I can’t really say it better. This is exactly what I was getting at.
This is a great, nuanced (rare) discussion on how to walk the line between education and entertainment. They aren’t mutually exclusive, but I think it will be very very difficult to create responsible content on this subject. Essentially, you’re talking about distilling 18,000 posts into a <10 minute video. I think that’s a tall order.
Additionally (again, full respect, and as someone who has built zero batteries), I don’t think 10 batteries is enough to be prepared to film a succinct comprehensive battery building how-to. The question is, how much additional knowledge is gained from 0-10, 10-50, 50-500 builds? I imagine, like any niche skilled hobby, a lot. But it’s more subtle. When it comes to safety, this additional experience can be vital.
Why I suggest partnering with someone who does this day in and day out, as a business, who has considered the quality standards required to sell these to nonexperts. You don’t have to own every set of wheels to provide good wheel reviews. I do think you need a serious depth of knowledge to be prepared to educate a novice on how to built a battery with no background. Or you should choose not to film a how-to guide at all.
True, hard to put a number on education, especially since people learn in different ways and some have trouble applying critiques to their methods.
Also true, I don’t really know who my audience is, which is the problem. Youtube is algorithm based. It is not uncommon for 70%+ of your views to be from the browse page. My videos currently average like 12% of viewership from searches.
Lol yeah. I believe 25 minutes is probably what I will aim for, but 30 minutes is okay too. It’s a huge battery.
I miss long videos. I HATE the forced trend of 10min videos. I see a video with a compelling topic that’s over 20 mins (over 30 even better) and I get really excited to watch it.
If they’re all 12S4P Flexi packs, basically nothing. You have to build a wide variety of packs to really know what you’re doing, I’ve not even come close to covering all the different styles of packs and I’ve gone through tens of thousands of cells.
Also, its always nice to recontextualize the packs we build to realise that 99% of the packs in eboards are made with way less care and stuck in prebuilts by chinese manufacturers and battery fires are still extremely rare. DIY Packs are usually quite a lot more powerful/higher capacity but usually, fires are caused by very stupid basic mistakes like soldering to cells, using thin crap nickel and rats nesting balance wires directly over sharp nickel.
@ShutterShock This is my point distilled down perfectly.
When making content as potentially dangerous and damaging as a battery building tutorial, we need to be really, REALLY careful about how we communicate and share information.
This is one of the (many) reasons why I have not finished my battery building tutorial on the FreeSK8 forum. It’s just such a massive undertaking to compile and effectively communicate all the knowledge and safety information that it takes to safely make a custom battery. I simply have not had enough time or motivation to make something I feel comfortable putting my name on, because it is such a massive project. I dont want house fires on my conscience.
Ryan, I really encourage you to think long and hard about what you want to put into the world, and the potential harm that could come from it. I’m not saying all this stuff to flame you specifically or to cast aspersions on your skills as a battery builder or a video creator. I would be saying this to anyone.
I simply feel that the vast, VAST majority of the battery building content on the internet (youtube and facebook specifically) is wildly irresponsible, and promotes/enables dangerous practices without properly educating viewers about the dangers and how to mitigate them.
I’m not saying dont make a battery building tutorial. I’m saying if that is what you want to do then I feel that you need to take a much broader scope with the project, and realize how much information actually needs to be taught to (and learned by) the viewer.
Building batteries is much more dangerous than using one, in my opinion. Particularly a battery with a very conservative discharge BMS (which most pre-build batteries use) that simply bricks the battery if anything goes wrong.
I agree with this too! Youtube has its ebbs and flows, and for the monetized creators you kind of have to follow them to get the most money out of it to support yourself
Not everyone makes as much money as pewdiepie or other large youtubers. Those people have such a huge backlog of videos on their channels (1000’s) that they could probably stop for a year and still make a living
Anyways, yes, long videos are still cool. Believe it or not, there was a period where Youtube paid more for long videos.
Edit: I am not monetized so I don’t really care about time. However, I can’t imagine really making a video that’s only 10 minutes, I usually have too much information to share
The potted packs have probably been the most unreliable in chinese boards so far, it should eliminate issues but I think the epoxy used was pulling nickel off and damaging balance tabs, ownboard took a few tries to get that right.
