[HN Gopher] Glubux's Powerwall (2016)
___________________________________________________________________
Glubux's Powerwall (2016)
Author : bentobean
Score : 338 points
Date : 2025-04-01 15:49 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (secondlifestorage.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (secondlifestorage.com)
| koolba wrote:
| 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.
| misnome wrote:
| Yeah, my first thought on reading the article was that it
| didn't detail his fire control systems..
| extrapickles wrote:
| 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.
| rtkwe wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| rtkwe wrote:
| He seems to be doing it fairly safely by having it housed
| in a building a whole 50m away from the main dwelling. A
| fire from there could spread to the house or elsewhere
| but it's no longer a metal fire so it's a lot easier to
| deal with and just contain the fire in/around the shed.
| I'd probably add a nice gravel buffer around it to help
| that and live in a reasonably well hydrated part of the
| country so there's not as big a fire risk from embers.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| Great if you are a skilled electrical engineer who owns a
| bunch of land somewhere that doesn't have any fire risk.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| They don't look tightly packed compared to the constraints of
| being inside laptops and phones where they are given
| millimetres to expand.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > 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.
| TheBlight wrote:
| Yeah wind has never been known to blow fires 50 meters.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Or toxic exhaust for that matter.
| timbit42 wrote:
| How do you know the prevailing wind direction in his
| location?
| PhunkyPhil wrote:
| How do you know that a favorable wind direction will
| eliminate the risk of a fire hazard?
| elif wrote:
| My thoughts as well, and that's coming from someone who sleeps
| directly above 2 powerwalls
| bee_rider wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Commercial solar home battery use safer battery chemistries
| which don't experience thermal runaway like lithium ion
| labtop batteries do..
| ge96 wrote:
| 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
| RajT88 wrote:
| 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.
| ge96 wrote:
| I'm not sure where, I've just seen some of his videos where
| he takes apart scooters
| tecleandor wrote:
| 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.
| silisili wrote:
| 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
| moffkalast wrote:
| 1000 years is pretty old for a battery, I'm surprised they still
| work /s
| dylan604 wrote:
| I wonder if we've had to re-learn how to make batteries like
| they did in the 11th century similar to how we had to re-learn
| the Roman concrete formula.
| thecosas wrote:
| Anyone have links to some of the actual posts this person made?
| The article is a bit light on actual details, sourcing, etc.
| beyond citing their username/alias.
| jerlam wrote:
| The link in the article to the forum is broken, here's the
| correct one:
|
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
| xnx wrote:
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
| twalla wrote:
| Link to the primary source because the article is light on
| details and has a broken link:
|
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
| thecosas wrote:
| Thank you for finding this :-)
| metadat wrote:
| Much better read than TFA, the submitted link seems written by
| an LLM with pronoun confusion, swapping between "he" and "it".
|
| The tail end of the thread is particularly interesting:
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
|
| I'm curious what prevents the whole contraption from certain
| eruption into flames over time:
|
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?attachments/image_rv...
| _(image)_
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| What's even better is that's an entire community of people
| doing this. Some of those power walls are astounding.
| due-rr wrote:
| The whole thread is so wholesome. Recommended reading :)
| dang wrote:
| We've since changed the URL (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43552105).
| hidelooktropic wrote:
| So not an April Fools joke?
| timbit42 wrote:
| Not unless it's an 8 year long one.
| scott113341 wrote:
| "I made 14 kWh more during lockdown"
|
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
|
| ^ has a wild picture of full setup
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Everything worth doing is worth over-doing. He should start
| doing mad scientist experiments and produce ball lightning, the
| amperage could be sufficient.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| That fire extinguisher looks ridiculously useless for a setup
| like this. Good thing it's a separate shed, at least.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| 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
| timewizard wrote:
| 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.
| dgfitz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I hear you and appreciate your point, I just don't think
| they're for me. Maybe when my kids are grown. Scary does
| t begin to describe what happens, the amount of energy is
| mind-boggling.
| function_seven wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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...
