Great technique, I used a heating stove on the heat shrink, and it is 99% effective if not 100%. All you need to do is just slightly rotate the battery as the plastic cover shrinks
Had an idea. Get a long dowel, make one end pointy to open up the shrink tube. With a long enough dowel you could load multiple shrink tubes on it and feed them off the other end onto the cells.
I open the shrink-wrap with a sharpie, and flatten the creases, so they slide on easier, I get a bunch ready first, I have about 1200 cells I rewrapped,
The base failures were from you not being able to get round the other side effectively, solution make the metal plate so it can rotate. Also use a white board marker to write the capacity value at the base of each 18650 so when you rotate you don’t forget each value. Great video great concept. A jig is needed to be able to shrink 20 at a time.
thanks for this, I found using just one magnest point and swapping though already sleaved cells just fine and as you say perfectly aligns the bottom length, i pick it up of the magnet after its shurnk and while in hand finish the bottom and load the next one so nice and quick and works very well.
Normally I wouldn't suggest making a specific rig, BUT I can see you do a LOT. My suggestion is to get box tube big enough to drill out a hole that fits the cells with maybe a millimeter clearance (in the top) The magnets can then be set exactly, relatively to the batteries, probably screwed/glued onto the base. Where the cell sits, a slot half as wide as the cell, is cut vertically into the side of the box tube. The box tube would perhaps be half as tall as the cells and ensure the bottom of the cell gets wrapped properly, due to the heat not escaping out the other side. If you made the box high enough, you could just run across the top, then through each slot and be done, no need to do both sides. Or have a slot on both sides and mount it so you could spin in around and do the other side.
@@Dust599 A) 90°C/194°F is all that's needed to shrink common polyolefin tubing. B) The temperature at which parts printed with common filaments, such as PETG, ABS and nylon, would "melt" is well above 90°C/194°F. C) The parts wouldn't be directly subjected to the heated air stream. Nor would they be exposed to the air stream long enough to heat to their melting point. I stand by my suggestion.
ohhh yeeaahhh... thaaanks for sharing this super low cost and simple genius trick!!! What a great idea!! Now just need to figure out a super-easy way to always center the magnet =]
after doing a few hundred to day, centering them is a waste of time , just use my forarm to push them all over onto their side run the hot air gun over 5 seconds and it's done.. I wish i had of done this video better - worked it out well enough that i'm actually happy to do it lol
Drill out a piece of stock slightly larger than the battery and place the magnet down inside a slightly deeper hole that you drill out. When you set the magnet in the deepest hole, it will be centered of the battery.
You make a conveyer belt system that runs through a toaster oven style tunnel of elements so that it somewhat automatic.... even putting the curved reflector nozzle on the heat gun will make it faster to shrink
that might be worth the effort if you were doing thousands of cells. I did try it with a different nosel today and it was so much better - a tip about 2" wide and nice and flat
Great idea i think that would work amazing was also reaching out been trying to get my hands on more NCR18650BD cells either to purchase used or trade i have hundreds of mix matched cells im trying to finish a build and cant find any reasonable used guy i was once getting them from does not have anymore just thought i would ask thank you much and great content!!!!!
Hey Pete, great concept. I can not get over how many 18650's you get. I used to be called lego taskforce if you remember me. I have a 3d printer now if you need something printed for the project. Glad to see you are still at it.
Hi my dear I have a question... how can I repacking my cells randomly in a pack from ( 1.5 ah to 2.2 ah ) without loosing amps ?? I tried repacker but I have to know a place for each cell in a pack and can I replace between them? Thanks 🙏
@@HBPowerwall :) but you have at least 10 magnets there which would equal about $40 worth. BBQ gloves cost about $30. Unless you bought like 10 of them for $4 lol If you place the heat gun on its ass facing upwards you could hold the batteries in your hand and wrap them quickly. I'm not speaking from experience so please don't take my advice haha, I look forward to your next video :D
Try utilizing horizontal positioning rather than vertical. Seems much easier to utilize a lower center of gravity to roll. set up a pusher mechanism and the batteries would push themselves in order uniformly. Put 2 heat guns positioned correctly on both sides dial in the heat settings and push mechanism and there ya go mass production!! G'day!
