18 ms·

Indonesia's e-bike shops are building their own batteries

226 points by donohoe 3y ago

infecto 3y ago
I don't know Indonesian import law but I would guess that this guy making batteries for his local business might have better quality than what I assume is the alternative, imported Chinese batteries. I wonder why so much concern over safety. I would be much more concerned about Chinese imported batteries since you don't always have a brand name and QC.
- Kenji 3y ago
  [dead]
- WJW 3y ago
  > since you don't always have a brand name and QC Some guy DIY-ing batteries in his shop is pretty much the epitome of "no brand name and QC" though. Seriously, look at some of the pictures in the article. Those botched together mains wires alone look like a fire risk. Quite apart from the circumstances of their creation, the homemade battery packs themselves can also be quite unsafe as some/most shops use any secondhand cells they can get their hands without regards for discharge ratings etc. That sort of imbalance can easily lead to fires during use, which is obviously not great when the driver is in busy traffic at the time.
  - adql 3y ago
    > Those botched together mains wires alone look like a fire risk. There is nothing inherently unsafe with bolting power strip onto the wall. > Quite apart from the circumstances of their creation, the homemade battery packs themselves can also be quite unsafe as some/most shops use any secondhand cells they can get their hands without regards for discharge ratings etc. That sort of imbalance can easily lead to fires during use, which is obviously not great when the driver is in busy traffic at the time. Not reading the article before yapping your mouth eh ? > Ady Siswanto, owner of e-bike workshop Dyvolt in Jakarta, told Rest of World he takes care to match the internal resistance and capacity of the cells. Most of the "serial DIYes" know that just fine, as it is blindingly obvious in performance of batteries and if you're making it a business you'd not have many returning customers... except ones returning for a return. And let's not pretend name-brand packs don't have "accidents"
  - infecto 3y ago
    He works under his own brand though, I would argue that batteries made by the guy down the street have a higher brand awareness than "COCO" batteries which might also sell under name "BOBO", "AOAO", "AKKO", "LMYW", etc. I am only pointing out that I would be concerned regardless of the source, chinese or local but suspect the local guy has a greater incentive to maintain his brand than the imported brand from china.
  - averageRoyalty 3y ago
    > Seriously, look at some of the pictures in the article. Those botched together mains wires alone look like a fire risk. I'm guessing you haven't been to Indonesia. This style of wiring is common in businesses and homes in Indonesia, Thailand and lot of poorer asian countries. The regulations are weak or unenforced. Often unlicensed people build houses, run power, water etc. It's (probably unintentionally) dishonest to judge this by a first world standard.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      Physics is the standard - it ignites or not - and it doesn't care where you are.
- jpgvm 3y ago
  > better quality than what I assume is the alternative, imported Chinese batteries. You do realise that China makes some of the worlds best batteries right? There is a reason why BYD, EVE and CATL are in the news all the time and it's not because they suck. Quality wise Chinese/Korean/Japanese batteries are all pretty much the same on NCA/NCM chemistries. China has a big advantage in LFP but LFP is shitty for an e-bike because the reduced density penalty is much more meaningful than in a car. Those companies make cells of course but there is also plenty of high quality BMS available and fully assembled batteries out of China too obviously.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    China also makes some of the worlds worst batteries. (Source: all the products I had to return after 1 or fewer successful charges.)
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      They are doing exactly what the advocates of free market dream of. You want to pay as little as possible, you get the crappiest stuff, you are willing to pay more to get top quality, you get good stuff.
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        In many product categories there is no top stuff, just keep buying the crap stuff until you find the specimen that works. Maybe "keep repeating" is a proxy for free market goodness, I can honestly not tell anymore. :-D
      - dghlsakjg 3y ago
        That would be fine if there was a way to differentiate crap from not crap. Price is a signal, but an increasingly shitty one in that I can pay a high price and still receive crap. The free market is happy to sell me crap at high prices with no ability to know that until the deal is irreversible. The theoretical free market also has perfect information, and the current markets actively work to obscure that.
ginko 3y ago
There's a small youtube channel[1] I follow where a guy I think is from Indonesia builds his own handheld coil guns and railguns including his own charging circuit designs. Pretty crazy/fun stuff. There seems to be quite a bit of an electronics hacking scene going on there. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@DNAP460/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DNAP460/videos
tantalor 3y ago
Packs, battery packs. This is very common for DIY ebikes.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  It used to be that one assembled batteries of cells. But language changes I suppose.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    In this case, each cell is also a standalone battery (an 1850 I presume). Assemblage of these is either called a module or a pack.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      An 18650 is a single cell. (Or a battery in modern parlance.) Now, get off my lawn! :-D Just kidding! The terminology shifted. But a cell used to be the single unit of chemistry and catode and anode that gives the native voltage. So an 18650 would be a cell. A 1.5V alkaline would be a cell. A 9V alkaline would be a battery of six cells! And so on. I'm not saying it's wrong nowadays to say an 18650 is a battery.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- samatman 3y ago
