Battery Pack From Old Laptop

Make a 3S battery from old Laptop Battery

I needed a battery for my gimbal, and wanted to make it as small as possible and still have enough power to run the gimbal properly. The top bar of the gimbal is an old carbon bike handlebar. And I thought it would be cool to have the battery inside that. So that meant that i had to find some round batteries that would fit inside the handlebar.

I found a old defect laptop battery, and took i apart.

This one was from and old Lenovo, 9 Cell. My plan was to use as many as possible, but could only fit 3 in series to make a 3S battery.

I then seperated the cells. And was careful not short them.

The voltage on a NRC18650 cell should not be under 3.0v. The cells i used messured 3.6v so they should be fine to use.

The 3 cells are wired like the diagram above so i have the possibilty to balance the cells, thou this require a charger that can do that.

My plan was to use a Battery Protection Board (BMS). So i can use other power sources. this protect the cell from discharging below a certain voltage and also from overcharging. Some of the board can also balance the cells.

Doradus 12.6V 8A w/Balance is the one i was thinking of ordering, but for now i’m testing to see if the battery exceeds my needs for the gimbal.

The charger was set to balance the batteries. And when it was done all the cells voltage was on 4.2V each which is perfect. It’s working which is great now i can begin to install them in my gimbal. Which is going to be a challenge.

I have to mention that i am no expert on Li-ion batteries, the information i have on this is what i could find around the internet. But if you have any questions i will try to answer.

If you want to follow my progress on my gimbal you can take a look at this YouTube playlist. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5KFJk7C88CyACT3uYYr-Nyx273IVfg3U or the articles on this blog.