I think I would prefer to keep the original label. It has the manufacturer, so you can work out if one brand does better than another, but more importantly it might have the 4 digit date code, eg 2617 = 26 week 2017.
Good idea with the magnets, I'm still waiting for them from Chinee 😴 You need to import some Chinese factory workers to do all the laborious jobs. That's excellent work yet again. I have messaged your FB page with a question about a Vanon retrofit, but I can't upload pics of my problem
Good Tip! Only just found I may be able to easily and steadily collect bulk 26650 LiFePO4s through work! I'll definately have to hit you up for some advice! Would love to get a nice big powerwall on my home! Brissy Local too!
Disaster right there to be honest. I find using a soldering reheat station blower and it works perfectly, while holding the cell and turning it. Easy to avoid burning fingers as the small opening for the hot air is easy to manipulate.
It's been a heck a lot of work to even get to this stage - don't even know the time investment needed to finish what i've started but it would be considerable
Do you mark the new shrinks with the mah value again? Seems you would lose the testing value so you’d need to have pre-sorted them prior to recovering.
Set up a row of power resistors on each side to give off radiant heat. Aluminum foil on the outer side of the resistors to minimize heat loss. This might even require less energy than a heat gun. It would certainly provide more even heat distribution. If you want the fastest method, put them in a microwave. Ok, that's a little joke. 😏
OOOH that one - Keith is a key part of my team and does countless hours unpaid moderation here and on fb so he should be getting a shout out every video!
@@HBPowerwall yep i commend him too, love ur and the teams work and believe in the cause..... cos one day people r going to click and become a preppers. One day we will need people who know what their doing to build power stations and no u wont have to be an electrician to do it... just have basic qualifications and training.
Doubling up on protection makes sense, that is a pretty exposed area. Just tearing apart packs I’ve had shorts where the insulating ring is cut through.
I think using a hot air gun applies too much heat to the cells. Always use a cig lighter. Very little heat applied to the cells and heats the shrink right up 😜😂😉😂
A video that shows you a trick to heatshrink your batteries and save time, except the neat trick failed over 50% of the time. Yeah, neat trick Slim!!! There's almost 7 minutes I won't get back! #totalfail
this video makes me nervous the way you're handeling those cells especially that close to metal. aren't you scared of a hard short and thermal runaway?
Meh.. you only need to remove the bits at the top and bottom... I know you can buy heat shrink tubings but.. why bother with the new cell holders you actually only need the rice paper rings at the top.. That even leads to better cooling.
@@HBPowerwall You don't see the negative terminal rust very often... I think the only downside of not having heatshrink is that the whole cell is then conductive
Given a suitable mounting materials, would the cooling factor even effect performance? In guessing your setups don't run hot anyway. The mini might be different.
Uncovered cells are a safety hazard. The entire outer shell is negative. An unintended series connection results when the outer shell of one cell comes in contact with the positive terminal of another cell. Worse yet, a short results when conductive material bridges the positive terminal of a cell with any part of its shell.
Great technique, I used a heating stove on the heat shrink, and it is 99% effective if not 100%. All you need to do is just slightly rotate the battery as the plastic cover shrinks
Great tip!
Had an idea. Get a long dowel, make one end pointy to open up the shrink tube. With a long enough dowel you could load multiple shrink tubes on it and feed them off the other end onto the cells.
That's actually not a bad idea at all!
thanks pete for reminding me why I dont live in the city anymore with that racket in the street
i'm so tired of the street noise - i'm looking for another place to buy but it's the wrong time to buy it seems
@@HBPowerwall It will be a great time to buy If you can keep your income
I open the shrink-wrap with a sharpie, and flatten the creases, so they slide on easier, I get a bunch ready first, I have about 1200 cells I rewrapped,
that's and idea - someone else said a golf tee stuck to the bench works well too.. a creative idea for sure
The base failures were from you not being able to get round the other side effectively, solution make the metal plate so it can rotate. Also use a white board marker to write the capacity value at the base of each 18650 so when you rotate you don’t forget each value. Great video great concept. A jig is needed to be able to shrink 20 at a time.