  Not even disagreeing with you, but it's a funny evolution of language when you consider the origin of the term battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_battery We owe the term to Benjamin Franklin, who used it to describe what you're referring to as a pack (although Leyden jars are considered capacitors rather than batteries in modern terms). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_battery#Invention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_battery#Invention
notjulianjaynes 3y ago
From the pictures I get the sense this guy knows what he's doing. Sure his shop's a little dusty, and that fume extractor is maybe a little ghetto (better than my aquarium filter duct taped to a fan though). It's hard to tell what those grey cells are being used in the pack, which is probably most important factor, but the construction of it appears solid. It's also evident from photo that he is disassembling a damaged pack. See the missing row of cells at the top, and corrosion on the bottom in this photo: https://149346090.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/NYIMASLAULA_ROW_Bali_Ebike_8587-600x900.jpg https://149346090.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
- jpgvm 3y ago
  They look like standard 1865 cells but obviously not high enough res to spot the manufacturer. I would imagine EVE though. CATL is too hard to get a hold of but EVE Grade A is still pretty easily available from Alibaba.
  - notjulianjaynes 3y ago
    EVE would be my guess too, possibly INR18650-35V, which seems totally cromulent for an ebike. EVE cells are also used in newer Ryobi power tools, it's worth pointing out: https://www.reddit.com/r/ryobi/comments/oxn53g/psa_ryobi_is_using_chinese_18650_cells_in_most_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ryobi/comments/oxn53g/psa_ryobi_is_...
    - dallasg3 3y ago
      Simpsons did it.
  - xarope 3y ago
    I think you mean 18650? Unless 1865 is a new battery standard that has 10x the capacity, in which case EDC light with 1000 hours runtime here we go!
    - pests 3y ago
VBprogrammer 3y ago
https://jacquesmattheij.com/long-range-ebike/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/long-range-ebike/ Not the only ones!
- samstave 3y ago
  I was super envious of this when he first posted it here... However - I bought a ~7,000 e-bike and I love/hate it: I have an Orbea Rise H30 - and its ~36 lbs. The problem is that the magnets in the motor are always engaged - meaning that even when the bike is 'off' I am fighting against the magnets - and it governs me and when off, no matter how hard I pedal - I cant get about 11 miles an hour. It is a type 2 - so it is not supposed to boost you passed 20 miles an hour - but instead it effectively governs you to 20 mph. Its very hard to get it much faster - the fastest I have gotten to is 24.5 mph. Downhill. However - when the battery is powered - its great, except you have to only keep it on BOOST which is the highest of three settings (eco, trail, boost) I'd not buy this bike again. It range is really around ~30 miles - and they have a range booster battery pack for $600 - and I should have bought that when I had the money to throw at it... but yeah the bike sucks when the battery dies.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    On my bike, I found that disconnecting the battery made the magnets spin freely.
  - akgerber 3y ago
    I have a Shimano middrive bike that weighs 50lbs that I purchased on closeout for $1500. It rides like a nice, albeit heavy, bike with the motor turned off.
- ActorNightly 3y ago
  You can do better then that. CYC motor kits can take up to 72v, and they don't care about talking to the BMS of the battery, so you can pretty much run any battery. The final reduction is external, so they sell different chainring sizes. With higher voltage, you get more motor speed, so you can do a bigger reduction for the same power, which means lower motor required torque for the same wheel torque, which gives you efficiency. I have the 52v setup from them on a full suspension mountain bike, with the 416wh battery, and I have done 30 miles on it with pedal assist and knobby mountain bike tires and basically got the battery down about halfway (im fairly fit and have a higher FTP so I don't require much assist). If I was to build a setup like in your post, with a big 72v battery taking up the entire front triangle of the bike, and use faster rolling tires, I could either have an ebike that can probably keep up with cars on a highway under throttle, or in the pedal assist mode, do over 100 miles.
smallpipe 3y ago
Are those LiPo or LiIon? The articles mention both, and the image looks like LiIon
- babl-yc 3y ago
  Photos are showing Li-ion 18650 cells afaict Those are the most common for e-bike batteries
Havoc 3y ago
Various YouTubers do similar to build effectively Tesla powerwalls It seems quite risky even for those that are careful. I recall one of the bigger channels ending up eating humble pie when they had a fire. Not something I’d ever want to do unless I could house in in an outdoor shed quite far away from everything else
wiradikusuma 3y ago
I keep thinking Ripperdocs in Cyberpunk world. Looks dodgy alright, but it's in their best interest to not screw up because I know in Indonesia "homemade" usually literally means made at home, and houses in Indonesia typically share walls between adjoining houses, so if you burn your house your neighbors will not be happy.
zevv 3y ago
Question I have: is it just a bunch of cells wired up, or is there a BMS (battery management system) in there doing the things you need to do to make a battery safe and make it last: cell balancing is essential to make sure the pack will survive more then a few charges and rides before it will kill itself. Also I would not like a battery pack that does not switch itself off when voltages or currents get too high, which is a great way to start a thermal runaway. Not a safety issue, but important to make sure the battery is not abused is to prevent deep discharge voltage or charging the battery at too low temperature.
- russellbrandom 3y ago
  Hi -- editor of the piece here. There is a BMS, that's the main other component aside from the cells. We had that detail initially but it got cut for space.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ggm 3y ago
    A shame, because seeing how you can get and apply a BMS to a build is probably where much of the readership interest lies. How 'programmable' is the BMS typically? is it arduino programming hard? Can you e.g. shape the charge profile. set the stop point, route around damaged cells? is the BMS field upgradable? I'm guessing its a commodotized un-upgradable closed solution and you set the params on purchase (alibaba) and its how it works forever.