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| pftburger wrote:
| In other news: Man burns down house using 1k old laptop battery
| (cells)
|
| Thank the powers that be no one will give my neighbours a permit
| for that.
| downboots wrote:
| They should also have enough skill for a fire suppression
| system
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This is so dangerous, and not covered by insurance.
| function_seven wrote:
| All the best things in this world aren't covered by insurance
| :)
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I design hardware for a living, it's a objective fact.
| rsync wrote:
| I can only speak for the United States, but, generally,
| homeowners insurance "covers stupid" as they say in the biz..
| ianferrel wrote:
| >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.
| supportengineer wrote:
| There HAS to be a way to automate this process and make it work
| at scale.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| But will the scale justify the huge investment?
| joshvm wrote:
| 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?
| ianferrel wrote:
| 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.
| edaemon wrote:
| I'm pretty sure most industrial recycling methods for
| lithium batteries involve grinding them up, so pack size
| isn't as much a factor as sheer volume. I think there
| just wasn't much juice for the squeeze until demand from
| EVs made recycling worthwhile.
|
| Here's a video inside a recycling plant:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2xrarUWVRQ
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| >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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Cheaply made, not cheap to buy!"
| 0_____0 wrote:
| When battery packs that have a non-zero chance of
| literally killing your users are commonplace, it actually
| does make sense to vendor-lock the battery. Believe it or
| not there is actual engineering that goes into making
| batteries beyond spot welding them to an interconnect and
| stuffing them into $.50 of ABS enclosure.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The "actual engineering" you are referring to is a $1.00
| BMS board.
|
| We are well past the point where we should have
| standardized batteries. We have bunch of standardized
| wall outlets that accommodate an array of "non-zero
| chance of literally killing your users" end products. No
| reason for battery packs to not be standardized (other
| than vendor lock in).
| znpy wrote:
| > When battery packs that have a non-zero chance of
| literally killing your users are commonplace, it actually
| does make sense to vendor-lock the battery.
|
| Linus from Linus Tech Tips made a few episodes on
| building a battery out of individual 18650 cells, and one
| of the thing he stressed (as in, underlined) a lot on is
| that spot-welding cells is extremely dangerous and there
| aren't easy ways to put out a lithium fire.
|
| Water is not only not going to help you, it's going to
| make things worse.
|
| You __have__ to have a bucket of sand with you and if
| anything goes even slightly wrong you just toss
| everything in the bucket of sand and bring the whole
| bucket outside.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| 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.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I get that the trenchcoat needs to be well designed and
| tested, but I am still flat out amazed that you both
| agree with "meh, most battery packs are made up of
| rechargeable domestic batteries you find in a kids toy"
|
| I just assumed there was ... special stuff in there
| kadoban wrote:
| There's a lot of risk in creativity when you're selling
| crap to the public at scale. Way better to just use what
| everyone else is using.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| For a highly engineered battery like a premium EV, there
| are coolant channels, temp monitoring, voltage
| monitoring, etc.
|
| Soldering some connectors onto some random cells and
| knowing they shouldn't go over 4.2v is one thing, but
| measuring cell health via internal resistance,
| programming a controller to do temp shutoff and wiring up
| temp sensors, keeping cells balanced, is a lot of extra
| work, but critical if you at all care about not
| potentially burning down wherever they're stored.
|
| Keeping the cells small and just using a hundred of them
| in parallel (and a hundred of these parallel packs in
| series to get up to the hundreds of volts needed), thus
| using ~10,000 cells, in EV batteries limits the maximum
| damage from one cell going worst-case, assuming your
| enclosure can contain it.
|
| That being said, it seems there is a slow movement
| towards larger cells, from 18650 to 26650 or similar. But
| each cell on its own is still a dumb can of chemicals
| ready to go boom if you mistreat it.
| bmicraft wrote:
| There are some pretty huge cells now like the 4680s
| pests wrote:
| I used to joke with my buddy back when he first got his
| Tesla that we were driving around on "over 7000 vape
| batteries!", as that was the fad at the time and where
| most normal consumers recognized them.
| ericd wrote:
| Where would you put this battery in that trenchcoat
| gamut? Inside a server rack, fwiw.
| https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-v2-lithium-
| battery...
|
| Was definitely one of the harder parts of our solar
| install to get comfortable with.
| Shog9 wrote:
| Bigger, fewer, more chill cells, fairly robust
| trenchcoat.
|
| (IIRC, these packs are 16 100ah LiFePO4 cells in a steel
| case w/ built-in fuse, breaker, and BMS that monitors
| individual cell health and pack temperature, w/ automatic
| cut-off if any of that goes out of spec. The weakness is
| primarily the MOSFETs on the BMS potentially failing
| shorted. Fortunately, they've added some sort of
| additional fire suppression beyond just "steel case" in
| recent-ish versions of these packs)
| vel0city wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| 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.