This process has evolved a little bit since this video already. THIS way is stupid fast at re warping the cells I love it!
thanks for this, I found using just one magnest point and swapping though already sleaved cells just fine and as you say perfectly aligns the bottom length, i pick it up of the magnet after its shurnk and while in hand finish the bottom and load the next one so nice and quick and works very well.
Great idea! I just found 8mm x 3mm magnets on Amazon, that will give that extra bit of clearance if the cells aren’t perfectly centered.
Great tip!
Normally I wouldn't suggest making a specific rig, BUT I can see you do a LOT. My suggestion is to get box tube big enough to drill out a hole that fits the cells with maybe a millimeter clearance (in the top) The magnets can then be set exactly, relatively to the batteries, probably screwed/glued onto the base. Where the cell sits, a slot half as wide as the cell, is cut vertically into the side of the box tube. The box tube would perhaps be half as tall as the cells and ensure the bottom of the cell gets wrapped properly, due to the heat not escaping out the other side.
If you made the box high enough, you could just run across the top, then through each slot and be done, no need to do both sides. Or have a slot on both sides and mount it so you could spin in around and do the other side.
3D print a jig that a) holds the magnets, then b) aligns the cells, perfectly centering them on the magnets every time.
then it melts in the hot air.... Low temp heat guns are 200C, high temp 590C, most plastic most people use start to melt under 100C
@@Dust599 A) 90°C/194°F is all that's needed to shrink common polyolefin tubing. B) The temperature at which parts printed with common filaments, such as PETG, ABS and nylon, would "melt" is well above 90°C/194°F. C) The parts wouldn't be directly subjected to the heated air stream. Nor would they be exposed to the air stream long enough to heat to their melting point.
I stand by my suggestion.
Good idea, especially if you have a removable jig that is just used for alignment of one cell then moved to align the next one.
Amazing idea! Must save a lot of time. I'm afraid i will be using your idea to do this to my cells! Thanks for helping the community
Thanks for being part of the community
Love it, great idea!! I like that much better than trying to do them one, two, three or so at a time.
I think the magnet spacing is the best part!
stick the magnet on the cell first before putting onto the metal it may help keeping it centered
To slow, easier to run the air gun over it after it's done
ohhh yeeaahhh... thaaanks for sharing this super low cost and simple genius trick!!! What a great idea!! Now just need to figure out a super-easy way to always center the magnet =]
after doing a few hundred to day, centering them is a waste of time , just use my forarm to push them all over onto their side run the hot air gun over 5 seconds and it's done.. I wish i had of done this video better - worked it out well enough that i'm actually happy to do it lol
i used same concept but on pizza tray and set oven to tested temp and time and 50 at a time in 30 seconds and no chasing around cell with heat gun
NICE but if i do this indoors i'll die before the first batch come out of the oven lol
To open the sleeves use a air gun on one side and hold the other end . Short burst of air pops open.
I don't own a air gun - was going to buy a air compressor this week to try that (also need it for a sand blaster for the mini)
@@HBPowerwall It sometimes makes a good fart sound too.
lol
Drill out a piece of stock slightly larger than the battery and place the magnet down inside a slightly deeper hole that you drill out. When you set the magnet in the deepest hole, it will be centered of the battery.
That's an idea
Wouldn't it be nice to put the magnet on a geared motor and spin the cells slowly?
Ooh now your stepping up the game a bit lol
You make a conveyer belt system that runs through a toaster oven style tunnel of elements so that it somewhat automatic.... even putting the curved reflector nozzle on the heat gun will make it faster to shrink
that might be worth the effort if you were doing thousands of cells. I did try it with a different nosel today and it was so much better - a tip about 2" wide and nice and flat
Make a v mount so the cell is cantered when it gets put into the magnet
seems to self center quite well..
@@HBPowerwall so why not on the video was that just murphey strikes again?
Nice job!
Thank you! Cheers!
Just ordered magnets from Amazon thanks
No problem 👍
I'd suggest going for a higher temperature and lower airspeed so that it shrinks quickly but doesn't blow away the insulator rings.