    - sbierwagen 3y ago
      Take a look at the TI BQ79616-Q1, which has been used in some Tesla packs: https://www.ti.com/product/BQ79616-Q1 https://www.ti.com/product/BQ79616-Q1 Yes, it's programmable. Even has eight GPIO pins. It would be "field programmable" in the sense that if you scraped the conformal coating off the pogo pin pads you could reflash it... which you probably don't want to do. Despite what the article says, a BMS doesn't actually do many of the things you mention. It balances cells, monitors temps, and sets fault flags if something's wrong. A BMS chip does not charge the battery, it doesn't determine max voltage, (the charger does that) and it can't isolate a bad cell. (Because they're all welded together! Pack current doesn't actually pass through the BMS-- it only has thin balancing wires to each cell which can't handle much current.)
AYBABTME 3y ago
Wow this is scary. LiPo are very dangerous and even NMC which are stabler are very error prone when assembled in an ebike pack: the cells need to be high quality (LG, Panasonic), the assembly need to be very careful (so many ways for the interconnects to become a liability and cause a fire) the BMS needs to be quality (or it'll overheat and cause a fire). It's hard to make it right when careful, and even decently sized companies mess it up. Slapping together some LiPo? It's just a matter of when, not if. Recently published very relevant talk by Grin: https://youtu.be/j92Gt4VviSQ?si=0TV_HqZBEBuVDqdx https://youtu.be/j92Gt4VviSQ?si=0TV_HqZBEBuVDqdx Otherwise I think these things are super cool, but in the case of lithium ebike batteries, they look so innocent and easy to build, and are so dangerous. I'm speaking from being humbled myself after building two NMC packs with cell-fuses, a spot welder, being careful... I'm dead scared of my packs.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Wow this is scary. Not really. LiPo are very dangerous and even NMC which are stabler LiPo refers to lithium polymer, which doesn't mean a different chemistry. It means "polymer electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyte". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery are very error prone when assembled in an ebike pack There are billions of 18650 battery packs out there now in general. the cells need to be high quality (LG, Panasonic) No, the cells need have their specs correct and the packs need to be built according to cells' specs. the BMS needs to be quality (or it'll overheat and cause a fire). The BMS is there to limit things like discharge voltage, charge voltage, discharge amps, etc. It makes things safer.
  - AYBABTME 3y ago
    You may think so, and I encourage you to watch the video I shared. I held many of the same conclusions/approximations until learning of Grin's experience.
    - CyberDildonics 3y ago
      The video you linked is problems that can happen and things that can go wrong. It seems more like something the battery makers should watch instead of proof that batteries are inherently unsafe.
linsomniac 3y ago
Note that while the article says "soldering" the pictures show "welding", which is the typical way you create battery packs. The reasons are that the welding provides a higher temperature connection but for a shorter period of time, over all dumping less heat into the battery and potentially causing damage to the cell or triggering ignition. Also makes a higher temp connection, solder can melt when the joints get hot during use. I got a battery welder a few years ago to repair an ebike pack and also to repair a EGO power tool battery pack, but thus far haven't used it. The ebike pack was a bunch of "packets" rather than 18650 cells, and the EGO was slightly smaller than 18650, so I need to wait for another pack to fail so I can scavenge cells from one to repair the other. Be careful if it smells like birthday cake when you're working with lion cells, that can preclude them bursting into flames. Have a metal container nearby to drop them into for transport outdoors.
- mhb 3y ago
  preclude: I think you mean that can be a prelude to. Though could also be presage.
  - linsomniac 3y ago
    I think I was going for "precedes".
    - mhb 3y ago
      Ah. That makes sense.
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  >Have a metal container nearby to drop them into for transport outdoors. Before doing that, try watching some experiments with fireproof containers specifically designed for these fires, to have an idea how quick and violent this can be, and how bad most of these containers are at preventing it from going from 0 to inferno or to a toxic cloud suffocating you in seconds. This might or might not help you plan for the worst case, or better yet forget about doing DIY battery pack repairs at all.
euniceee3 3y ago
I cant wait for outfits like this to pop up in the states. I have a couple of battery packs that are dead and I do not have the time or patience to rebuild. They are gonna go to CL free, but I looked for local services that can rebuild them. As more battery packs begin to fail this will become the norm.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  They do exist. Off the top of my head Tenergy is one that operates in the states, but there's tons of them out there.
  - xarope 3y ago
    I can imagine indonesia's low wages supporting manual labor to rebuild these battery packs, but in the US or Europe surely the cost of such labor precludes such labor, or otherwise requires more automated methods?
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
I have no idea what the fascination with this is, and what makes these batteries "homemade".. also, it's spotwelding and not soldering. Buying battery cells and spot welding them together is a thing that many companies do, even in the "western world", i know of at least three in my small eu country. Before lithium, they did the same with NiMh and NiCd batteries. You can also make them yourself at home, although it can get relatively dangerous if you don't know what you're doing... same as with replacing an outlet at home, but more of a fire damage instead of a shock risk, so definitely not for everyone, but with some basic precautions, can be done safely. The bigger problem in the current times is, that device manufacturers fight hard against any kind of repair or DIY stuff, so sometimes just disconnecting the cells from the BMS (battery management system) makes it "reset" and fail the "authenticatioN" between the device and the BMS (which exists only to prevent repair). Companies know how to avoid that (via using a power supply to keep the board powered up), but attempting to DIY fix it (without knowing about the issue) makes you destroy the BMS.