| hermitShell wrote:
| 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.
| beAbU wrote:
| Yes, with cheap third world labour, the same way many other
| technological marvels of the modern era are "automated".
| harvey9 wrote:
| This can't be done remote so you will need to bring that
| labor to where the work is.
| kowabungalow wrote:
| There's already a pipeline sending old electronics to
| cheap labor for possible refurbishing, recycling and/or
| incorrect disposal. A small percentage they repackage
| into replacement laptop batteries and ship back, but they
| could also send more of them back as a value UPS with
| different value add parts.
|
| Personally, I expect there to be a massive conversion to
| USB-PD as the primary power in the cellphone only
| regions.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Does USB-PD mean USB power distribution ?
|
| And yeah - some LEDs and a usb wire around the ceiling
| solves lighting a house more sensibly than a three-phase
| converter under the stairs and enough power going through
| a light switch to kill me ...
| bmicraft wrote:
| It means USB Power Delivery and is a standard for
| negotiating custom-other-than-5V voltages from a USB
| Type-C power supply and communicating to the device how
| much current it is allowed to draw.
|
| It's why you can charge your phone with your laptops
| power brick without anything exploding, and why most
| laptops can charge (very slowly) from pretty underpowered
| phone chargers now.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Building large battery arrays out of old recycled cells
| does not require bringing the workers to the battery
| cells, any more than building iPhones requires you to
| bring the workers to where they mine ore. Large-scale
| product development often involves shipping materials and
| half-finished products around the world multiple times.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| There is a lot of liability in sticking your name on a hodge
| podge of random used lithium cells.
| dheera wrote:
| 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.
| tinbucket wrote:
| _Weight is not a factor for home energy storage, there is
| no need for lithium cells._
|
| That depends on your living situation. I live in a third-
| floor apartment, so weight is very definitely a factor.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Weight always is a factor since heavy batteries cost more
| to transport, period. It's always relevant, not least for
| the installation too.
| dheera wrote:
| We're talking on the order of millions of kilograms for
| the building materials that needed to be transported to
| build it. The batteries needed for backup power for its
| occupants won't come anywhere close to that, even at far
| lower energy density than lithium.
| dheera wrote:
| The apartment building can have unified power backup in
| its foundation/basement.
|
| If you reduce the energy density by a factor of 10, the
| weight for power backup needs will still be far lighter
| than the concrete.
| etskinner wrote:
| It seems unlikely that there's any practical chemical
| batteries with 0 fire risk.
|
| But I do think there should be home energy storage that
| doesn't involve chemical batteries. Where are all the
| pumped hydro, flywheels, and compressed air storage for
| consumer use?
| mulmen wrote:
| There's no perfectly safe energy storage. The danger
| comes from the concentration of energy. Water can cause
| flooding or you can drown in it. Flywheels can
| disintegrate into shrapnel. It's always risk management.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Currently, that is LiFePO4. It is cheaper than LiPo packs
| used in electronics, half the energy density, twice as
| many charge cycles, and doesn't burst into flame. The
| lithium is flammable but requires external ignition.
|
| Larger batteries, including some electric cars, have
| switched.
| bmicraft wrote:
| LiFePO4 (LFP) is overwhelmingly safe and cheap. Lithium
| isn't the problem here exactly.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You would never do this in a production product. You need
| batteries with similar internal impedances or undesirable
| things happen. This is the battery equivalent of the guy who
| welds two car front ends together and drives it around. It's
| cool and quirky but not a useful product for most people.
| jsight wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| speerer wrote:
| I enjoyed noticing that your percentage (1x10-13) was so
| precise that it excluded the man himself (he is 1 in
| 8x109).
|
| I don't want to detract from your point. I just wanted to
| appreciate the hyperbole.
| garciasn wrote:
| It's April Fools, so you have to pay close attention
| today; glad you caught my hilarious joke.
| jsight wrote:
| Sure, but it does get a lot simpler if you start from
| modules instead of cells. Nothing will get around the
| requirement to have electrical knowledge.
|
| Cost is always an issue. These rarely make sense from a
| pure $$ sense, as everything in electrical is expensive.
| You could burn up that $1000 budget just to get a
| subpanel installed.
