Belgium people: united we should stand

Ivo Staelens

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Aug 21, 2017
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109
Hi all,

This post is more a less pointed to the Belgian people I saw posting stuff here...

I am convinced that trying to go off grid in the long run will be a financialy interesting thing to do, and it's also a very sustainable thing to do.

That's why I started harvesting cells and trying to find laptop batteries.

And that seems to be my biggest issue at the moment.

I tried contacting two recyclers with the question if it is possible to talk about buying larger quantities of old laptop batteries. And the answer was twice: "Sorry, regulations oblige us to recycle the batteries we collect, we can and may not sell them to other people that could have a use for them"

This makes it a very difficult thing to do now...

I dug around and did find one possibility.

It is possible to submit to OVAM a proposition for pilot project concerning recycling.

I'm sure that the way we proces the batteries (separating plastic, pcb, nickel and testing the cells) is far better than the way it is now done. They simply pyrolyze (burn) the batteries and recover the metals and that's about it.

Are people interested in bundling forces to try and put a decent project proposition together to create some kind of alternative recycling route of laptop batteries, injecting the batteries in the diy powerwall market?

I am willing to put in some time and effort, as it could open up a big stash of laptop batteries to the community, in return we need to be willing to do the effort to put up a good project plan.

Anyone interested? Suggestions? Am I downright crazy trying to pull this off, or is this an idea?

Your thoughts are highly appreciated.

Regards,

Ivo Staelens
 
Hi Ivo,

I really like the way you want to approach this, but I'm sure that the money will win over some testprojects to recover 18650 cells.
And don't forget, we have all paid for the recycling when we bought the pc, the drill, the ebike... So they "have to" do their job.

I focus on shops, before they send them to Bebat. Until now, I get a steady flow of batteries, but alot of store owners are afraid that we use them for reselling or get scrap money for them.

It's about finding these few niche shops who really do laptops more then desktops. Or the ebike shops are gone be a great source in the near future.
My wife is bycicle mechanic and the amount of batteries that are swapped is.... let's say... huge. Unfortunately the batteries today are often still NiMH or low capacity li-ion.

But once the current bike batteries are going faulty... It will be pure gold.... 2500 to 3000+mah
recently got a Bosch battery and all cells were 2700+, And there are alot of them inside and all clean!

Until now, I have not paid any of my suppliers. So if nobody does, it will not set a negative trend in Belgium. First one to do so will hurt everybody in the long run.

my 2 cents.
 
It is interesting to see with what kinds of problems you are dealing with and what your approach is.

However, I see certain problems in the long term.
First of all, it is a good thing that certain products have to be recycled by law. When these laws were made probably no one thought about reusing instead of recycling so what we really need now is reusing by law.

That leads the the second problem though because this gives a value to a product that otherwise would only have scrap value. And there is work involed and someone, likely the customer, has to pay for that. Imagine you have to pay someone for opening laptop batteries, cleaning the cells, testing them, sorting them and then put them in some kind of store to sell them.

And the third problem then is the small difference between scrap value/recycling value, reuse/resell value (before any work costs) and the value of a new cell. This is a commercial as well as an environmental issue. No one wants a reused cell which costs twice as much as a new one.

The whole concept doesn't work very well on cell level. It works for batteries the size of the ones for electric cars which will be the next big thing after reclaiming cells from electric bikes.
A possible solution could be a standard laptop battery, mandatory for all manufacturers worldwide. Something like this could be build in such a way that it could be disassembled down to individual cells by machines in a factory. Or, even better, user replaceable 18650s in a seperate compartment. Man, where did I get such a brilliant idea from?! But hey, good luck trying to implement such a thing...
 
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Thanks for the honest and correct replies!

I indeed try to think out of the box and 99% of the times, there's a flaw somewhere :)

But indeed I haven't tried any bike shop at the moment. That's a good extra source to dig into!

I start to build up a friendly relationship with some stores around here and little computer repair shops, just by calling them often, asking for batteries and letting them know I'm still around.

And indeed with the recupel it's true we paid for the recycling the moment we bought the appliance, so it should be recycled :)

Thanks again!

Regards,

Ivo
 
What do you think about the NO PAYING approach? If we all stick together, we can keep it like that ...

And the fewer the competition, the easier it will be ... Hahahaha

Can I claim East-Flanders....LOL
 
Dips on Limburg.... :D

You got also keep in mind we are not recycling the battery's but more kind of reusing... bebat ( orother recycle )has to recycle for raw materials likeDarkraven mentions.
I d'ont think Ovamwant it otherwise.

