24 Cell 18650 DIY USB Powerbank With Apple Watch & QI Charging (Vruzend Compatible)

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

I, like all of you I bet, have tons of USB power banks laying around, but even my largest, a 20,000mah pack died after a few days away camping just charging my Apple Watch and iPhone. I wanted something that would last MUCH longer and be more versatile at the same time.
As this is the 21st century, we have the Internet which allows you to harness the brain of people with skills you don't poses, this means following some online guides of how to DIY the battery side of things. I then designed this enclosure around the pack, with some added features too!
The enclosure contains all the holes needed for a on/off button, a charger port, a LCD battery level indicator and 4x USB ports. All those additional hardware items the case is designed around are linked below.
So, you want one too?
To actually build the power banks electronics, I used this guidehttps://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Professional-18650-Battery-Pack/
I suggest you follow that, build up your pack, make sure it works and then order all of the parts needed for this enclosure.
This is a total ground up re-design of my other thing "https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3538397" to keep all the same benefits of my old design with some small spacing and sizing improvements, but be compatible with the Vruzend 1.6 battery system. This is a kit that lets you literally clip and bolt together a battery pack. This means that even if you don't have a spot welder, you can make your own 18650 power bank! Seriously, ANYONE can do this!
Performance
In my mixture of recycled 2500-3000mAh cells from old laptop battery packs that I dismantled, i achieved a total capacity of 38,000mAh. This was tested using a 2amp dummy load and a USB power analyser in-line. Obviously, using higher (such as all 3000mAh) or lower capacity cells will result in different capacity numbers and drawing current in smaller bursts, giving the cells time to recover slightly would likely have yielded over 40,000mAh.
I have created two wiring diagrams, the first one is a simple to follow blok type wiring diagram, the second is a very crude (thanks MS Paint) diagram that's more visual. I know it may look difficult, but trust me, just add wires one at a time and you'll soon figure it out, its very easy in all honesty.