Yep, unfortunately the hot air gun only had three settings each hotter and faster than the next
Great idea i think that would work amazing was also reaching out been trying to get my hands on more NCR18650BD cells either to purchase used or trade i have hundreds of mix matched cells im trying to finish a build and cant find any reasonable used guy i was once getting them from does not have anymore just thought i would ask thank you much and great content!!!!!
Hey Pete, great concept. I can not get over how many 18650's you get. I used to be called lego taskforce if you remember me. I have a 3d printer now if you need something printed for the project. Glad to see you are still at it.
I need heaps printed but trying to fix this ender3 of mine - i'll let you know...
@@HBPowerwall just let me know, happy to help out.
Hi my dear I have a question... how can I repacking my cells randomly in a pack from ( 1.5 ah to 2.2 ah ) without loosing amps ?? I tried repacker but I have to know a place for each cell in a pack and can I replace between them? Thanks 🙏
Might be quicker to hold them whilst heat shrinking, pair of 300'c heat gloves for approx $50 AUD.
magnets are $4 lol
@@HBPowerwall :) but you have at least 10 magnets there which would equal about $40 worth. BBQ gloves cost about $30.
Unless you bought like 10 of them for $4 lol
If you place the heat gun on its ass facing upwards you could hold the batteries in your hand and wrap them quickly.
I'm not speaking from experience so please don't take my advice haha, I look forward to your next video :D
You're the best HB!
I don't disagree...
I prefer not to change the heat shrink, keeps the model number and the tested capacity on them when inspecting the pack
Chances of me ever needing that info ever again is so slim I'd rather rewrap where needed.
Great tips!!! Thanks Pete
Any time!
Thats pretty cool!!!
I thought it was quite cleaver taking a few steps out of the process speeds things up alot
HBPowerwall i like it!!! It’s one of those( why didn’t I think of that) can’t wait to try it out!!!
Neat idea for sure!!! MOOOOOOBS💥
Boom
Try utilizing horizontal positioning rather than vertical. Seems much easier to utilize a lower center of gravity to roll. set up a pusher mechanism and the batteries would push themselves in order uniformly. Put 2 heat guns positioned correctly on both sides dial in the heat settings and push mechanism and there ya go mass production!! G'day!
Seems like a lot of setup for perhaps 1000 cells - if you were planning commercial operation that would sure work
Very nice!
Thank you! Cheers!
GENIOUS!
after 200 more tries it's stupid fast - fast enough to do a second video i thinks
Thanks for the idea, did you sell battery?
nar still sitting here lol Turning into an ol' horder
From the title I thought you had made an oven to bake them all at the exact temperature
Come on would pete be that accurate lol
Thanks for sharing. How many degrees is your heater set? Also, is this temperature value harmful for li-ion batteries?
Just don't heat up them too much. A simple hair dryier works too.
That's a great idea. You got a US link for them indented magnets? ;)
In the description... well soon :)
I think I would prefer to keep the original label. It has the manufacturer, so you can work out if one brand does better than another, but more importantly it might have the 4 digit date code, eg 2617 = 26 week 2017.
Good point but so far i haven't needed it or even wanted it. If a cell comes out faulty - that's all it is really
@@HBPowerwall use clear
Clever!
Thank-You
Good idea with the magnets, I'm still waiting for them from Chinee 😴
You need to import some Chinese factory workers to do all the laborious jobs. That's excellent work yet again.
I have messaged your FB page with a question about a Vanon retrofit, but I can't upload pics of my problem
My problem is the insulators blowing out from my hair dryer
Buy your wife a better hair dryer?
Actually I'm already using her old one I salvaged from the giveaway bin.
great and really impressive efficiently ... THANKS
Glad it helped!
Looks pretty cool 🤓 but the heat shrink r so thin.
Yes, true
Good Tip! Only just found I may be able to easily and steadily collect bulk 26650 LiFePO4s through work! I'll definately have to hit you up for some advice! Would love to get a nice big powerwall on my home! Brissy Local too!