So good luck on the hunt ;)
 
I claim West-Vlaanderen (joke of course, competition is welcome, we can always work together)

and I agree to keep it all non paying :)
 
wim said:
Dips on Limburg.... :D

You got also keep in mind we are not recycling the battery's but more kind of reusing... bebat ( orother recycle )has to recycle for raw materials likeDarkraven mentions.
I d'ont think Ovamwant it otherwise.

So good luck on the hunt ;)

Sorry, I already had Limburg NL, I think its only fair those rights extend over the border?
 
IvoStaelens said:
Thanks for the honest and correct replies!

I indeed try to think out of the box and 99% of the times, there's a flaw somewhere :)

But indeed I haven't tried any bike shop at the moment. That's a good extra source to dig into!

I start to build up a friendly relationship with some stores around here and little computer repair shops, just by calling them often, asking for batteries and letting them know I'm still around.

And indeed with the recupel it's true we paid for the recycling the moment we bought the appliance, so it should be recycled :)

Thanks again!

Regards,

Ivo
After calling two bike repair shops it was already bingo. I scored one battery he was gonna chuck that evening.

After opening I could harvest already 29 of those grey cells normaly having decent capacity (one had vented)

They passed the first voltage test and tomorrow I'll start charging them
 
Was there a brand on the box? can you post a picture of the case? it's helpfull.

I have a thread in"youtube vids" in the forum, especially on ebike batteries. Posting the pic in there can create a "database"...

http://secondlifestorage.com/t-E-bike-batteries-related-videos

29 cells... strange number, usually 7x, 8x, 9x or 10x.

or it was 29 good ones + one vented.
 
There are strong regulations and the problem is that these recycling firms have a very tight eye on them. In our eyes we are "saving the world" from a heap of otherwise discarted batteries, however they have strict regulations, once it is in the system it can't get out.

then there are 2 more factors
- we are just to small, you might think you are buying a heap when you ask for 2000 batteries, but they get them with the truckloads. It is not worth hring an extra person to earn some pennies, they have to think bigger
- probably like in any other business recyling is big business, again we are the shrimp.

I honestly have no idea how this recycling works, but i guess it is like most things... grind em up seperate materials, it simply goes way faster. (yup just googled, it's all the same)

I would follow the advice to get them from places where they discart batteries, bike shops, and so on, bike shops might be interesting since you get more at once since they contain a lot of cells however i have tried it a few times and most of them are completely dead. Most 'elderly' people around here use it till it stops charing. At that point they are basically dead.

Ps, yes Limburg, tops :p dutch or flemish ;)
 
We have the same problem here in France. Decheteries (government run waste collection centers) are not allowed to give or sell anything. I've tried shops and they say by law only a registered recycler can take them.
EBay UK has lots but they are not allowed to post outside the UK.
Jehu Garcia know of an un vetted source in Germany email krrisztian@icloud.com
 
I've seen this, don't fall for it. This source is selling new cells for usual, high prices. Nothing special. nkon.nl is still the way to go if you want new cells, eu.nkon.nl if you don't speak dutch.
 
Abarth595 said:
Was there a brand on the box? can you post a picture of the case? it's helpfull.

I have a thread in"youtube vids" in the forum, especially on ebike batteries. Posting the pic in there can create a "database"...

http://secondlifestorage.com/t-E-bike-batteries-related-videos

29 cells... strange number, usually 7x, 8x, 9x or 10x.

or it was 29 good ones + one vented.

It was an unbranded battery. The case was aluminium, with backlight on one end and charging connector on the other.

It was 29 good ones + one vented
 
haha Belgians are everywhere it seems :)

I think it's not doable to go full off-grid here in Belgium (unless you live like a caveman) because there is too little sun during winter to recharge them.
Looking at my solar production from the last week it was not even covering 1/4 of my daily use).

