Hacker Builds His Own Version of the Tesla Powerwall

In 2015, Tesla announced their Powerwall power storage system. While the Powerwall didn’t generate the kind of excitement that Tesla cars…

Cameron Coward
6 years ago

In 2015, Tesla announced their Powerwall power storage system. While the Powerwall didn’t generate the kind of excitement that Tesla cars have, the idea is actually very good. Essentially, it’s a huge battery pack designed for homes. If you rely heavily on solar power, it can store that electricity to get you through the night. It can also help you endure power outages, and provide quick-charging for electric cars. Unfortunately, you just can’t get a new Powerwall right now, but you can follow Jehu Garcia’s lead and build your own.

As you’d imagine, most of the money and labor for a project like this goes into the batteries themselves. It takes a lot of power to keep your home running, and, if you want to keep going through the night without drawing from the grid, you’re going to need a lot of amp hours on hand. The cheapest way to build a large rechargeable battery pack is to combine hundreds — or even thousands — of small 18650 lithium-ion batteries. Those can be purchased for less than $1 each, but you still need a way to connect them all together.

Many people choose to spot-weld the batteries, or use solder or bus bars. But, Garcia took a different approach and combined multiple cheap battery holders. Those battery holders are the same type you’d use for something like a small robot, and each one holds seven 18650 cells. For his tests, Garcia combined four of the holders to end up with a total of 28 cells. With that, he was able to crank out 17.5 amps at 23.6 volts, for a total of about 413 watts. That’s enough to keep the average desktop PC going, and more cells can be added for larger scale use.

Cameron Coward
Writer for Hackster News. Proud husband and dog dad. Maker and serial hobbyist.
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