IFR 26650 Powerbank

A productive weekend.
I found this form, introduced myself and managed to strip down 10 more power packs to harvest useable cells.
+/- 450 Cells and counting(allneed to be cycled/charged)





introducing the powerpacks:
54,4V usedin PPE equipment
34 cells A123 26650 in each pack
I dont have the BMS for these packs and the are 54,4 V.
I have a 12V system in my house so I will brake down these packs check the cells and make custom packs.
http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/A123 26650 2500mAh (Green) UK.html






How I harvestmy Cells:

Starting with removing the soft heatsink check what the Voltage is if any good I start with stripping.





Cutting all the wires from the old BMS





I don't know how you guys removespot welded strips.
I use a sharpchisel to lift a corner and peel them off with pliers while guiding the strip to prevent Sparks... :angel:





same procedure on the other side.

Then the "fun part" taking all cells apart.
They areglued together so most of the heat shrink peals off. (I ordered new shrinks since the positive side is on the outside...)





Stripping them takes me 20 Min each for the standard ones.

Unfortunately I also found that a lot ofpacks are "dead" 0 Volts.
Also on the cells.
I'm not sure if I can "bring them back" So I stripped 2 down for testing later on.

For now I'm focused on stripping working packs that still give 50ish V.
These packs arereplacedafter 2 years of use orwhen they don't work any more.

I must have been lucky with the first packs because they where all good 50ish V


And all others are unknown...




I also have some sealed packs that are crackedtheytake over a hour to strip and they only have 17 cells..
But these are all from a new model from 2016, So all new cells





Thats it for now. i'm waiting to get newheat shrink and plastic cell holders in.

I'm not sure about the pack size's I want to build.
First I will use the packs in my offgrid house and in my T3 camoperVan.

I'm also thinking about a EV conversion of my T3 campervan so I might want to create apackwith 12V i can use inhouse and place together300ish Volt in the car..

On the moment I'm waiting to get some Opus chargers.
I tryout the Xstar VC2 plus master
http://lygte-info.dk/review/Review Charger Xtar VC2 Plus Master UK.html

to find out it's not supporting the cells I want to charge IFR 26650

What about the Opus charger do they support LiFePO4? 3,3 V

There is internal switch on the Opus. Not sure if it was for HiV or LiFe at 3.2V

They do not support 26650 very well. I know it says 26650 but the ones i have doesnt give any contact out from default

http://lygte-info.dk/review/Review Charger Opus BT-C3100 UK.html

The review says that the button function was not tested, thats why it says maybe.
So there is only one way to find out.. lets see when the arrive here.
I order 8 of them now for 10 US each..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-EU-PLUG...999558?hash=item3d40d97a86:g:pSMAAOSwrfVZOT~p

Maybe you should check that ebay listing for authenticity. The seller is in Shenzhen, China and the price is very, very cheap ( USD $9.99 inc shipping). Lowest price I can recall is around USD $30 from Aliexpress.

Yep, there were others who got burned by false sales. If the opus is less than $20, it starts to be questionable.

The other 3 bidders had to file for refunds with ebay.

Thanks for the warning.
I ordered from 3 different suppliers for 10us..
I can always refund if they don't deliver . long I've PayPal

I also bought an opus for 15 from another seller. The part has never arrived and the seller was deleted from Ebay. For $ 10 it's a fake. I would cancel the purchase!!!

Tried two for 10-15$ too few months ago and had to ask Paypal for money back, they are a lot of scams with Opus chargers recently.

Yeah. Opus is between 30-35USD. All at or around 10 USD are fake.

Hello guys,
Thanks for the warnings.
What is the point of having fake add's when there is eBay buyer protection/paypal?

like this guy also selling OPUS for 10us based in US sells from honking..: http://www.ebay.com/usr/ksafowler848?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Where would you guys advice me to buy OPUS chargers?

I bought mine in gearbest

These days it costs 26.42

Buy a Foxnovo the parts cost about 23 is in Dollar 26,37$

Edit: In Germany Ebay

DennisVanHoek said:

Hello guys,
Thanks for the warnings.
What is the point of having fake add's when there is eBay buyer protection/paypal?

like this guy also selling OPUS for 10us based in US sells from honking..: http://www.ebay.com/usr/ksafowler848?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Where would you guys advice me to buy OPUS chargers?

Click to expand...

Maybe they hope you don't put a claim for only 10$ and can keep the money of some transactions ?

Nkon.nl as you'r dutch, 100% legit products, good price and it's in your country.

Thanks all for advice. I also ordered 4 opus chargers from gear best.
let's see what happend with the ebay ones..
If they Arrive all good if not well I just get my 10 dollars back

After some Custom problems:dodgy: (48 taxes,11 administration 4 taxes for administration...
Finally 4 Opus chargers arrived ( the others 6 from Ebay for 10$ each are "on there way"...)





First thing to do is set them up to charge my 26650cell's
The Opus has a hardware function to set them to charge with max 3.7V for my LiFePo4 cells.





And it seems to work really well.
Even the "0" volt battery's come back alive after a full cycle

I don't know if they are much different from the 18650 but I have battery packs that I brake down with all good cells 3.3ish V or dead cells with 0 volt. But these 0 volt ones seem to be in sort of a "safety mode" and come back alive .
Atleast the ones I have tested now.

And I can only test a few since the 26650 size fits in the opus.. 2 or3ish at the time





So I have to make some external bracket or something to speed up the process.

Also my new 200Wsoldering iron from China came in.
it's slightly bigger than expected.. But I might get a spot welder to (Your fault Daniel..)









thats it for now. let the cyling begin!

I bought a 300 watt, can hardly hang on to it.
im either going to buy a 100w or spotwelder.

Dennis, if you order from China you have to keep in mind that anything above 22 gets VAT (BTW) added and risks import taxes as well.
Simple solution, order 4 separate chargers, so each unit has a low value. The Opus chargers I got from gearbest had around 12,5$ value advertised on the package, which keeps you out of problems.

Better even, if you have problems with customs because they say your Opus is worth more than 12,5$, you can point them to those fake ebay ads where they're only 10$ ;-)
I've had to ask for a refund as well on one of those listings...

Good luck on the testing!

Last week mynew Heat shrink arrived.
I'm still waiting on the ebay 10$ bay chargers....

I guess I will order more chargers from gearbest piece by piece.
When I open my packs most of the heat shrink comes off .
So after the charge cycle tests I wrap the blank ones with the "apple green"heat-shrink.





I think I will get some Orange when I run out (20 meters in stock now)

I'm still not sure what size of packs I want to make.
For now its 4 x 9 26650 cells. (i'm using 3 hole plastic cell holders)





loads of cell to gosince I can only place 2 cell's in on charger.
My soldering Iron has problems soldering the positive side of these cell's.
I might get some more/aggressiveflux...

I bought a cheap (35$) 80w chines soldering iron, and its plenty hot enough..adjustable on the handle to 500c