|
| Usually the value proposition is some combination of
| savings, combined with the ability to backup critical
| loads. A generator could do that too, but a proper
| generator setup isn't cheap either, and it wouldn't save
| $$ at all. Battery solutions sometimes beat that.
| garciasn wrote:
| When I priced out solar, it was never sold as a backup
| solution; it was apparently intended as a 'sell back to
| grid' solution. To add a battery effectively doubled the
| cost.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| Unfortunately, that 'sell back to grid' price is often
| only a small fraction of the ~17 cent/kWh purchase price
| from the grid. The battery is less for backup but is
| instead to help make economic sense for your home, by
| storing the excess you produce when it is sunny...
| jsight wrote:
| When I had solar, ~10 years ago, it was similar. We had
| net metering, no batteries, and zero backup if the grid
| went down. This was in an area where that rarely happened
| anyway, so I didn't really care. It'd be easy to add
| batteries, though.
|
| But net metering is becoming less common, and if you
| can't sell to the grid at retail, then it'd make sense to
| store it locally. In some cases, it can also make sense
| to use batteries even without solar. A good sized battery
| can keep your refrigerator running for days, which is
| useful for areas prone to weather related outages. It can
| also easily fully power the electronics on a gas oven for
| a long time. And honestly, a big battery these days isn't
| even that expensive.
|
| And if that isn't enough, some batteries can be topped up
| with the power from a large battery EV. DCFC tends to
| come back before a lot of residential power, so this can
| be really useful.
| raincole wrote:
| Of course, but you will also 'scale' the safety implications.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Isn't the problem with parasitic charging? Suppose you had a
| bunch of used 18650 cells. To scale the electronics, they'll
| be wired up in parallel and/or series so the charging logic
| can be shared, but since the batteries are wildly mismatched,
| it results in parasitic charging.
| sightbroke wrote:
| That is why you sort them.
|
| Some recent research into that:
| https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-
| papers/content/20...
|
| You can also consider maintaining packs together to avoid
| complicated disassembling processes.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > maintaining packs together
|
| (This might already be happening, but I haven't heard
| about it) The big thing EVs need right now is
| standardized battery packs. It reduces replacement cost,
| takes away anxiety that a replacement will exist when you
| need it, and enables down-cycle uses like stationary
| storage.
| rolandog wrote:
| Standardizing battery packs would probably help with the
| automation; like with USB-C.
| numpad0 wrote:
| 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.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| $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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| adamhartenz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| t-3 wrote:
| Getting certified and hired as a skilled electrician is a
| lot more complicated and much harder than acquiring the
| knowledge to be a skilled electrician. There are many
| people working Target-level jobs with that level of skill
| in some area.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| That number was from 2016 is useful in determining if it
| was worth it but not useful if it will be worth it
| staring today as the number has changed in the
| intervening 9 years. The number will keep changing with
| an estimate of $80 kWh by 2030.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| It all comes down to what makes you happy.
| facile3232 wrote:
| > 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.
| pbasista wrote:
| > 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.
| fragmede wrote:
| > - 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.
| beacon294 wrote:
| 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.
| ianferrel wrote:
| 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.
| brador wrote:
| The parable of the fisherman and the banker:
|
| https://travis.vc/mexican-fisherman-parable/
|
| Sometimes the doing is the fun part.
| volkl48 wrote:
| 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.
| autobodie wrote:
| Now what?
| Cyphase wrote:
| The costs their parent mentioned are the costs now, not
| back when the system was originally built.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| It's likely just a statement of emphasis, though the
| correct usage would be something like, "now, something
| something something..." with a comma instead of a period
| neotek wrote:
| "Now" as in "all of those things are true now, but they
| weren't when this project started ten years ago."
| aftbit wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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...
| jamiek88 wrote:
| 13k or 1.3k?
| immibis wrote:
| 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.
| nottorp wrote:
| > A man powers home for eight years using a thousand old laptop
| batteries
|
| ... a single charge for each?
|
| And speaking of applications that are too smart for their own
| good, why does Firefox start a drag operation when I click on a
| link instead of allowing me to select the text?
| recursive wrote:
| A thousand old laptop batteries _and bunch of solar panels_. The
| headline is a touch nonsensical as-is.
| Sharlin wrote:
| I was thinking maybe he had a _very_ low-energy home.
| brewtide wrote:
| Somewhere in his posts I think I read that his house at
| 'idle' is drawing like 30watts. That seems pretty low energy
| to me!