- callalex 3y ago
  Is this really a common practice outside of FutureMotion/OneWheel?
  - mperham 3y ago
    Bosch is known to pair their hardware such that you can’t replace a bad element, e.g. replace a bad Bosch battery with a 3rd party unit. The entire Bosch ebike hardware ecosystem is locked down and only approved dealers can repair.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    It’s pretty common. They’re far from the first ones to have started that practice, which began in the 2000s. The concept of the battery management system (BMS) killing the pack for safety reasons came with modern BMS chips that can do state of health (SoH) measuring, along with state of charge (SoC) measuring.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    Some laptop manufacturers do that... once you disconnect the voltage from the BMS, the BMS is efectively dead. If you know it, you can use a power supply to keep it energized, if not, tough luck. You can still buy a 3rd party battery to use with that laptop, but the original laptop cannot be "renewed" with new cells anymore.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
Love to see something of a standard e-bike battery. Perhaps there is one in Southeast Asian markets.... Something roughly a liter, liter and a half in size. A standard, perhaps twist connector on the bottom. Various bike configs could incorporate a handful of these in locations that make sense for their bikes — the number of packs reflecting the range or torque requirements. With a standard you could swap packs, get the cost benefits of scale...
- celestialcheese 3y ago
  You see this in Taiwan a lot already - https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/11/gogoro-batteries-power-90-of-taiwans-electric-scooters/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/11/gogoro-batteries-power-... Standardized packs for low-end ebikes would be wonderful.
  - FinnKuhn 3y ago
    Those are for scooters though, not ebikes.
    - CyberDildonics 3y ago
      What's the difference and what is your point? They are 48v nominal lithium batteries.
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      Asia has standardise electric shooters while here, in the financial centre of Europe, we have dusty, noisy petrol guzzling bikes used for delivery. Have we fallen behind but we still think we are ahead? It's going to take another 10 years for any kind of standardisation to happen here
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    I wonder if we can get those in the U.S. It doesn't look like that's the point though. They seem to sell the infrastructure, the batteries are part of it.
roughly 3y ago
The article goes to great pains to emphasize how concerning this is and how much of a safety risk it is seemingly without finding a single actual incident where the independent battery builders' batteries caused a problem. Frankly, given the level of quality control I've seen from large brands lately, I'm skeptical that the guy who's made it his business to build batteries for the last 20 years is delivering a worse product than what I'd get buying retail.
markhahn 3y ago
More of this please! It's astonishing how anti-modular various industries are. Even batteries, which for all their "oh no gonna blow" are really quite simple components. But why are cars not modular? How about HVAC? Housing is pretty modular.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  These home made ebike batteries regularly catch fire and burn down apartments. Quite a lot of apartments in Australia are banning taking ebikes inside now.
  - markhahn 3y ago
    Regularly? That means that some nontrivial fraction are guaranteed to burn. I think you mean that it happens at low probability but is eagerly covered by media. In any case, the fault is almost certainly either physical abuse (which has nothing to do with accessibility/modularity) or simply bad chargers (which better access would actually mitigate).
jwr 3y ago
Relevant: "Louis' front door goes BOOM courtesy of UnitPackPower battery" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCaDz_2YcGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCaDz_2YcGQ Lithium Ion (and especially LiPo) are not to be trifled with, small things might matter (such as whether the battery is under mechanical stress, dented or bent). I would never want a large battery from a non-reputable supplier around my home.
RecycledEle 3y ago
This is just a hit piece from someone in the battery industry. The dead giveaway the author has been in the battery industry for a long time is this: > Packers often use 18650 lithium-ion cells — essentially a larger, rechargeable version of a standard flashlight battery. Then calling a group of people "packers" shows the author wants to label and dehumanize then.
mbgerring 3y ago
Comments in this thread are hilarious. Making battery packs by connecting cells together is neither difficult nor especially dangerous. It’s soldering. Sometimes you’re just connecting wires to terminals. Anyone can do this. It’s not a big deal.
rldjbpin 3y ago
those in the diy space are very well aware about assembling your own batteries as mentioned by others. their approach does not seem too different from the norm, but it is interesting to see it happen at commercial level. from an economic standpoint, the countries producing commodity cells can stand to benefit a lot from cottage industries like this to increase electric mobility.
1-6 3y ago
In other headlines: “Tech worker builds batteries in his own room after work” This is just assembling cells, not building a battery from scratch.
asimpleusecase 3y ago
It’s not just fire but explosion as well with bad battery packs. Some years ago some friend bought a “comparable” laptop battery off eBay for an older laptop. They were charging it one day and battery exploded. Fortunately they were not sitting in front of it. I was in the office when my friend got the call from his wife and asked me to come look at the computer. We arrived with smoke in the room and little fires burning in different corners of the room with a scorch mark on the desk and the laptop in the middle of the floor with smoke wafting out of it. I dug some charred plastic out of the battery compartment and hooked it up to external power and it booted ok. Be safe out there kids.

