Home Made Tank Light - The Swan Blaster 260W Short Arc

[ma_sha1]

Thanks BVH, I am not sure I understand what you have. Does it fit into the confinement of 7"x3"x6.5"? Do you have a picture of what you have?

Do you have a picture of the individual pack? Is it the same size as mine, roughly 2.8x6x1.7" size per pack? Both ratted 20AH, I wonder why yours rated 60A but mine rated 40A? I may be interested in 4S if its same sized pack as mine. What's the brand of your battery? A Link to where you got it?

8S Lifepo4 will only give you 22-24V under load, you probably need 10S to get it up to 28V under load.
Since yours & mine are both 20AH packs, I wonder why yours rated 60A while mine rated 40A, I wonder how much we could trust theses ratings.
I would not trust that they could deliver constant 60A long term w/o damage. In my case, ideally, I'll be able to find 25-30AH packs at the same size to connect 4S & run it at 35 Amp constant draw.

Alternatively, If you are planning to run 28V at 30A or less, I could sell you the 2-3 loose packs I have left & allow you to build it up to 28V under load w/o letting what you have go to waste. I'll only ask for $30/pack +shipping.


I'll take a picture of how my packs look like tonight.

 

[BVH]

This is for a higher Volt pack. I had him make the 8S custom for me. Under the specs it says 40 Amp continuous discharge (BMS Limited). He told me if I used them without a BMS, they would provide 60 Amps.

http://em3ev.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=35&product_id=105

Cell data:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=92088474ccb8cd05&id=92088474CCB8CD05!1730&authkey=!AJSyZwC_h7piGtY

I will take some measurements and post back.

 

[ma_sha1]

Thanks for the link, it says it uses: "High Energy Density A123 AMP20, 3.3V, 20Ah Nanophosphate Lithium Ion Prismatic Pouch Cell".

A123 Prismatic Pouch is big. Your link doesn't contain the pdf datasheet, but I found it here
http://www.endrich.com.tw/html/ezcatfiles/i-web17/img/img/25755/A123_AMP20.pdf

It lists the cells as 6.3" x 9" in size, looks like too big for my use. But thanks for the effort thou.

 

[BVH]

OK, darn it! Hate to see it sitting unused but it didn't give me what I wanted. Builder was going to fit an 80 Amp BMS so they must be good for 4C or better. 5C rings a bell but I cannot find any info on it. I emailed him just so I will know.

 

[ma_sha1]

Here are some more info. on 20AH battery of this shape (7x6.5x3").
Tenergy is more reputable, and they stated 30A discharge. That leads me to believe the 20AH/40A rating on my battery is
overstated, which would explain why it didn't last under 30-35A discharge usage.

At the moment, this 24AH battery may be promising, slightly different shape, but close enough.
But it doesn't state max constant discharge rate, I don;t know how to translate CCA to that.
However, 24AH sounds better than 20AH, but I don;t know how much I can trust the claims:

 

[BVH]

Just as a final answer to the "C-rating" of the cells I have, they are good for 10C by themselves.

 

[ma_sha1]

I've also been digging deeper on the Phantom Motorcycle batteries. Turns out that
they sell three capacities for the size shell of 6.5x6.1x3.4 inches. 24AH 350 CCA, 27AH 405 CCA & 36AH version 540 CCA.
They are manufactured by Shorai: http://www.shoraipower.com/specs.html

Because they were marketed for motorcycle use & list only the CCA, I called to talk to Shorai, I was transferred to a specialist who appears to be very knowledgeable. He said the battery can support constant draw of approximately 25% of CCA ratings. 24AH 88Amp, 27AH 102Amp, 36AH version 135Amp. Which is a little over 3C (Not the cells, but the whole battery).

He said any of them should have no problem support my 35Amp draw application.Further more, he said if I draw the pack down below 12.8V (which I did) without BMS charging, it may cause the cell to drift apart, which is likely the reason why one of my 20AH cells got killed, not likely due to the amp draw.

I think I'll probably go with the 27AH version, with BMS charger Sho-BMS01 to ensure longevity.

 

[BVH]

Is there much of a diff in price for the 27 vrs the 36? As long as you're spending the funds, why not get the extra capacity which should increase or at least insure maximum charging cycles.

 

[ma_sha1]

Both weight & price go up quite a bit going to 36AH, I was thinking 24AH should be enough,
but still worried that mfg, might over state capacity, the 27AH price isn't too much more than the 24AH.

One thing I still need to double check is the thickness of the battery will fit, it's 0.4" thicker than the broken one,
good 10mm thicker, hope there's room in the case to fit that extra thickness.

 

[ma_sha1]

Back to work on the lights!

This battery pack is shared by Mega Blaster 110V AC & Swan Blaster 300V DC. I decide to separate the two & dedicate the re-build to Swan Blaster Use & have the Maga Blaster run om wall outlet for a while.

Mega blaster also need 12V for the fan but doesn't draw much power, so I decided to mount a 3x123 set-up to the side to power the fun.

Give it a test drive

With the Mega Blaster out the way, I can focus on re-building the portable power for 300V DC use.

Here is the portable power & its 20AH battery all taken apart::
To make room for the 12V DC to 300V DC inverter, the 120V AC inverter needs to go.

Now, pretty much everything related to the 120V AC set-up are taken out, it its place, the 300V DC inverter instead. The problem is, there is only room for exactly 3" Thick battery, the new battery I want to get is 3.4Inch, a good 10mm thicker.

Luckily, there are ridges on the left side of the shell, I shave them down.
This way, I should be able to fit the new thicker battery in....

The only thing left to do is to get the new battery & put it in

Gone shopping....

 

[ma_sha1]

Found the best deal for the 27AH version at twocycleguys.com

Battery:
Shorai Inc LFX27L3-BS12, ordered from Amazon.com

Shaorai BMS Charger Sho-BMS01, ordered from AtBatt.com

 

[jkpq45]

Interested and subscribed. Any updates?

 

[ma_sha1]

Not yet, I got the battery & BMS balance charger in but my kids turned me into playing Dungeon Defenders on Xbox, now I am obsessed, haven't work on my light for about 2 month.

I spent every minute of my spare time playing that game. My characters are almost good enough to do auto play, strap on some rubber bands on the controller trigger to go through insane+ levels unattended (Over & Over again to unlock good weapons) while I can free up some time to get this finished

 

[Davekan]

I have been using Shorai LFX14 in my cbr 600 for 2 years now and it has given me no problems. The thing is the way they rate their batteries capacity is to equivalent lead acid cold cranking. The
actual capacity of my size 14 is only 60 watt hours. So it is a 5 amp/hour. I do like the battery, but as I said you may want to run another in parallel if you need more run time.

Dave

 

[ma_sha1]

Final Update,
Or I suspect that this is it, finally, I am done . I was worried that I'd never finish this project before I quit the hobby.

Here is an internal picture of the new battery, seen to the right. The 12V to 300V DC Inverter to the left. lots of wires, but it's actually simplified over prior as I got rid of the 12V to 120V box, no need for 120V AC for the Swan Blaster alone, & I needed the extra room due to increased battery size to 27AH.

Test drive, to just to see if I miss wired anything, No, it fired right up, evrtything looks good

 

[LightSward]

Great lights! Do some beam shots together.

 

[Optiforms_Todd]

Thanks for the kind words, we try very hard to treat all projects with the same regard and in a reasonable time. As you mentioned we are happy to make custom reflectors and we do stock many different sizes as well. Appreciate the recommendation ma_sha1