| recursive wrote:
| Not low enough to run for 8 years without a recharge.
| louwrentius wrote:
| I would highly recommend not to go this route but to buy LFP
| prismatic cells. Much safer, stable chemistry that isn't as
| sensitive to heat.
|
| Look at Off Grid Garage (Andy) or Will Prowse YT channels for
| more info.
| EGreg wrote:
| Why not just dig a hole in the ground and make a gravity battery?
| Would be much more reusable without all the lithium garbage ...
| and also probably more efficient...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery
|
| And the most efficient way would probably be to just have credits
| with the rest of the city grid. Sell electricity to them when you
| have a surplus (from solar) and then pay for electricity when you
| need it. These credits are a lot more efficient than storing the
| actual electricity in a battery hehe
| tecleandor wrote:
| But how expensive would be to dig a, I don't know, 1000 by 6
| feet hole in the ground? I have no idea of an equivalent
| gravity battery...
| thfuran wrote:
| The average US household uses about 10,000 kwhr per year.
| That's roughly equivalent to the gravitational energy of
| dropping ten tons down a 200 mile hole.
| numpad0 wrote:
| holes in the ground are just wells, and gravity batteries are
| just dams. don't reinvent the square wheels, please...
| passive wrote:
| My sad brain keeps insisting this headline contains the phrase
| "thousand year old laptop batteries", which said brain also
| assures me is impossible.
| not_a_bot_4sho wrote:
| I came here to either find this comment, or make it myself.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Your brain is not alone.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Something tells me his home insurance agent didn't know about
| this.
| system2 wrote:
| I like how the article only shows a blurry RC battery charging
| station instead of the real stuff he did.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I wonder if there is a more practical tutorial to route a power
| generator into the house with sort of a power switch. I don't
| know the exact phrase but basically I can route a few things like
| the fridge or the lights to this switch so they switch to the
| generator when there is an outage.
|
| I know it can be done because I asked an electrician. But I
| dropped the idea when he said it could cost a lot (if done by a
| professional).
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| This is not difficult - you need to dedicate a few circuits
| (cables) and have them end on the generator (or UPS for some).
| It requires planning but the cost is not especially high (more
| cables must be used)
| ferguess_k wrote:
| Thanks. I think I got the name of the device, it's called ATS
| (Automatic Transfer Switch). Is this the things I should
| install?
| eldaisfish wrote:
| take the other person's advice - get an electrician.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| > I know it can be done because I asked an electrician. But I
| dropped the idea when he said it could cost a lot (if done by a
| professional).
|
| If you have to ask, this is absolutely not the sort of work you
| should do yourself. Use a licensed electrician.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Hire an electrician please, I sell and run electrical work and
| a generator installation is not something you should take on
| yourself.
|
| If you want to have a few electrical loads on a generator
| backed panel, you have an electrician install the generator,
| automatic transfer switch, and a subpanel that is fed by the
| automatic transfer switch, which is fed by both utility power
| (from a breaker in your main electrical panel) and generator
| power. If you're using natural gas or propane to power the
| generator, a pipe fitter will need to run the gas line.
|
| Then you tell the electrician to move the circuits you wanted
| backed by a generator from your main panel to the subpanel fed
| by the ATS. The subpanel receives power from the utility until
| the ATS detects an outage, which fires up the generator and
| transfers the power feeding the subpanel to the generator.
|
| Generators can use gasoline, diesel, natural gas, or propane,
| or a combination of any of the aforementioned fuels. Ideally
| you'd have a multi fuel generator hooked up to a natural gas
| utility with a backup propane tank in case the natural gas
| service goes down.
|
| You can also get a whole house generator and have the ATS feed
| your existing electrical panel, you'll need a 24kW 120/240V for
| a 100A service or 48kW 120/240V for a 200A service
|
| I'd recommend a Generac generator if you do get one, Costco
| sells them and will connect you with an installer.
|
| If you want to get crazy, you could add a 50kva single-phase
| 120/240V UPS and the UPS would keep the power on while the
| generator starts up but that would be serious overkill (and
| tens of thousands of dollars).
| yapyap wrote:
| That is gangster!
