The Ultimate Power Bank

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Intro: The Ultimate Power Bank

This is the best power bank you have ever seen!
And now you can make your own. Here are all the electrical details and a housing exsample. I suggest you use your own ideas on the housing part, but feel free to copy mine.
This power bank has 4 usb high current outputs 10A in total current! True 30.000mAh capacity from 1S1P LiPo Battery. And... it can be charged in only 1h! Charge all of your usb devices from just one source.

Watch the video that incluides all specifications and and some instructions how it was made.

STEP 1: Parts

To start making it you will need:
-Battery
-BMS module
-Charging module
-DC step up modules
-Small parts (usb connectors, wires, fuse, bananna sockets,...)
-Housing

STEP 2: Battery

First of all of chourse the battery. The part that powers the whole power bank.
If you want it powerfull, than it must be big. This project is for single cell lithium battery. I used a cell from Kokam. I went for 30.000mAh. You may go for more, or less capacity depending what you want. Kokam cells may be difficult to find and expensive, but don't worry. If you can't get such a cell just connect more small cells in parallel to gain capacity. The voltage stays the same. So all the cheap cells that are used for rc models and toys are OK! Just connect them as shown on the photo. 18650 cells will also do the job!

Don't forget to add a fuse. I used a 40A fuse since my current on fast charging is 30A. If you do not plan to charge it so fast use a smaller fuse.

STEP 3: BMS

Lithium batteries must never be over charged or over discharged. To
protect them form both use a simple 1S BMS board that you can find on ebay cheap. Just find a bms that can hold enough current. Mine is 10A. Connect as shown on photo.

STEP 4: Charger

There are 2 charging options, fast and slow. You may want to have only one of them, but i wanted both.
The first and slow one allows you to use any wall micro usb charger to charge the power bank slowly. For this you need to add a charging board that will lower the voltage to 4.2v and charge the cell. (find on ebay: 1s lithium battery charging module TP4056). Charging current will be limited by the wall charger's output current in this case (usually up to 2.1A). This module can handle also 3A, so it will charge with 3A if the wall charger will provide such current. Connect it as shown on the photo.

If you have an external lithium battery charger you can add a fast charge port. So just add 2 4mm bananna sockets and connect them as shown on the photo. Now your charging limit is the external charger's current limit. I am using a Reaktor 30A charger so I can charge the power bank in only 1h.

Caution! On the photo the bananna sockets for fast charge are connected after the BMS Board. Do so, if your external charger will not charge with more than 10A. If you have an external charger that can charge with more than 10A connect the bananna sockets right after the fuse on + and - of the battery before the BMS. That's how my power bank is connected. Do this only if you know what you are doing. Unprottected charging may cause fire!

STEP 5: Switch

Add a rocker switch to turn the power bank on and off.
It is used only for the output pard (DC modules and led display), so you can charge the power bank when it is off.

STEP 6: DC Step Up Modules

DC step up modules will rise the cell's voltage to 5V. That's what you need to charge your usb devices.
Find them on ebay, I used 2 5A LM2587 ones.

Caution! Before connecting them to your power bank follow the procedure on my photo. You need to set their output voltage to 5-5.3V otherwise you can damage the devices you are gonna connect to the power bank.

STEP 7: Final Connections

When your DC step up modules are all set up to the right voldage connect them as shown on the photo. Add as many usb uot ports as you like, but 2 per 5A DC module are just fine to let all your devices to be fast charged.
Add a voltage display, so you will know how much power it is left in the power bank. Find it on ebay and connect it as shown.

Finally add the out usb connectors and you are done! Except the housing.

