Glubux's Powerwall (2016)
272 comments
·April 1, 2025ianferrel
pbasista
> spend hundreds of hours building a home battery system
That is, in my opinion, the worst feature of this entire project. It is cool and nice and fun. But it takes a lot of time to research, acquire skills, get tools and build.
> you could just buy for $20k
I agree with a broader point but that particular price is extremely high and far from reality.
A reasonably good 18650 cell has a capacity of ~12 Wh (~3300 mAh * ~3.7 V = ~12.2 Wh). The battery mentioned in the article consists of "more than 1000" such cells. Let us assume 1200 cells. That would mean it has a capacity of ~14.4 kWh (1200 * 12).
It is possible to get a pre-assembled steel battery case on heavy-duty wheels for 16 LiFePo cells, with a modern BMS with Bluetooth and wired communication options, a touchscreen display, a circuit breaker and nice terminals for ~ $500. And it is also possible to get 16 high quality LiFePo cells with a capacity of ~300 Ah each, like EVE MB31, for significantly less than $100 each. This means that for less than ~$2000, it is possible to get all components required to assemble a fully working ~15 kWh LiFePo battery.
- That assembly would take a few hours rather than weeks.
- It will have new cells rather than used ones.
- It will be safer to use than a battery with Li-Ion cells.
- It will likely take much less space.
- It will be easy to expand.
volkl48
Now.
I will point out that in 2016 when they started this project, the cost of new batteries would have been multiple times higher than it is today, so it would have been a moderately more "sensible" thing to do than it currently seems.
pbasista
Yes, of course, this cost consideration is only relevant today.
I can imagine that ~9 years ago there might have been very little reasonably priced LiFePO4 cells available and if someone could get their hands on used 18650 cells very cheaply, it might have been a reasonable choice at the time.
autobodie
Now what?
ianferrel
Thanks for the all the specifics! I admit that my $20k number was a very rough "I'm sure it must be less than this" estimate because I wanted to make sure I erred on the high side for the point I was making.
aftbit
300 Ah * 3.2 V => 960 Wh ~= 1 kWh
$80 per cell (before shipping) on the top Google product result for EVE MB31.
That's a good bit cheaper even than when I looked last, in early 2021.
mbesto
You can get 15 kWh for $1,3000 if you pick up in Texas (these use EVE MB31 which usually end up testing at ~310 Ah): https://www.apexiummall.com/index.php?route=product/product&...
It just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper every year...
pshirshov
What 13000? Here in the EU we pay around 3-3.5K for 15 kWh.
ironbound
$1,300.00
jamiek88
13k or 1.3k?
brador
The parable of the fisherman and the banker:
https://travis.vc/mexican-fisherman-parable/
Sometimes the doing is the fun part.
fragmede
> - It will have new cells rather than used ones.
This is not a feature. Our Earth is a limited resource, and being able to reuse batteries instead of discarding them to the trash is a desirable property.
pbasista
> Our Earth is a limited resource
Of course. No one disputes that. I was just trying to point out that you can get better cells for less money.
> being able to reuse batteries instead of discarding them to the trash is a desirable property
I fully agree. No one is trying to suggest that we should discard used batteries into trash.
beacon294
There's even more to the riddle. Lithium recycling, cost of the power loss in old cells. Power transmit cost. Cost of power generation on site.
nine_k
Pick used EV or industrial batteries. This must be much more efficient due to a larger cell size than in laptops.
OTOH used laptop batteries can likely be obtained for effectively zero monetary cost, while used EV or solar backup batteries still cost quite noticeable money per kWh. With laptop batteries, you pay with your time; if you for some reason have an excess supply thereof, or you just enjoy this kind of work as a pastime.
UltraSane
We have LOTS of lithium
cjbgkagh
$20K for a home battery backup for someone capable of doing DIY would be far larger than what I assume he has built here. AFAIK the cheaper end is around $340 (2016) per kWh at 20 kWh that would be $6,800. In 2025 at $100 per kWh it would be $2K. If it's worth it would largely depending on a persons post tax required rate of return and how long it would take.
gwbas1c
I spent almost as much as that for a 2 Powerwalls and installation in 2019. (Granted, I got a 3rd back from various incentives that probably weren't available for DIY.)