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| 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.
| elicash wrote:
| 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."
| Kaytaro wrote:
| The 2nd quote is when I realized this article was written or
| assisted by AI. Not that it's a big deal, that's our world now.
| But it's interesting to notice the subtle 'accent' that gives it
| away.
| dartos wrote:
| What about it gives off the AI smell to you?
| endtime wrote:
| Nice try, ChatGPT.
|
| More seriously, for me it's the "likely".
| ziddoap wrote:
| Using "likely" is indicative of AI now...?
|
| Absurd.
|
| The only thing as annoying as people using AI and passing
| it off as their own writing is the people who claim
| everything written not exactly how they are used to is AI.
| cyral wrote:
| > 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 is obviously AI. The writer should know that it
| either required manual labor or it did not, not maybe (AI
| loves to not "commit" to an answer and rather say
| maybe/likely). It also loves to loop in some vague claim
| about X being effective, sustainable, ethical, etc
| without providing any information as to WHY it is.
|
| That and it being published on some blog spam website
| called techoreon.
|
| Edit: For fun, I had o1-mini produce an article from the
| original source (Techspot it looks like), and it produced
| a similar line:
|
| > This ingenious approach likely required significant
| manual effort and technical expertise, but the results
| speak for themselves, as evidenced by the system's eight-
| year flawless operation.
|
| What these sites are doing is rewriting articles from
| legitimate sources, and then selling SEO backlinks to
| their "news" website full of generated content (and
| worthless backlinks). It's how all those scammy fiverr
| link services work
| ziddoap wrote:
| At least this is a better effort at explaining why you
| would believe it is AI than the other poster who just
| says it's AI because they used the word "likely".
|
| I still find it very annoying that in every thread about
| a blog post there's someone shouting "AI!" because
| there's an em dash, bullet points, or some common
| word/saying (e.g. "likely", "crucially", "in
| conclusion"). It's been more intrusive on my life than
| actual AI writing has been.
|
| I've been accused of using AI for writing because I have
| used parenthesis, ellipses, various common words, because
| I structured a post with bullet points and a conclusion
| section, etc. It's wildly frustrating.
| cyral wrote:
| > because I structured a post with bullet points and a
| conclusion section
|
| I do understand that this is frustrating, because in the
| last few months I see posts with these features
| everywhere. It's especially a problem on reddit, where
| there are numerous low effort posts in niche subreddits
| that are overdone with emojis, bolded sections/titles,
| and em dashes. Not all of these are AI but an
| overwhelming majority are to the point where if the
| quality of the content is low (lots of vague sayings),
| and it exhibits these traits, I can almost say for
| certain it's AI.
|
| What is also less talked about is now AI models are
| beginning to write without exhibiting these issues. I've
| been playing around with GPT 4o and it's deep research
| feature writes articles that are extremely well written,
| not exhibiting the traits above or classic telltale AI
| signs. I also had a friend ask it to write a fictional
| passage on a character description and the writing was
| impeccable (which is depressing because it was better
| than what she wrote). Soon we are not going to have any
| clue what is real and what isn't.
| fragmede wrote:
| The kids ask ChatGPT to rewrite it using the diction of a
| 9 year old, so it doesn't look like it was AI generated.
| If you have a big enough corpus of writing, you could use
| yourself as the input style to emulate. Unfortunately I
| think we're going to has get over generated vs not as the
| technology improves. we'll have to judge a work based on
| its own merits and not use any tells. Quelle horrer!
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _What is also less talked about is now AI models are
| beginning to write without exhibiting these issues._
|
| It will be great when I continue to write the way I have
| for decades, continuing to be accused of being AI, while
| actual AI writing exceeds my ability and isn't accused of
| being AI.
|
| Get me off this ride.
| zahlman wrote:
| As someone who "detects" AI frequently: it's often
| difficult or impossible to explain where the sense comes
| from. It can be very much a matter of intuition, but of
| course it's awkward to admit that publicly. I don't fault
| others for coming up with an overly simple explanation.
| buttercraft wrote:
| How do you know how accurate you are? How do you know
| when you're wrong?
