The Hotswappable Battery Bank

Summary

I am planning to build a custom battery bank that fits my needs and I can use in highschool going in to college and beyond.

I want it to be easily user replaceable and have PCBs that are easy to repair if required. It will have hotswappable 100Wh battery packs that slot in to a body that allows the battery to be used for output.

I am excited to build it because I have always enjoyed hotswappable battery electronics like my first phone and my first laptop. Both of them had it and it was the coolest feature to just be able to double your battery life in 10 seconds. The reason I need it to have <100Wh swappable cells is because I want to take it with me when I travel and TSA rules are fun. Overall I am excited and look forward to developing and learning more about electrical engineering.

Plan

Tools (Already Owned)

SOFTWARE

• Fusion 360 (For designing the 3d printed parts)
• Cura (For slicing 3d models for printing)
• EasyEDA (For designing the circuitry and PCBs)
• Visual Studio Code (For programming any microcontroller to do its function)

HARDWARE

• Soldering Iron Pinecil 2.0
• Spot Welder Bifrc D20 Pro
• Heat Gun SEEKONE Heat Gun 1800W

Steps

1. Create the battery packs with the holder and connect the 18650s together with spot welder and nickel strips.
2. Wire up the PCBs
3. Program microcontroller to have monitoring, recording and control features.
4. Run a test build of the product to ensure proper function.
5. Design and 3d print an enclosure for the battery packs and output panel.
6. Test out in real world application. (Power soldering iron and laptop at same time for example)

Budget