226 points by donohoe 3y ago

I don't know Indonesian import law but I would guess that this guy making batteries for his local business might have better quality than what I assume is the alternative, imported Chinese batteries. I wonder why so much concern over safety. I would be much more concerned about Chinese imported batteries since you don't always have a brand name and QC.

Kenji 3y ago
[dead]
WJW 3y ago
> since you don't always have a brand name and QC Some guy DIY-ing batteries in his shop is pretty much the epitome of "no brand name and QC" though. Seriously, look at some of the pictures in the article. Those botched together mains wires alone look like a fire risk. Quite apart from the circumstances of their creation, the homemade battery packs themselves can also be quite unsafe as some/most shops use any secondhand cells they can get their hands without regards for discharge ratings etc. That sort of imbalance can easily lead to fires during use, which is obviously not great when the driver is in busy traffic at the time.
- adql 3y ago
  > Those botched together mains wires alone look like a fire risk. There is nothing inherently unsafe with bolting power strip onto the wall. > Quite apart from the circumstances of their creation, the homemade battery packs themselves can also be quite unsafe as some/most shops use any secondhand cells they can get their hands without regards for discharge ratings etc. That sort of imbalance can easily lead to fires during use, which is obviously not great when the driver is in busy traffic at the time. Not reading the article before yapping your mouth eh ? > Ady Siswanto, owner of e-bike workshop Dyvolt in Jakarta, told Rest of World he takes care to match the internal resistance and capacity of the cells. Most of the "serial DIYes" know that just fine, as it is blindingly obvious in performance of batteries and if you're making it a business you'd not have many returning customers... except ones returning for a return. And let's not pretend name-brand packs don't have "accidents"
- infecto 3y ago
  He works under his own brand though, I would argue that batteries made by the guy down the street have a higher brand awareness than "COCO" batteries which might also sell under name "BOBO", "AOAO", "AKKO", "LMYW", etc. I am only pointing out that I would be concerned regardless of the source, chinese or local but suspect the local guy has a greater incentive to maintain his brand than the imported brand from china.
- averageRoyalty 3y ago
  > Seriously, look at some of the pictures in the article. Those botched together mains wires alone look like a fire risk. I'm guessing you haven't been to Indonesia. This style of wiring is common in businesses and homes in Indonesia, Thailand and lot of poorer asian countries. The regulations are weak or unenforced. Often unlicensed people build houses, run power, water etc. It's (probably unintentionally) dishonest to judge this by a first world standard.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Physics is the standard - it ignites or not - and it doesn't care where you are.
jpgvm 3y ago
> better quality than what I assume is the alternative, imported Chinese batteries. You do realise that China makes some of the worlds best batteries right? There is a reason why BYD, EVE and CATL are in the news all the time and it's not because they suck. Quality wise Chinese/Korean/Japanese batteries are all pretty much the same on NCA/NCM chemistries. China has a big advantage in LFP but LFP is shitty for an e-bike because the reduced density penalty is much more meaningful than in a car. Those companies make cells of course but there is also plenty of high quality BMS available and fully assembled batteries out of China too obviously.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  China also makes some of the worlds worst batteries. (Source: all the products I had to return after 1 or fewer successful charges.)
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    They are doing exactly what the advocates of free market dream of. You want to pay as little as possible, you get the crappiest stuff, you are willing to pay more to get top quality, you get good stuff.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      In many product categories there is no top stuff, just keep buying the crap stuff until you find the specimen that works. Maybe "keep repeating" is a proxy for free market goodness, I can honestly not tell anymore. :-D
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      That would be fine if there was a way to differentiate crap from not crap. Price is a signal, but an increasingly shitty one in that I can pay a high price and still receive crap. The free market is happy to sell me crap at high prices with no ability to know that until the deal is irreversible. The theoretical free market also has perfect information, and the current markets actively work to obscure that.

ginko 3y ago

There's a small youtube channel[1] I follow where a guy I think is from Indonesia builds his own handheld coil guns and railguns including his own charging circuit designs. Pretty crazy/fun stuff. There seems to be quite a bit of an electronics hacking scene going on there. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@DNAP460/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DNAP460/videos

tantalor 3y ago

Packs, battery packs. This is very common for DIY ebikes.

actionfromafar 3y ago
It used to be that one assembled batteries of cells. But language changes I suppose.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  In this case, each cell is also a standalone battery (an 1850 I presume). Assemblage of these is either called a module or a pack.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    An 18650 is a single cell. (Or a battery in modern parlance.) Now, get off my lawn! :-D Just kidding! The terminology shifted. But a cell used to be the single unit of chemistry and catode and anode that gives the native voltage. So an 18650 would be a cell. A 1.5V alkaline would be a cell. A 9V alkaline would be a battery of six cells! And so on. I'm not saying it's wrong nowadays to say an 18650 is a battery.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
samatman 3y ago
Not even disagreeing with you, but it's a funny evolution of language when you consider the origin of the term battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_battery We owe the term to Benjamin Franklin, who used it to describe what you're referring to as a pack (although Leyden jars are considered capacitors rather than batteries in modern terms). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_battery#Invention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_battery#Invention

notjulianjaynes 3y ago

From the pictures I get the sense this guy knows what he's doing. Sure his shop's a little dusty, and that fume extractor is maybe a little ghetto (better than my aquarium filter duct taped to a fan though). It's hard to tell what those grey cells are being used in the pack, which is probably most important factor, but the construction of it appears solid. It's also evident from photo that he is disassembling a damaged pack. See the missing row of cells at the top, and corrosion on the bottom in this photo: https://149346090.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/NYIMASLAULA_ROW_Bali_Ebike_8587-600x900.jpg https://149346090.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/202...