DIY (like this project) is only "worth it" if the person doing it enjoys the work or values the lessons.
cjbgkagh
There is a spectrum of DIY and the sweet spot depends on the person. Since I'm good with electronics my sweet spot is buying premade packs.
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adamhartenz
If you took that same time, and invested it in working at Target, or Amazon etc, would you have more or less money than it would cost to buy an off-the-shelf battery? There are obviously other pros and cons.
Transfinity
I think Target isn't the right comparison here - the skills required for this project are worth much more than minimum wage bagging groceries. If you assume something like $50 an hour (on the low end for a skilled electrician), you get to the $6800 number in the parent post pretty quickly.
cjbgkagh
Of the three options, DIY battery packs, premade 100aH battery packs, or white glove powerwall a minimum wage earner would likely not have the skills to DIY the battery packs nor the money to pay for the powerwall.
Battery packs are an efficient market commodity and that’s pretty hard to beat for value for money.
Once full installations become more of a commodity then DIY with premade packs becomes less worth it.
neuralRiot
It all comes down to what makes you happy.
facile3232
> but it really just highlights how efficient the modern supply chain is
This "efficiency" relies on the assumption of writing off the entire battery set at sale. That's not impressive at all.
supportengineer
There HAS to be a way to automate this process and make it work at scale.
hermitShell
The problem is likely cost effectiveness compared to just replacing a whole group of cells, compared to one single cell. The unit economics of getting the remaining life from single used laptop battery are not very good. There's certainly lots of potential value for someone willing to do the work, if they can afford the opportunity cost, or if a business can source extremely dirt cheap cells and cheap high skilled labor.
Workaccount2
There is a lot of liability in sticking your name on a hodge podge of random used lithium cells.
dheera
I feel like for home battery backup there needs to be some kind of lower energy density solution that has zero fire risk.
Weight is not a factor for home energy storage, there is no need for lithium cells.
joshvm
You would be amazed how many battery packs are multiple 18650s in a trenchcoat. Even EV battery packs use them. Though it does raise the question - wouldn't an old EV battery be a better solution than stripping apart laptops?
0_____0
There's a lot that goes into manufacturing battery packs beyond the cells. How's your thermal path to ambient in your home wall battery? How is the inter-cell thermal isolation? Is there a path for gas discharge in the event of a cell failure? Is the pack appropriately fused at the cell or module level? When a cell fails, does it take the whole pack with it, catch someone's apartment building on fire and kill a family of 5, or merely become stinky with a hotspot visible on IR?
How good is your cell acceptance testing? Do you do X-ray inspection for defects, do ESR vs cycle and potentially destructive testing on a sample of each lot? When a module fails health checks in the field, will you know which customers to proactively contact, and which vendor to reassess?
Yeah lots of batteries are 18650/26650 in a trenchcoat. The trenchcoats run the gamut from "good, fine" to "you will die of smoke inhalation and have a closed casket" in quality and I think that bears mentioning.
ianferrel
Probably, but EV batteries are large enough that there might be an industrial recycling process for them, while old laptop batteries are basically free because it's too much labor to extract useful value from them.
Workaccount2
>You would be amazed how many battery packs are multiple 18650s in a trenchcoat
$50 of 18650s in a $500 trenchcoat with DRM protection. So wasteful.
mmcwilliams
That depends on the problem you're trying to solve. If it's only to build a home power system, sure, but if the goal is "I want to prevent these laptop batteries from ending up in a landfill" then using an old EV battery doesn't really help you much.
vel0city
FWIW a lot of EVs use prismatic cells, not cylinder cells. Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid use cylindrical cells. Hyundai, Volkswagen, BMW, GM, Ford, and BYD all use prismatic cells.
znpy
> You would be amazed how many battery packs are multiple 18650s in a trenchcoat
Also laptop batteries used to be many (usually three or six) 18650s in a plastic trenchcoat.
You could literally rebuild your battery when it died, and pick the cells you liked the most. In theory you could pick higher-quality cells than those you find in the batteries sold on ebay from chinese stores. In theory.
beAbU
Yes, with cheap third world labour, the same way many other technological marvels of the modern era are "automated".
harvey9
This can't be done remote so you will need to bring that labor to where the work is.
numpad0
Buying a used Nissan Leaf and using V2H feature in CHAdeMO is it. Or you can remove and use its well-reverse-engineered minimum nominal 24kWh semi-removable battery. But no one wants a Leaf, so there's that.
jsight
From what I've heard, it is more economical to recycle the raw materials than to reuse small packs.