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| I think this is an excellent question and one people
| should be asking themselves frequently. I often get the
| impression that commenters have not considered this.
|
| For example, whenever someone on the internet makes a
| claim about "most x", e.g. most people this, most
| developers that. What does anyone actually know about
| "most" anything? I think the answer "pretty much
| nothing".
| cyral wrote:
| Yes, this is an important point. Insert the survivorship
| bias plane picture that always gets posted when someone
| makes this mistake on other platforms (Twitter). We can
| be accurate at detecting poor AI writing attempts, but
| not know how much AI writing is good enough to go
| undetected.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Someone should run a double blind test app, there was an
| adversarially crafted one for images and still got 60% or
| so average accuracy. We all just can glance the data and
| detect AI generation like how some experts can just let
| logs run and say something.
| zahlman wrote:
| If I'm being entirely honest, in the general case _I don
| 't_.
|
| But I don't particularly care, either. After a couple
| tries I decided it's better not to point at object
| examples of suspected LLM text all the time (except e.g.
| to report it on Stack Overflow, where it's against the
| rules and where moderators will use actual detection
| software etc. to try to verify). But I still notice that
| style of writing instinctively, and it still
| automatically flips a switch in my brain to approach the
| content differently. (Of course, even when I'm confident
| that something was written by a human, I still e.g. try
| to verify terminal commands with the man pages before
| following instructions I don't understand.)
|
| Of course, AI writes the way it does for a reason. More
| worryingly, it increasingly seems like (verifiably) human
| writers are mimicking the style - like they see so much
| AI-generated text out there that sounds authoritative,
| that they start trying to use the same rhetorical
| techniques in order to gain that same air of authority.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Exposure to AI output itself triggers and trains rage
| response in lots of people. Blame AI for it, regular
| people have no control over.
|
| Asking for cause or thought processes is just asking them
| to hallucinate. They don't know why, they just know that
| they saw it and that it deserves hate.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I've been approached to build a few of these sites now.
| No thanks.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > (AI loves to not "commit" to an answer and rather say
| maybe/likely)
|
| Well fuck, I might very well be an AI, then ;)
| mrguyorama wrote:
| LLMs had way more "average internet commenter" training
| material than it had "good journalism" training material.
|
| Keep that in mind when people make them write journalism.
| It's like at an 8th grade level, maybe.
| drysine wrote:
| It's likely.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| Techspot:
|
| >However, in this ingenious setup, Glubux took those
| individual cells and assembled them into their own
| customized racks - a process that likely required a fair
| bit of elbow grease and technical know-how, but one that
| has ultimately paid off in spades.
|
| Either this is also AI, or saying that it likely required
| a lot of manual labor is not indicative
| cyral wrote:
| I wasn't going to get into that but I got the same
| feeling about the techspot article ironically
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| But using "likely" _is_ obviously AI in this context, or
| at least it 's really, really shitty reporting.
|
| This is supposed to be a news article, not someone who's
| hypothesizing about something that could have been. I
| mean, it either required a great deal of manual labor and
| technical knowledge or it didn't - no guessing should be
| required. If the author doesn't know, they can do proper
| research or simply ask the subject.
|
| FWIW this article didn't immediately scream AI to me
| either, until the commenter pointed out the use of
| "likely". When you think about it, it absolutely becomes
| a fingerprint of AI _in this context_ - it 's not just
| that "likely" anywhere means it's AI.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Your inability to tell when things are AI doesn't mean
| other people can't.
|
| Same phenomenon happens all the time with food or wine.
| One person thinks everyone is making up the subtle flavor
| profile comments and sneers at them. Everyone who can
| tell rolls their eyes. You can't convince someone that
| there's something they can't perceive besides just
| telling them.
|
| I've had this experience with records: as a kid I rolled
| my eyes at people wanting to listen to music on vinyl
| cause obviously it was the same; as my hearing has
| improved I have found I can clearly tell the difference
| and definitely prefer it.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Your inability to tell when things are AI doesn 't
| mean other people can't._
|
| I didn't even comment on whether this article is AI or
| not. My point is that it is absurd to point at a single
| word as proof of something being written by AI.
| ajkjk wrote:
| well it's that phrase, not just the word, although the
| word is a tell. And it's not absurd. It is absurd to
| think it's absurd. You are being ignorant.
| ziddoap wrote:
| It's absurd to think a single word (the comment didn't
| even say phrase), or even a single phrase, is evidence of
| AI.
|
| > _" If it's interesting and/or you already have a
| relationship, which their publisher _likely_ does, it's
| pretty easy to get an article written."_
|
| Woah, you must be AI. You used "and/or" and "likely"!
| (See how absurd that is?)
| realprimoh wrote:
| this part: "key to making the system work effectively and
| sustainably".