Nice if you don't use those cells i'll call seconds lol love some different cells to play with
Disaster right there to be honest.
I find using a soldering reheat station blower and it works perfectly, while holding the cell and turning it. Easy to avoid burning fingers as the small opening for the hot air is easy to manipulate.
I tried with my two hot air stations - heat gun is so much faster & convientet
Nice way to go, a lot of work though 👍✌️♥️
It's been a heck a lot of work to even get to this stage - don't even know the time investment needed to finish what i've started but it would be considerable
@@HBPowerwall also clearing the cells of the old covers....your hands must be tired 😆✌️👍
Um, how is it "Faster" if you need to re-work 75% of the work you tried to do right the first time?
faster than any other method?
heya oh yeah that looks much easier then doing it 1 by 1have to order those magnets
Defiantly my best idea ever! Works so well - also cheap and accessable
Do you mark the new shrinks with the mah value again? Seems you would lose the testing value so you’d need to have pre-sorted them prior to recovering.
I don't, won't have any need for them
Use clear
That's a LOT of 18650 batterys
One or two
Battery condoms. Least you didn’t have to do them in the dark 😉
or for some one else ;P
HBPowerwall ditto to that
Set up a row of power resistors on each side to give off radiant heat. Aluminum foil on the outer side of the resistors to minimize heat loss. This might even require less energy than a heat gun. It would certainly provide more even heat distribution.
If you want the fastest method, put them in a microwave. Ok, that's a little joke. 😏
how i know this battery ???mah ?
I'd use dowsing rods
Far king legend!
ya better Far King believe it..
and thanks for the advertisement :)~
wait i slipped in an advertisement?
@@HBPowerwall yes u did about the heatshrink ya daft bugga
OOOH that one - Keith is a key part of my team and does countless hours unpaid moderation here and on fb so he should be getting a shout out every video!
@@HBPowerwall yep i commend him too, love ur and the teams work and believe in the cause..... cos one day people r going to click and become a preppers. One day we will need people who know what their doing to build power stations and no u wont have to be an electrician to do it... just have basic qualifications and training.
What's your two cents on Paper or PET insulator rings?
I'm using the stock ones & paper ones on top... double down!
Doubling up on protection makes sense, that is a pretty exposed area. Just tearing apart packs I’ve had shorts where the insulating ring is cut through.
I think using a hot air gun applies too much heat to the cells. Always use a cig lighter. Very little heat applied to the cells and heats the shrink right up
😜😂😉😂
Don't own a lighter - hell i had to buy matches to smoke my bees lol
@@HBPowerwall Hahah, and I'm sure the bees thank you 😉
A video that shows you a trick to heatshrink your batteries and save time, except the neat trick failed over 50% of the time. Yeah, neat trick Slim!!! There's almost 7 minutes I won't get back! #totalfail
lol, you need a hug lol
Good to see those sex ed classes have paid off!
Have to use the skills somewhere ;P
this video makes me nervous the way you're handeling those cells especially that close to metal. aren't you scared of a hard short and thermal runaway?
😨
can you please send me the cells for 2000mAh or 2500mAh I will. pay for it
Anyone that knows me knows i don't post lol
ok infact I am your new subscriber that is why
Meh.. you only need to remove the bits at the top and bottom...
I know you can buy heat shrink tubings but.. why bother with the new cell holders you actually only need the rice paper rings at the top..
That even leads to better cooling.
True but they will rust much faster if they are nude won't they?
Try it !
@@HBPowerwall You don't see the negative terminal rust very often...
I think the only downside of not having heatshrink is that the whole cell is then conductive
Considering it's mounted on steel probably not a good thing
Given a suitable mounting materials, would the cooling factor even effect performance?
In guessing your setups don't run hot anyway.
The mini might be different.
Give me some Battery please.
Does that even work?
Why recover them, leave them nude
Can't have nude cells - they'll rust faster here in aussie land.
Uncovered cells are a safety hazard. The entire outer shell is negative. An unintended series connection results when the outer shell of one cell comes in contact with the positive terminal of another cell. Worse yet, a short results when conductive material bridges the positive terminal of a cell with any part of its shell.