Yea the standard here is much higher, especially if you sell one to someone else mistakes can directly result in injury or worse.
I bought a bunch of scooter packs that were potted in a rubbery silicone material rather than epoxy. Not structural, but great for vibration dampening.
I think we are running around in circles at this point. After all of this discussion I do have a different outlook on the whole thing and will script it carefully. I need some time to think
Anyways there are a couple videos before that on unrelated topics. I am happy we can have this discussion with respect in mind, like adults. It is important for our community to talk about these things in earnest
Most prebuilts use 40A BMSs, they’re not too low power, but almost all of the tips and safety stuff we do can’t be substituted with the use of discharge through a BMS.
Break down the Battery Building videos into a series. Probably too much to cover in a single video. Anyone setting out to build a battery themselves is in for an investment anyway.
I suppose that would make it harder to skim through information and easier to repeat certain safety topics.
This is definitely true, though I feel that the discharge BMS’s oftentimes catch small imbalances or whatever and brick the battery before those imbalances have time to develop into catastrophic failures.
A discharge BMS is definitely not a substitute for proper battery building safety measures though, I completely agree.
I’ve learned a lot from this forum and this thread in particular. I’m working on a 12s2p flexible battery with p42A cells. I ended up cutting some nickel strips that I had on hand to create a kind of U shape, then bending it over a 90 degree corner and welding it onto either end of the p groups. Max battery current will be limited to about 40A. I’m planning to do all the series connections with 8 gauge flexible wire/solder (what I have plenty of on hand) and I haven’t decided exactly how to make the “backbone” of the battery, but I have a couple of ideas.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
What you see here is fiber reinforced tape, fish paper, and 0.2mm nickel strip. The cells are also hot glued together inside the wrapping.
Personally, I think this is a great idea if you’re willing to commit to a full series. Also, last thing I’ll mention - I think you (@ShutterShock) could lean on the community pretty hard if you were willing to do the hard work to film it. Combine existing guides with other expert opinion and post the script for all the knowledgeable people here to add/edit/vet.
Talking about views/monetization/etc, if the community came together on a battery building video series like this, I could see it becoming esk8 canon and sent to every new beginner looking to get into it for years. There’s so little high quality content, compared the bulk of youtube, it could be worth the time from a few different perspectives.
This looks mostly good, though you should check the Conductor Current Ratings chart to make sure you have enough cross-sectional area of nickel for 20A per cell. The legs of those nickel pieces look a little thin for that kind of current, though if you are not maxing out the amps all the time them it’s probably find.
My bigger concern is that it looks like you didnt round the corners out on the folded-over section, I see some jagged and sharp edges in that first picture. Maybe go back and make sure there’s nothing there that can rub through the fishpaper on the cells.
This is going to be really really tough for these short little series connections. Bending 8AWG in a tight enough radius is difficult, and then add onto that the difficulty of soldering 8AWG fast enough to not cook the cells, but with enough heat to get a good joint, and I think this a bad idea. I would suggest investing in some 12AWG or 14AWG for this pack. It is going to be well worth it.
I’m not completely opposed to it but it is definitely a lot of work
Something to consider for sure. Problem is, there isn’t like “a guide” persay
@BenjaminF has been mentioning his guide because like 2 years ago he said he was going to make one, written, I think, for DRI. It’s just so much content like he has mentioned
Interesting idea, might be hard to pull off in practice
February of 2021 I made “Part 0” of a complete custom battery building tutorial over on the FreeSK8 forum, which was planned to be many, many parts. That project died when I realized how much time I would have to put into it in order to make it something I feel comfortable directing a noob to and saying “this is all the info you need”. The scope just got way too large to be something I can take on, while also trying to run a business and pay my bills.
I hope to be able to get back to it one day, because I feel that a tutorial of that nature is desperately needed. They have something like that over on Endless Sphere, which I have read through, but it’s not the most user-friendly format or forum, and it lacks some of the safety standards we hold ourselves to these days, particularly for esk8 batteries.