jpgvm 3y ago
They look like standard 1865 cells but obviously not high enough res to spot the manufacturer. I would imagine EVE though. CATL is too hard to get a hold of but EVE Grade A is still pretty easily available from Alibaba.
- notjulianjaynes 3y ago
  EVE would be my guess too, possibly INR18650-35V, which seems totally cromulent for an ebike. EVE cells are also used in newer Ryobi power tools, it's worth pointing out: https://www.reddit.com/r/ryobi/comments/oxn53g/psa_ryobi_is_using_chinese_18650_cells_in_most_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ryobi/comments/oxn53g/psa_ryobi_is_...
  - dallasg3 3y ago
    Simpsons did it.
- xarope 3y ago
  I think you mean 18650? Unless 1865 is a new battery standard that has 10x the capacity, in which case EDC light with 1000 hours runtime here we go!
  - pests 3y ago

VBprogrammer 3y ago

https://jacquesmattheij.com/long-range-ebike/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/long-range-ebike/ Not the only ones!

samstave 3y ago
I was super envious of this when he first posted it here... However - I bought a ~7,000 e-bike and I love/hate it: I have an Orbea Rise H30 - and its ~36 lbs. The problem is that the magnets in the motor are always engaged - meaning that even when the bike is 'off' I am fighting against the magnets - and it governs me and when off, no matter how hard I pedal - I cant get about 11 miles an hour. It is a type 2 - so it is not supposed to boost you passed 20 miles an hour - but instead it effectively governs you to 20 mph. Its very hard to get it much faster - the fastest I have gotten to is 24.5 mph. Downhill. However - when the battery is powered - its great, except you have to only keep it on BOOST which is the highest of three settings (eco, trail, boost) I'd not buy this bike again. It range is really around ~30 miles - and they have a range booster battery pack for $600 - and I should have bought that when I had the money to throw at it... but yeah the bike sucks when the battery dies.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  On my bike, I found that disconnecting the battery made the magnets spin freely.
- akgerber 3y ago
  I have a Shimano middrive bike that weighs 50lbs that I purchased on closeout for $1500. It rides like a nice, albeit heavy, bike with the motor turned off.
ActorNightly 3y ago
You can do better then that. CYC motor kits can take up to 72v, and they don't care about talking to the BMS of the battery, so you can pretty much run any battery. The final reduction is external, so they sell different chainring sizes. With higher voltage, you get more motor speed, so you can do a bigger reduction for the same power, which means lower motor required torque for the same wheel torque, which gives you efficiency. I have the 52v setup from them on a full suspension mountain bike, with the 416wh battery, and I have done 30 miles on it with pedal assist and knobby mountain bike tires and basically got the battery down about halfway (im fairly fit and have a higher FTP so I don't require much assist). If I was to build a setup like in your post, with a big 72v battery taking up the entire front triangle of the bike, and use faster rolling tires, I could either have an ebike that can probably keep up with cars on a highway under throttle, or in the pedal assist mode, do over 100 miles.

smallpipe 3y ago

Are those LiPo or LiIon? The articles mention both, and the image looks like LiIon

babl-yc 3y ago
Photos are showing Li-ion 18650 cells afaict Those are the most common for e-bike batteries

Havoc 3y ago

Various YouTubers do similar to build effectively Tesla powerwalls It seems quite risky even for those that are careful. I recall one of the bigger channels ending up eating humble pie when they had a fire. Not something I’d ever want to do unless I could house in in an outdoor shed quite far away from everything else

wiradikusuma 3y ago

I keep thinking Ripperdocs in Cyberpunk world. Looks dodgy alright, but it's in their best interest to not screw up because I know in Indonesia "homemade" usually literally means made at home, and houses in Indonesia typically share walls between adjoining houses, so if you burn your house your neighbors will not be happy.

zevv 3y ago

Question I have: is it just a bunch of cells wired up, or is there a BMS (battery management system) in there doing the things you need to do to make a battery safe and make it last: cell balancing is essential to make sure the pack will survive more then a few charges and rides before it will kill itself. Also I would not like a battery pack that does not switch itself off when voltages or currents get too high, which is a great way to start a thermal runaway. Not a safety issue, but important to make sure the battery is not abused is to prevent deep discharge voltage or charging the battery at too low temperature.

