see the balance leads for a 4s battery coming out of there, so it may be as easy as getting a pair of 4s BMS's, re-heading the wires to the proper size ring terminals, and charging it up. You'll have 2 batteries out of that and no soldering or anything required.

The BMS will do cell balancing over time so once you have them installed, just use and recharge a few times and it should get the cells pretty well balanced.

As far as the rest of the power station idea goes, start with a "What do I want it to do" list and build out from there. You'll need to eventually get:
A solar charge controller (SCC)
Fuses
DC ports of your flavor (do you want cigarette lighter ports? USB ports? USB-C ports? )
AC inverter of your flavor (I wouldn't recommend anything more than about 1000w and Pure Sine Wave only, if you even WANT AC)
Some sort of box to put it all in.
Some way to charge it from a wall outlet (for when you don't have any sun)

You're starting down a really dark path here, use caution. ?

 

[Rope103]

Well I see the balance leads for a 4s battery coming out of there, so it may be as easy as getting a pair of 4s BMS's, re-heading the wires to the proper size ring terminals, and charging it up. You'll have 2 batteries out of that and no soldering or anything required.

The BMS will do cell balancing over time so once you have them installed, just use and recharge a few times and it should get the cells pretty well balanced.

As far as the rest of the power station idea goes, start with a "What do I want it to do" list and build out from there. You'll need to eventually get:
A solar charge controller (SCC)
Fuses
DC ports of your flavor (do you want cigarette lighter ports? USB ports? USB-C ports? )
AC inverter of your flavor (I wouldn't recommend anything more than about 1000w and Pure Sine Wave only, if you even WANT AC)
Some sort of box to put it all in.
Some way to charge it from a wall outlet (for when you don't have any sun)

You're starting down a really dark path here, use caution. ?

So just to confirm, (for each battery) I would take off the xt60 connectors and then twist the 2 black wires together and then twist the 2 red wires, add the ring terminals to the twisted wires and then be able to connect them to the BMS?(im not super experienced and don’t want to start a fire)

 

[Rednecktek]

Yup, and that set of thinner wires will go to the BMS for balancing and monitoring. Dig through Will's older videos on how to build a battery so you can see how those all work and how to test them. On my JBD's and my JK BMS's the port for the balance leads have been interchangable, yours may very likely be as well.

The BMS will have 2 spots on it for wires, a B- and a P-. That black wire will go to the B- terminals (and there are often 2 so having 2 wires already is handy) and the P- will go out to all your loads. The red wires will be the positive lead going off to all your loads and not talk to the BMS at all.