STEP 8: Housing


Here is another video that includes all the previous instructions with footage to help you make it.
It took me quite a while to make such a housing. I designed it as a 3D model in Autodesk Inventor. I found someone to water cut it from alluminum. I milled the front plate, sent it to the chemical cataforesis painting, and finnaly engraved and assembled it. This housing fits the battery i used. So I suggest you make your housing from any material you like and shape it so all the parts and your battery will fit inside. My first idea was to make it from wood, but i changed my mind to make it metal :)

Happy charging! :)

43 Comments

I understand your personal sense of accomplishment and your enthusiasm, but your hype for this project and ego are over the top. It's a collection of off the shelf parts, nothing more.
Nice project, though if I had to not pick it would be the typing errors that caused spelling errors. So basically nothing I see wrong with the project on a whole. I do have some suggestions, on the output lines is there any reverse charge protection? Basically if you had a kid connect a USB charger to one of those ports and send five volts back at the step up modules do they block it with a diode? If not you might want to add one capable of Shunting around three amps just to be safe if you have someone operating it that may make a mistake. You could also add similar protection to the fast charge side, but it would need to be a bit more robust.

From the setup it appears possible especially if the quick charge port is connected to the battery before the BMS that power can travel both ways there, unless of course you added a diode to stop that. Have you thought of adding a short circuit protective circuit? I see your using mostly easy eBay modules, so you may not have the electronics expertise to do the protection circuits I dunno, but I have seen a look in dead short fail catastrophically... Look up big Clive on eBay re battery short HA. But having some sort of short protection could be good... Just a thought, after seeing and repairing gear that has had running with children, sorry about the length

Interesting that you took the time to point out typos and spelling errors, while simultaneously typing "not pick" instead of "nit pick."

Aww,
Youu beat me to the "paunch"🤔😄

Reverse voltage on the outputs is not blocked, I will think about it and maybe upgrade it. Thanks for the suggestion. About the fast charge port. It is prottected only with a fuse, so a short circuit there would blow the fuse and that's it, no other damage. I wanted to be able to use this port also for discharging the cell when not in use. Since it is not good to leave lithium batteries fully charged for a long time. Discharging to the "storage" voltage around 3.8V is needed in this case. That's why this port is direct to the cell.

Hi,

Im building a similar type of project. Where can I source the usb board you used? I would like to purchase two if you custom make them.

Thanks

I don't get a realistic answer from my calculator A/W/V. If I passed this Power Bank through a 220V convertor, how many Watts do you think, and for how long? Could I use it with a solar panel and convertor for a couple of hours, say? No heat up or other problems? It's really great, could solve some problems for me. Thanks again.

No heating problems. It gets warm if you fast charge 4 devices ad the same time, but no overheating.
For a 220V converter i suggest you make a power bank at 12V.
From a single cell you will have very high currents.
It all depends what you want to power up and for how long.

Great Instructions thank you :-) I'll be on to that before my next deplacement into the Wilds! I reckon it must be possible to put on USB.3/C connectors, and plug in a solar panel to recharge the Power Bank, you think so? It's really LOTS of power there!

Hi,
Of chourse it needs an update to USB 3.0
I made it a year and a half ago, I did not have a USB 3 phone back then.
And YES, you can charge it with solar panels, just make sure their output is the right voltage.

You can't overheat this cell. It can handle 500A discharge current. And in this project the max current is 30A (only on fast charge).

Is it a magneto-thermal fuse? I'm putting one in for a (hmmm... ) septic tank (sh..!) and they seem very efficient. What you say means no problems either for running a converter 220V or a USB.3 (obviously!) off it, I think, at least the 220V if it was around 500W, or am I mistaken??

It could if the fuse burnt out and you didn't realize it because my computer fried because I didn't check that the fuse was burnt out because I forgot to check it every 2 months like I was supposed 2.

This is a very cool project, but there was one thing about it that bugs me. You said it's a true 30000mah power bank, but if it has to step up the voltage from 3.7 to 5, you lose a bit more than 20% of the amp hour rating. That's over 6000mah, and around 2 full charges on your phone. It's one of the reasons I tend to use 7.2v batteries, less loss in the step-down process.
Also, the step-up isn't 100% efficient, so your final useable rating is going to be closer to 20000mah. Not insubstantial, but not 30000mah either.

You are right. What I meant is that the
cell itself is a true capacity and high-quality cell, not like the Chinese power
banks that often have fake capacity cells in their specifications.

Probably should include a fuse on those banana terminals since they connect directly to the battery. Aside from that, great project!

There is a fuse. Thanks.

Ah, I see it now. Great project!
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