Battery building for esk8 can be much more complicated than a lot of what you see on YouTube, especially since we have factors like flex and road vibrations that we have to accommodate for. There are lots of really good resources here for battery building, and by reading The battery builders club thread. You can learn a lot. There are lots of pictures, problems and solutions that you can learn a lot from.
Any questions you may have during the process are better off placed there as that’s where you’ll have experienced battery builders looking.
The biggest barrier to entry for esk8 battery building is most likely going to be upfront materials and tools cost as stuff like 0.2mm nickel strip, spools of good quality wire, the spot welder, and everything else you’ll need will cost you quite a bit. You can start by having a battery builders weld you some P groups so you’ll be responsible for series connections, BMS hookup, and any other wiring.
There’s only so much I can fit into one post. But give the battery builders club a good read. Its like 20000 messages, but scroll through it and take a close look at some of the pictures and mistakes others have made. They’re a great tool for learning.
thanks, I will and have a bit so far but yeah there are extensive threads. The flexible battery for a flexible enclosure and board to go along with it, is taking some reserch…
Have an idea for what deck and enclosure already? Many people here can show you pictures of what their existing batteries for a certain setup looked like
Which welder do you have? Do you have nickel shears or a corner chomper? Do you have empty practice cells? Do you have a multimeter? Which lipos are you using for your welder? What are you using to charge them? Have you sourced nickel? Have you tested it for purity?
There are a LOT of things you need and it’s not really feasible to learn to do all this and invest in all the tools just to build one copy.
Buying a battery from a reputable builder is a really good idea.
I think he had a point that you came across as a bit stern. Please probably doesn’t make sense in that context either, but “adding a location to your profile can make it easier for us to help” is probably better. The original gave me grumpy old man vibes.
yeah deck and enclosure is where I’m at in research, so far the Volokno FLD is looking like a good option. Thanks for the list, I sure get hit up by battery builders saying no way on my own and wanting to sell me one??? We’ll see, I would definitely buy all battery parts from a reputable place, if I get scammed on inferior products guess it’s lesson learned. I’ll way the battery make or buy scenario along the way.
Getting fake or grade B or just low quality cells is most assuredly a proper concern, but procedural problems based on greenness seem more likely to cause bigger problems IMHO.
Ooo the volokno enclosures are nice and spacious, pretty good for a first time flex pack. I’m curious to see how this goes, Im low-key interested in getting one when I get the moni.
Heres a few places you can get genuine batteries in the US.
18650batterystore
Liionwholesale
Bulkbattery
Once you find which cells you want, your next concern should be sourcing real pure nickel as it’s been pretty hard to get that stuff lately. We had a go-to AliExpress store but they shut down unfortunately.
This stuff can be highly dependant on what deck and enclosure you really end up with. Brian posted a good order of operations you should follow with esk8, so I’d start by making a decision on which deck and enclosure you’ll go for.
It was a joke…lol Can’t believe the prices on that site though? Presently I have poor 18650’s in a head lamp (they came with it) I use to ride with and they last like 2 hours instead of the 10-30 hours advertised. I was planning on Molicel 21700’s but reading the whole debate thing between 21700’s and 18650’s…Still wonder why soo many insist on the 18650?
Perfectly useless I’m afraid you will find. Cells are sold for what they are worth. There are no miracle inexpensive ones. If they are cheaper than others it’s because they are cheaper cells.
I’d use 21700s. They offer better energy density and more capacity per $ in many cases. Molicel p42a are essentially the gold standard of performance esk8 batteries right now. The volokno enclosures are designed for double stack 21700s anyways. Buying small quantities of cells doesn’t make much sense, but there may be someone putting in a bulk order (which will bring it down to ~4.80/cell) that you may be able to hop in on?