My idea is running lighting only on a small solar off grid installation, also for backup in case of a blackout (since several years now that they talk there could be problems on the Belgian grid during winter) and maybe also power my water heater (its an natural gas heater, so only the controller electronics shouldn't consume that much), for this I made the following "idea list":
-buy an extra solar panel: loose ones are also hard to find, most are offered in kits or are way too expensive, but rebulb seems ok quality/price and sells them individual- I have a small piece of flat roof where I could mount 1 - 4 solar panels myself.
-mppt charge controller, reprogramm it to be able to do the voltages for LI-ION, thinking to buy a bluesolar since I read these can be freely reprogrammed with the interface cable
-starting off with a 4S20P ~ 40Ah 18650 setup (maybe I'll go for a 4S40P later)

I work in a large international IT company and I was lucky enough that I could harvest all packs from laptops the company was throwing away ... I think I have over 120 packs now (all 9 cells)
so I should have over a thousand cells, which I am probably never going to use all (4S40P is only 160 cells ... )

Greetings from near Leuven.
 
ghosty.be said:
haha Belgians are everywhere it seems :)

I think it's not doable to go full off-grid here in Belgium (unless you live like a caveman) because there is too little sun during winter to recharge them.
Looking at my solar production from the last week it was not even covering 1/4 of my daily use).

My idea is running lighting only on a small solar off grid installation, also for backup in case of a blackout (since several years now that they talk there could be problems on the Belgian grid during winter) and maybe also power my water heater (its an natural gas heater, so only the controller electronics shouldn't consume that much), for this I made the following "idea list":
-buy an extra solar panel: loose ones are also hard to find, most are offered in kits or are way too expensive, but rebulb seems ok quality/price and sells them individual- I have a small piece of flat roof where I could mount 1 - 4 solar panels myself.
-mppt charge controller, reprogramm it to be able to do the voltages for LI-ION, thinking to buy a bluesolar since I read these can be freely reprogrammed with the interface cable
-starting off with a 4S20P ~ 40Ah 18650 setup (maybe I'll go for a 4S40P later)

I work in a large international IT company and I was lucky enough that I could harvest all packs from laptops the company was throwing away ... I think I have over 120 packs now (all 9 cells)
so I should have over a thousand cells, which I am probably never going to use all (4S40P is only 160 cells ... )

Greetings from near Leuven.

I'm very aware that in winter solar doesn't yield enough. That's why I plan to install a generator. If I look at my electricity bill, even without netto using a single kWh of electricity, I can win back that generator in a couple of years. And currently I'm working on a greener alternative....
 
@wim: Just be careful. He might be just referring to painting it green :p :angel: :rolleyes:
 
IvoStaelens said:
ghosty.be said:
haha Belgians are everywhere it seems :)

I think it's not doable to go full off-grid here in Belgium (unless you live like a caveman) because there is too little sun during winter to recharge them.
Looking at my solar production from the last week it was not even covering 1/4 of my daily use).

My idea is running lighting only on a small solar off grid installation, also for backup in case of a blackout (since several years now that they talk there could be problems on the Belgian grid during winter) and maybe also power my water heater (its an natural gas heater, so only the controller electronics shouldn't consume that much), for this I made the following "idea list":
-buy an extra solar panel: loose ones are also hard to find, most are offered in kits or are way too expensive, but rebulb seems ok quality/price and sells them individual- I have a small piece of flat roof where I could mount 1 - 4 solar panels myself.
-mppt charge controller, reprogramm it to be able to do the voltages for LI-ION, thinking to buy a bluesolar since I read these can be freely reprogrammed with the interface cable
-starting off with a 4S20P ~ 40Ah 18650 setup (maybe I'll go for a 4S40P later)

I work in a large international IT company and I was lucky enough that I could harvest all packs from laptops the company was throwing away ... I think I have over 120 packs now (all 9 cells)
so I should have over a thousand cells, which I am probably never going to use all (4S40P is only 160 cells ... )

Greetings from near Leuven.

I'm very aware that in winter solar doesn't yield enough. That's why I plan to install a generator. If I look at my electricity bill, even without netto using a single kWh of electricity, I can win back that generator in a couple of years. And currently I'm working on a greener alternative....

My vote is for a wood/waste-oil fired boiler w/steam turbine. I am a ways away but that is one of my projects, painted green of course.

However, I see the same thing here (Western Canada)but not enforced by regulation directly but rather a quazi-government funded private corporation posing as "recycler" which should you "participate" in their program forbids youfrom givingor sellingyour e-waste to anybody else. There also seems to be wide-spread fear on the part of a supplier that they me held libel should a cell they sell/giftcatch fire and cause property damage.

It is sad but reality.
 
I wonder if you came up with a letter of liability release stating that by taking these cells/batteries off their hands they would not be held liable for what ever happens to the cells/batteries once they leave the building if they'd be more willing to give the cells/batteries to us. *ponders*
 
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