Reuse of vehicle sized packs seems to be pretty common, though. I'd guess that a DIY home backup could be built pretty easily from used vehicle batteries.
garciasn
The dude has a warehouse/workshop to do this work and house the system. I’m super impressed by what he’s accomplished, don’t get me wrong; but, what he’s done just isn’t viable for 99.99999999999% of people.
Give me an array and battery system that can pull off the grid and/or array and power most of my home without me having to think a whole lot or pay a vendor thousands to install while making the total cost under $1000 and I’ll do it.
Until then, it just isn’t financially viable when my electricity costs are well under $70/month average across the year.
Recouping the costs for install of solar systems are estimated at 30-40 years as of 4 years ago when I researched it. I’m sorry, but that’s just not worth it for me and most others.
raincole
Of course, but you will also 'scale' the safety implications.
rolandog
Standardizing battery packs would probably help with the automation; like with USB-C.
immibis
You can read it the other way around: with labour and knowledge, you can save $20k.
And with even more passion and commitment and with business skills, you could earn $20k at a time.
scott113341
"I made 14 kWh more during lockdown"
https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
^ has a wild picture of full setup
orbital-decay
That fire extinguisher looks ridiculously useless for a setup like this. Good thing it's a separate shed, at least.
function_seven
What would be an appropriate suppression system here? That's a lotta batteries all arranged like a boy scout arranges kindling logs for a campfire.
A roof-mounted water tank with a thousand gallons ready to dump into the shed? A drum of baking soda?
Or maybe rebuild the shed out of cinder block and clear any overhanging vegetation?
Maybe this whole setup is on desert dirt with plenty of clearance. The fire plan is "run away and wait."
belval
A ton of sand, but that's the main issue with those systems and why it's genuinely impractical as anything but a hobbyist project. They need constant monitoring as all of those cells are from laptop and risk thermal runaway at some point. Even with the best matching possible some cell in his configuration will have higher internal resistance and create heat. "Real" large off-grid systems all use LiFePO4 and are unlikely to just catch fire. That being said from the forum post he seems well aware and he probably has individual fuse for each cell.
You could also just bury it so that the worst of the explosion is mostly mitigated. I've also seen small container setup which would probably work better than his (seemingly) wooden shed.
jszymborski
You can see the shelter here [0] and it is apparently 50m from the house [1].
Would be better if the ground was paved around the shed, but it seems to be far enough from other free standing structures.
[0] https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
[1] https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
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sethhochberg
Not gonna do you any good if the batteries themselves start going off, but if something else has ignited in the cabinet and the batteries are not yet on fire... you'd be glad to have the extinguisher, I bet
philipwhiuk
The only purpose of a fire extinguisher is to allow you to get out. They do not contain enough water to adequately put out any real life fire (especially not an electrical one like this).
If he can't reach to grab it because it's too hot, he should have already left.
rkagerer
I hope it doesn't contain any water at all!
Dry Powder or CO2 is what you need for energized electrical equipment. And considering there's potential lithium involvement, you might want something more specialized (e.g. F-500 Encapsulator Agent). I agree anything more than a small-scale incident you're just getting the heck out of dodge. I'd have built something along the lines of a concrete bunker, with an automated suppression system to buy time.
dgfitz
I experienced a 400v DC lithium ion battery catch on fire once, it was very scary. That fire extinguisher won't do much at all, even if it is placed in a more logical spot.
The firemen ended up putting the battery, half melted, into a big drum of water and it hook hours to cool off. The concrete was still warm to the touch where it burned for ~30 hours after the situation was sorted out.
The smoke was just absolutely unbelievable. Made me reconsider buying an EV. That fire was no joke.
The MV contactor wasn't even closed, it had 24v powering it for the internal cell balancer from the vendor, that was it.
bmicraft
Even though it might not seem like it because reporting on burning cars is very selective, EVs do catch fire a lot less than gar powered cars - even when adjusted for how many there are on the road. Additinally, many new EVs use cheaper LFP batteries now that are almost impossible catch on fire.
timewizard
The fire extinguisher is in the wrong place entirely. If the setup is on fire are you really going to reach _in there_ to grab the extinguisher?