russellbrandom 3y ago
Hi -- editor of the piece here. There is a BMS, that's the main other component aside from the cells. We had that detail initially but it got cut for space.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ggm 3y ago
  A shame, because seeing how you can get and apply a BMS to a build is probably where much of the readership interest lies. How 'programmable' is the BMS typically? is it arduino programming hard? Can you e.g. shape the charge profile. set the stop point, route around damaged cells? is the BMS field upgradable? I'm guessing its a commodotized un-upgradable closed solution and you set the params on purchase (alibaba) and its how it works forever.
  - sbierwagen 3y ago
    Take a look at the TI BQ79616-Q1, which has been used in some Tesla packs: https://www.ti.com/product/BQ79616-Q1 https://www.ti.com/product/BQ79616-Q1 Yes, it's programmable. Even has eight GPIO pins. It would be "field programmable" in the sense that if you scraped the conformal coating off the pogo pin pads you could reflash it... which you probably don't want to do. Despite what the article says, a BMS doesn't actually do many of the things you mention. It balances cells, monitors temps, and sets fault flags if something's wrong. A BMS chip does not charge the battery, it doesn't determine max voltage, (the charger does that) and it can't isolate a bad cell. (Because they're all welded together! Pack current doesn't actually pass through the BMS-- it only has thin balancing wires to each cell which can't handle much current.)

AYBABTME 3y ago

Wow this is scary. LiPo are very dangerous and even NMC which are stabler are very error prone when assembled in an ebike pack: the cells need to be high quality (LG, Panasonic), the assembly need to be very careful (so many ways for the interconnects to become a liability and cause a fire) the BMS needs to be quality (or it'll overheat and cause a fire). It's hard to make it right when careful, and even decently sized companies mess it up. Slapping together some LiPo? It's just a matter of when, not if. Recently published very relevant talk by Grin: https://youtu.be/j92Gt4VviSQ?si=0TV_HqZBEBuVDqdx https://youtu.be/j92Gt4VviSQ?si=0TV_HqZBEBuVDqdx Otherwise I think these things are super cool, but in the case of lithium ebike batteries, they look so innocent and easy to build, and are so dangerous. I'm speaking from being humbled myself after building two NMC packs with cell-fuses, a spot welder, being careful... I'm dead scared of my packs.

CyberDildonics 3y ago
Wow this is scary. Not really. LiPo are very dangerous and even NMC which are stabler LiPo refers to lithium polymer, which doesn't mean a different chemistry. It means "polymer electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyte". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery are very error prone when assembled in an ebike pack There are billions of 18650 battery packs out there now in general. the cells need to be high quality (LG, Panasonic) No, the cells need have their specs correct and the packs need to be built according to cells' specs. the BMS needs to be quality (or it'll overheat and cause a fire). The BMS is there to limit things like discharge voltage, charge voltage, discharge amps, etc. It makes things safer.
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  You may think so, and I encourage you to watch the video I shared. I held many of the same conclusions/approximations until learning of Grin's experience.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    The video you linked is problems that can happen and things that can go wrong. It seems more like something the battery makers should watch instead of proof that batteries are inherently unsafe.

linsomniac 3y ago

Note that while the article says "soldering" the pictures show "welding", which is the typical way you create battery packs. The reasons are that the welding provides a higher temperature connection but for a shorter period of time, over all dumping less heat into the battery and potentially causing damage to the cell or triggering ignition. Also makes a higher temp connection, solder can melt when the joints get hot during use. I got a battery welder a few years ago to repair an ebike pack and also to repair a EGO power tool battery pack, but thus far haven't used it. The ebike pack was a bunch of "packets" rather than 18650 cells, and the EGO was slightly smaller than 18650, so I need to wait for another pack to fail so I can scavenge cells from one to repair the other. Be careful if it smells like birthday cake when you're working with lion cells, that can preclude them bursting into flames. Have a metal container nearby to drop them into for transport outdoors.

mhb 3y ago
preclude: I think you mean that can be a prelude to. Though could also be presage.
- linsomniac 3y ago
  I think I was going for "precedes".
  - mhb 3y ago
    Ah. That makes sense.
orbital-decay 3y ago
>Have a metal container nearby to drop them into for transport outdoors. Before doing that, try watching some experiments with fireproof containers specifically designed for these fires, to have an idea how quick and violent this can be, and how bad most of these containers are at preventing it from going from 0 to inferno or to a toxic cloud suffocating you in seconds. This might or might not help you plan for the worst case, or better yet forget about doing DIY battery pack repairs at all.

euniceee3 3y ago

I cant wait for outfits like this to pop up in the states. I have a couple of battery packs that are dead and I do not have the time or patience to rebuild. They are gonna go to CL free, but I looked for local services that can rebuild them. As more battery packs begin to fail this will become the norm.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
They do exist. Off the top of my head Tenergy is one that operates in the states, but there's tons of them out there.
- xarope 3y ago
  I can imagine indonesia's low wages supporting manual labor to rebuild these battery packs, but in the US or Europe surely the cost of such labor precludes such labor, or otherwise requires more automated methods?