| zahlman wrote:
| Because it's presenting a bunch of smooth prose that utterly
| fails at logical continuity.
|
| 1. What point is the author trying to make? Leading off
| "Glubux even began" implies that the effort was extraordinary
| in some way, but if this action was "key to making the system
| work effectively and sustainably" then it can't really have
| been that extraordinary. The writing is confused between
| trying to make the effort sound exceptional vs. giving a
| technical explanation of how the end result works.
|
| 2. _Why_ , exactly, would "removing individual cells and
| organizing them into custom racks" be "key to making the
| system work effectively and sustainably"?
|
| 3. How is the system's effectiveness related to its
| sustainable operation; why should these ideas be mentioned in
| the same breath?
|
| 4. Why is the author confident about the above points, but
| unsure about the level of "manual labor and technical
| knowledge" that would be required?
|
| Aside from that, overall it just reads like what you'd expect
| to find in a high school essay.
|
| Edit: after actually taking a look at TFA, another thing that
| smells off to me is the way that bold text is used. It seems
| very unnatural to me.
| kubb wrote:
| How can you even tell?
| Vegenoid wrote:
| I'm not on board with accepting AI-written articles. This is an
| article with little to no human input, farming clicks for ad
| revenue, that doesn't even link to the forum post, which is far
| more interesting and has pictures:
| https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
|
| The article contains little detail, and has lots of filler like
| the quote in the parent comment. It's highly upvoted on HN's
| front page, which is surprising to me because I think there is
| quite a bit of distaste here for low-effort content to drive
| clicks.
|
| The thing the article is referencing _is_ interesting, but the
| article is trash.
| facile3232 wrote:
| > I'm not on board with accepting AI-written articles.
|
| I haven't been on board with the "journalism" of the last
| fifty years, but this hasn't exactly prompted it to improve.
| Newspapers still have advertisements. Subscribers still have
| no say over editorial staff. The board still has say over the
| editorial staff. It's all fucked unless we can punt private
| ownership out of the equation.
| organsnyder wrote:
| What changed fifty years ago? You're pointing out issues
| that have existed for centuries.
| namaria wrote:
| 80% of everything is crap. This isn't a very insightful
| position to take. One of the reasons I like Hacker News is
| it helps me find good stuff to read. Which this article
| isn't. So I will respectfully rebuff your rebuttal.
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| @dang, maybe we can get the link updated? This forum post is
| better in every way
| dang wrote:
| Agreed. We changed the URL to the original source from
| https://techoreon.com/a-man-powers-home-8-years-laptop-
| batte..., and banned the latter site. Thanks!
|
| Edit: We also changed the title (submitted title was "A man
| powers home for eight years using a thousand old laptop
| batteries")
| immibis wrote:
| I think a giveaway is:
|
| > This task, which likely required a great deal of manual labor
| and technical knowledge
|
| If you were a human writing this, you might consider asking the
| man how much labour and knowledge the task took. Writing AIs
| don't ask questions.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43549073 (after changing
| the URL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43552105)
| zeroq wrote:
| modern day coal mining
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Aside from the obvious fire risk, is this approaching the size
| where one would have to be concerned about arc flash?
| neuroelectron wrote:
| This is silly and clearly fake.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| A man powers home via _solar panels and_ a thousand old laptop
| batteries. Makes a big difference! My first thought on seeing
| headline here was confusion, I thought maybe he was using
| residual charge from used laptop batteries or something.
| dang wrote:
| We've since changed both the URL and the title (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43552105)
| hoockernews wrote:
| _scott 's tots groan_... but wait they're lithium!
| jms703 wrote:
| These April Fool's jokes are getting ridiculous. Almost had me
| for a moment.
| djmips wrote:
| Slop
| blatantly wrote:
| Don't try this at home kids. I'd at least keep those batteries at
| least in a dedicated steel structure 100m from the house.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| 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.
| reassess_blind wrote:
| Phones and laptops were not capable enough 15 years ago for
| what we expect of them today.
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| 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.
| bsoles wrote:
| I am a DIY electronics enthusiast, but the Internet made me
| scared of line power applications.
|
| If one of those batteries develops a short circuit and the house
| catches fire, no insurance company on Earth would pay for
| damages, so they say.
| gridder wrote:
| .
| jakonl wrote:
| 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:
|
| https://vrm.victronenergy.com/installation/13552/dashboard
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