There's no protection over the bus connections. Any falling conductive item is now a spark hazard.
Using spring loaded alligator clips as test leads apparently for monitoring. I hope that's not a permanent configuration.
Everything is bolted down and I see no inline disconnects or even any fusing except on low voltage sections.
There are exhaust fans but I can't tell if there's inlet fans.
From this one picture, which may not be fair, this is not a safe setup. I would feel uncomfortable with this on my property.
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MrBuddyCasino
Everything worth doing is worth over-doing. He should start doing mad scientist experiments and produce ball lightning, the amperage could be sufficient.
koolba
While very interesting, that seems like it would be one hell of a fire hazard as well. Especially for the ones that are tightly packed in the middle of each bundle.
theandrewbailey
> This growth forced the creator to build a separate warehouse, located about 50 meters from his home, to store the batteries and the new charge controllers and inverters.
The hazard appears to be accounted for.
johnisgood
> Despite being an unusual system, with recycled and homemade components, no major problems have been reported, such as fires or swollen batteries, which is a common issue with some second-hand electronic devices.
That said, one should be prepared for it.
rtkwe
AFAIK 18650s like he's using never swell as they're in hard metal shells not pouches like most consumer electronics, so they don't have the ability to swell until they're catastrophically damaged. He's built a small building 50m away from his house to hold it anyways so it can probably be safely allowed to just burn, it's not like fire departments have much better options than waiting for it to burn out and hoping it doesn't reignite anyways.
bigfatkitten
> AFAIK 18650s like he's using never swell as they're in hard metal shells not pouches like most consumer electronics, so they don't have the ability to swell until they're catastrophically damaged.
They do swell, but they swell at the terminals rather than at the sides.
tomxor
They don't look tightly packed compared to the constraints of being inside laptops and phones where they are given millimetres to expand.
misnome
Yeah, my first thought on reading the article was that it didn’t detail his fire control systems..
rtkwe
That's the neat part about lithium fires you just can't, they're self oxidizing so there's not much you can do to definitively put them out the best option is usually to flood them with water to cool them down and contain the damage they cause.
em3rgent0rdr
Yeah. Commercial home solar battery power as I understand is done with safer chemistries, such as lithium iron phosphate, which while they have a lower energy density (which is not a big downside for a stationary building) don't have the thermal runaway issues that labtop lithium ion batteries have. I wouldn't want to live next door to the DIY labtop battery array enthusiast.
extrapickles
They keep the power pack in a shed away from anything too flammable. They could lose the shed, but it would be unlikely to take the house with it.
elif
My thoughts as well, and that's coming from someone who sleeps directly above 2 powerwalls
bee_rider
Sounds like it is out in a shed.
Also the guy who made this battery pack has the incentive to not burn down his house, whoever made yours has the incentive of one more day on the assembly line… I dunno, wouldn’t judge him too harshly.
em3rgent0rdr
Commercial solar home battery use safer battery chemistries which don't experience thermal runaway like lithium ion labtop batteries do..
ChuckMcM
It's all fun and games until one of those thousand batteries decides to go exothermic :-). This is a really amazing story and I'm impressed by the diligence and amount of effort they put into recovering and reusing all of these batteries. A couple of dendrites though, a lightning strike, there are things outside of their control that could turn the building holding this collection of batteries into a very impressive incendiary device. If you've ever seen a fire at a battery factory, it is both fascinating and scary af. People are still trying to assess the long term damage from the Moss Landing grid scale battery fire in California.
sizzle
I had an 18650 flashlight and saw a video of them spontaneously turning into a flare with rocket thruster like flames and got rid of it immediately. These batteries are scary powerful when it gives off the magic smoke.
ChuckMcM
That they are, energy is energy. I was part of a Battlebots team and that is where I learned the smell of various rechargeable battery chemistries when they burned :-). We also had an exothermic adventure with a battery pack we built, fortunately it was not at an event, it was in earlier testing, but it forever gave me a healthy respect for those batteries.
zejn
I find it amusing how a lot of people immmediately recognize 1000s of old laptop battery cells in a wooden shed a fire risk.
But they were as much of a fire risk (if not more) before being recycled, they were just spread out along the e-waste bins!
