Makita Power

[Cisco-man]

Hi.

i’ve been mulling over using my Makita batteries to power the bike for a bit of fun, so here’s the result. Four makita 5.0Ahr packs in series/parallel, hopefully giving something near 10Ahr at 36V. It weighs just over 3kg, and cost about £250 all-in - although I already had the batteries. A 30A Schottky diode and a 30A fuse protects each bank from reverse current flow, etc.

 

[AntonyC]

A nice neat job but beyond about 6A the diodes will probably need a heatsink and luckily there's plenty of space.

30SQ050 Schottky Diodes

en.sekorm.com

 

[AndyBike]

Bloody good idea, and something I've wondered about myself, given I've 4x 2ah,2x3ah and 2x4ah Bosch pro batteries, plus multiple chargers, so it would only take an hour to fully charge all of them.

Hope this works out for you

 

[saneagle]

Bloody good idea, and something I've wondered about myself, given I've 4x 2ah,2x3ah and 2x4ah Bosch pro batteries, plus multiple chargers, so it would only take an hour to fully charge all of them.

Hope this works out for you

It's sort of a good idea, and it's a nice little project, but you have to ask if it's worth it when you can buy a reasonably good ready made 36v 10Ah battery for about £150 that has a proper BMS in it and weighs about 1kg less, and you get an extra charger too.

 

[Cisco-man]

A nice neat job but beyond about 6A the diodes will probably need a heatsink and luckily there's plenty of space.

30SQ050 Schottky Diodes

en.sekorm.com

Yes, agreed. That’s why I used terminal block to attach the diode - so I could observe and improve if required. As you say, plenty of space to do that.

 

[Cisco-man]

It's sort of a good idea, and it's a nice little project, but you have to ask if it's worth it when you can buy a reasonably good ready made 36v 10Ah battery for about £150 that has a proper BMS in it and weighs about 1kg less, and you get an extra charger too.

Again, agreed. It only works out if you already have a number of these power tool batteries already. If it does work effectively then it does mean I can rationalise my battery stock and not have loads of different batteries and chargers. I’m now only a recreational biker and having either Swytch or Makita batteries means I can put them in my backpack when I get somewhere and not worry about carrying so stored up energy! They are very much made with safety in mind.