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

I have no idea what the fascination with this is, and what makes these batteries "homemade".. also, it's spotwelding and not soldering. Buying battery cells and spot welding them together is a thing that many companies do, even in the "western world", i know of at least three in my small eu country. Before lithium, they did the same with NiMh and NiCd batteries. You can also make them yourself at home, although it can get relatively dangerous if you don't know what you're doing... same as with replacing an outlet at home, but more of a fire damage instead of a shock risk, so definitely not for everyone, but with some basic precautions, can be done safely. The bigger problem in the current times is, that device manufacturers fight hard against any kind of repair or DIY stuff, so sometimes just disconnecting the cells from the BMS (battery management system) makes it "reset" and fail the "authenticatioN" between the device and the BMS (which exists only to prevent repair). Companies know how to avoid that (via using a power supply to keep the board powered up), but attempting to DIY fix it (without knowing about the issue) makes you destroy the BMS.

callalex 3y ago
Is this really a common practice outside of FutureMotion/OneWheel?
- mperham 3y ago
  Bosch is known to pair their hardware such that you can’t replace a bad element, e.g. replace a bad Bosch battery with a 3rd party unit. The entire Bosch ebike hardware ecosystem is locked down and only approved dealers can repair.
- fragmede 3y ago
  It’s pretty common. They’re far from the first ones to have started that practice, which began in the 2000s. The concept of the battery management system (BMS) killing the pack for safety reasons came with modern BMS chips that can do state of health (SoH) measuring, along with state of charge (SoC) measuring.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Some laptop manufacturers do that... once you disconnect the voltage from the BMS, the BMS is efectively dead. If you know it, you can use a power supply to keep it energized, if not, tough luck. You can still buy a 3rd party battery to use with that laptop, but the original laptop cannot be "renewed" with new cells anymore.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

Love to see something of a standard e-bike battery. Perhaps there is one in Southeast Asian markets.... Something roughly a liter, liter and a half in size. A standard, perhaps twist connector on the bottom. Various bike configs could incorporate a handful of these in locations that make sense for their bikes — the number of packs reflecting the range or torque requirements. With a standard you could swap packs, get the cost benefits of scale...

celestialcheese 3y ago
You see this in Taiwan a lot already - https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/11/gogoro-batteries-power-90-of-taiwans-electric-scooters/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/11/gogoro-batteries-power-... Standardized packs for low-end ebikes would be wonderful.
- FinnKuhn 3y ago
  Those are for scooters though, not ebikes.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    What's the difference and what is your point? They are 48v nominal lithium batteries.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    Asia has standardise electric shooters while here, in the financial centre of Europe, we have dusty, noisy petrol guzzling bikes used for delivery. Have we fallen behind but we still think we are ahead? It's going to take another 10 years for any kind of standardisation to happen here
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I wonder if we can get those in the U.S. It doesn't look like that's the point though. They seem to sell the infrastructure, the batteries are part of it.

roughly 3y ago

The article goes to great pains to emphasize how concerning this is and how much of a safety risk it is seemingly without finding a single actual incident where the independent battery builders' batteries caused a problem. Frankly, given the level of quality control I've seen from large brands lately, I'm skeptical that the guy who's made it his business to build batteries for the last 20 years is delivering a worse product than what I'd get buying retail.

markhahn 3y ago

More of this please! It's astonishing how anti-modular various industries are. Even batteries, which for all their "oh no gonna blow" are really quite simple components. But why are cars not modular? How about HVAC? Housing is pretty modular.

Gigachad 3y ago
These home made ebike batteries regularly catch fire and burn down apartments. Quite a lot of apartments in Australia are banning taking ebikes inside now.
- markhahn 3y ago
  Regularly? That means that some nontrivial fraction are guaranteed to burn. I think you mean that it happens at low probability but is eagerly covered by media. In any case, the fault is almost certainly either physical abuse (which has nothing to do with accessibility/modularity) or simply bad chargers (which better access would actually mitigate).

jwr 3y ago

Relevant: "Louis' front door goes BOOM courtesy of UnitPackPower battery" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCaDz_2YcGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCaDz_2YcGQ Lithium Ion (and especially LiPo) are not to be trifled with, small things might matter (such as whether the battery is under mechanical stress, dented or bent). I would never want a large battery from a non-reputable supplier around my home.

RecycledEle 3y ago

This is just a hit piece from someone in the battery industry. The dead giveaway the author has been in the battery industry for a long time is this: > Packers often use 18650 lithium-ion cells — essentially a larger, rechargeable version of a standard flashlight battery. Then calling a group of people "packers" shows the author wants to label and dehumanize then.

mbgerring 3y ago

Comments in this thread are hilarious. Making battery packs by connecting cells together is neither difficult nor especially dangerous. It’s soldering. Sometimes you’re just connecting wires to terminals. Anyone can do this. It’s not a big deal.

rldjbpin 3y ago

those in the diy space are very well aware about assembling your own batteries as mentioned by others. their approach does not seem too different from the norm, but it is interesting to see it happen at commercial level. from an economic standpoint, the countries producing commodity cells can stand to benefit a lot from cottage industries like this to increase electric mobility.

1-6 3y ago

In other headlines: “Tech worker builds batteries in his own room after work” This is just assembling cells, not building a battery from scratch.

asimpleusecase 3y ago

It’s not just fire but explosion as well with bad battery packs. Some years ago some friend bought a “comparable” laptop battery off eBay for an older laptop. They were charging it one day and battery exploded. Fortunately they were not sitting in front of it. I was in the office when my friend got the call from his wife and asked me to come look at the computer. We arrived with smoke in the room and little fires burning in different corners of the room with a scorch mark on the desk and the laptop in the middle of the floor with smoke wafting out of it. I dug some charred plastic out of the battery compartment and hooked it up to external power and it booted ok. Be safe out there kids.