4 ms·

Open Battery Information

57 points by toomuchtodo 2mo ago

toomuchtodo 2mo ago
Discovered via comments in https://hackaday.com/2026/08/11/fixing-a-dead-makita-battery-with-a-20-cent-part/ https://hackaday.com/2026/08/11/fixing-a-dead-makita-battery...
Gys 2mo ago
Very interesting. I have several battery based Stihl tools. One battery seems problematic and this hopefully give more details.
brokenmachine 2mo ago
Is there any list of what kind of batteries are supported? I couldn't find it on a short inspection.
avian 2mo ago
I love how the "read this before you start" safety warning is about two pagedowns from the shiny "Get started" button.
nntwozz 2mo ago
Cool, is there any commercial product that does this? I'd pay for that.
- oulipo 2mo ago
  If you're interested, at https://infinite-battery.com https://infinite-battery.com we're building a repairable battery that you can connect to, it gives alerts, data, and is compatible with many e-bike controllers (Bosch, Bafang, etc)
  - dgellow 2mo ago
    Wow, that’s awesome, you should submit it as a show HN!
    - oulipo 2mo ago
      Thanks :)
  - nntwozz 2mo ago
    No Shimano yet unfortunately. https://infinite-battery.discourse.group/t/progress-on-shimano-steps-compatibility/157/11 https://infinite-battery.discourse.group/t/progress-on-shima...
    - oulipo 2mo ago
      It's on the list, but we have been working on our newer models (cargo and mega batteries) so we haven't had time yet to add it! Hopefully we will do this soon
theamk 2mo ago
This uses 1-wire protocol and is very specific for Makita power tool batteries. Other battery types, like laptop batteries (uses I2C) are not supported. This info should really be in the top-level README
luma 2mo ago
looks neat, read the page and i still have no idea what it does. arduino project with a few resistors, cool. something about reading BMS. which ones, which protocol(s), how does it get wired up? fed all this to the robot to find that it's targeted at Makita battery packs. the word "makita" never once appears in the front page and it seems like a pretty important detail.
exclipy 2mo ago
> Insert a battery and press Read battery Where do you insert the battery?
GNR_Radio 2mo ago
[dead]
unwind 2mo ago
Very cool, even though it's limited to Makita LXR at this point. I think the home page is LLM-aided, the design looks very familiar and wording like [...] no software to install, nothing to set up. Plug in an Arduino, flash the firmware [...] gives me pause. I am an actual embedded software engineer, and I would not classify finding, wiring (with resistors!) and flashing a microcontroller board as "nothing to set up".

57 points by toomuchtodo 2mo ago

Discovered via comments in https://hackaday.com/2026/08/11/fixing-a-dead-makita-battery-with-a-20-cent-part/ https://hackaday.com/2026/08/11/fixing-a-dead-makita-battery...

Gys 2mo ago

Very interesting. I have several battery based Stihl tools. One battery seems problematic and this hopefully give more details.

brokenmachine 2mo ago

Is there any list of what kind of batteries are supported? I couldn't find it on a short inspection.

avian 2mo ago

I love how the "read this before you start" safety warning is about two pagedowns from the shiny "Get started" button.

nntwozz 2mo ago

Cool, is there any commercial product that does this? I'd pay for that.

oulipo 2mo ago
If you're interested, at https://infinite-battery.com https://infinite-battery.com we're building a repairable battery that you can connect to, it gives alerts, data, and is compatible with many e-bike controllers (Bosch, Bafang, etc)
- dgellow 2mo ago
  Wow, that’s awesome, you should submit it as a show HN!
  - oulipo 2mo ago
    Thanks :)
- nntwozz 2mo ago
  No Shimano yet unfortunately. https://infinite-battery.discourse.group/t/progress-on-shimano-steps-compatibility/157/11 https://infinite-battery.discourse.group/t/progress-on-shima...
  - oulipo 2mo ago
    It's on the list, but we have been working on our newer models (cargo and mega batteries) so we haven't had time yet to add it! Hopefully we will do this soon

theamk 2mo ago

This uses 1-wire protocol and is very specific for Makita power tool batteries. Other battery types, like laptop batteries (uses I2C) are not supported. This info should really be in the top-level README

luma 2mo ago

looks neat, read the page and i still have no idea what it does. arduino project with a few resistors, cool. something about reading BMS. which ones, which protocol(s), how does it get wired up? fed all this to the robot to find that it's targeted at Makita battery packs. the word "makita" never once appears in the front page and it seems like a pretty important detail.

exclipy 2mo ago

> Insert a battery and press Read battery Where do you insert the battery?

GNR_Radio 2mo ago

[dead]

unwind 2mo ago

Very cool, even though it's limited to Makita LXR at this point. I think the home page is LLM-aided, the design looks very familiar and wording like [...] no software to install, nothing to set up. Plug in an Arduino, flash the firmware [...] gives me pause. I am an actual embedded software engineer, and I would not classify finding, wiring (with resistors!) and flashing a microcontroller board as "nothing to set up".