Every time I hear of a waste processing plant fire, I wonder if there was a (lithium) battery involved. Maybe from a single use vape, or a child's toy.
voidmain0001
Here’s a 2017 page from Vice https://www.vice.com/en/article/diy-powerwall-builders-are-u... that refers to Glubux as being French. Since the posted article doesn’t say, I wanted to know the climate where Glubux lives and the loads he has on the system. I guess I can find more about Glubux from the secondlifestorage.com site.
ge96
If you like this stuff Jehu Garcia on YT does this
Those scooters in the streets get discarded/buy em in bulk and re-use the batteries for ex
silisili
Sitting congressman Massie also has a few videos on YT about buying a wrecked Model S to scavenge its battery to power his house. Not quite the same as it's just one big battery, but cool idea nonetheless.
They are rather short and show the setup more than the construction and nitty gritty, IIRC
RajT88
Where can I get one? I have seen that the Chinese manufacturers who made the scooters for Bird, etc. have been taking advantage of the discarded units by selling conversion kits to turn them into normal eScooters.
tecleandor
From what I've seen, some people buy them from Police or city auctions. Scooters that are "towed" because they're left in an inappropriate place, often are not picked by the companies that own them, so they're left for the city to auction them or whatever.
ge96
I'm not sure where, I've just seen some of his videos where he takes apart scooters
elicash
Folks are correct this is dangerous. But you could imagine a world where batteries were required to be built in a way that this type of tinkering of individual cells and matching them was safer.
If it could be done, would certainly would be better than turning batteries into "black mass."
em3rgent0rdr
Why are lithium ion phone and labtop batteries still legal considering their saftey risks? There are safer battery chemestries that aren't quite as energy-dense. But phones and laptops were capable-enough 15 years ago and performance-per watt is constantly improving. Sure, we might not be able to light up all the pixels on our screen and stream gigs of data constantly and won't be able to train AI models when our labtop is not plugged into the wall, but we sufficed just fine on the performance of last-decade's mobile devices.
cdblades
> considering their saftey risks
The safety risks are marginal and you interact with plenty of other things/systems daily that are at least as dangerous.
> here are safer battery chemestries that aren't quite as energy-dense ^ that's the answer.
> But phones and laptops were capable-enough 15 years ago They absolutely weren't.
> we sufficed just fine on the performance of last-decade's mobile devices. I don't want to suffice.
All that said, I do think battery research is probably one of the most important things "we" can be doing (and energy storage in general), so I'm all about putting in the money and time to find improvements.
Workaccount2
Because the actual risk is so far overblown.
Why do we still let kids go outside when there are so many kidnappings?
The samsung battery debacle around the note 7, which made headlines for weeks, was from 0.003% of phones catching fire.
gloosx
By that logic, we would have to ban cars, gas stoves and even kitchen knives.
Everything has risks — its about managing them. Lithium ion batteries are widely used because their benefits outweight the risks when handled properly.
Its like saying, “Why are candles still legal? They can start fires.” Well, because people know how to use them responsibly.
reassess_blind
Phones and laptops were not capable enough 15 years ago for what we expect of them today.
Gathering6678
First thing to come in my mind is fire hazard...
"Despite being an unusual system, with recycled and homemade components, no major problems have been reported, such as fires or swollen batteries..."
But when it eventually happens, without a proper fire extinguish system, I would assume every thing would go up in high-temp flames with no easy way of putting them out?
lenerdenator
Something tells me his home insurance agent didn't know about this.
frakkingcylons
It'd be interesting if they added this to the standard questionnaire - does your dwelling have sprinklers? ... oh and how many watt-hours do you have in battery storage?
jakonl
The installations public statistics are interesting to look at. Seems there was a recent addition of a generator not mentioned in the article or the forum. I’m curious for an update from Glubux:
>the solution came with rearranging and adjusting the cells to ensure the packs worked more efficiently.
>Glubux even began disassembling entire laptop batteries, removing individual cells and organizing them into custom racks. This task, which likely required a great deal of manual labor and technical knowledge, was key to making the system work effectively and sustainably.
This kind of thing is cool as a passion project, but it really just highlights how efficient the modern supply chain is. If you have the skills of a professional electrician, you too can spend hundreds of hours building a home battery system you could just buy for $20k, but is less reliable.