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Its actually quite debatable whether its worth building your own battery bank with discrete components now that many DIY kits now exist on the likes of Alliexpress and Fogstar, etc. But there is a bit of pride designing and setting it up as you want and makes it easier for maintenance. At Nowty Towers I did not think there was any room left in the battery cave but its surprising how a small amount of space can be enough for a good sized additional battery bank.

The current Nowty Towers battery cave consists of 9 x Pylontech US2000's (21.6kWh) and 10 x 4.8kW (48kWh) second hand growatt battery modules.
More info about them here,
https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... =14&t=1013


Do I need more capacity ?, probably not, but recently I found a small empty space measuring 1.5m x 0.5m at the end of the battery cave.



It needed a bit of clearing out.



Thats better, clean and level. Now I reckon I can get 32 x 280Ah (28kWh) LFP cells in there.



More to follow..............

Spoiler Alert................

The battery frame is going to look like this as already previewed in another of my threads.


I've designed it, mostly in my head, I very rarely write stuff down except on here.

I've decided to go for compression of the cells to the 300kg force specification of modern prismatic cells to maximise cell cycle life. Thats quite a lot but if you put too much force on you reduce the battery cycle rate in a similar way if you don't use compression.

So I have decided to use springs with a calibrated amount of compression to get the initial force correct. I've tried to make this as easy as possible for folk to copy, so as much as possible I used off the shelf stuff with the minimum amount of cutting and drilling. For example the base is a premium Wickes Deckboard.
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Pro-Tim ... m/p/294349
Feck its now on offer, that cost me £5 more last week.

I will go through the whole process with links to where you can buy most of the stuff.

nowty wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 8:32 pm Spoiler Alert................

The battery frame is going to look like this as already previewed in another of my threads.


I've designed it, mostly in my head, I very rarely write stuff down except on here.

I've decided to go for compression of the cells to the 300kg force specification of modern prismatic cells to maximise cell cycle life. Thats quite a lot but if you put too much force on you reduce the battery cycle rate in a similar way if you don't use compression.

So I have decided to use springs with a calibrated amount of compression to get the initial force correct. I've tried to make this as easy as possible for folk to copy, so as much as possible I used off the shelf stuff with the minimum amount of cutting and drilling. For example the base is a premium Wickes Deckboard.
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Pro-Tim ... m/p/294349
Feck its now on offer, that cost me £5 more last week.

I will go through the whole process with links to where you can buy most of the stuff.

Come the final build I'd run a secondary nut up to lock onto the primary. Looking forward to see it it all.

How much did you pay for the cells? Are they en route?

Stinsy wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 8:54 pm How much did you pay for the cells? Are they en route?

Its a bit of an ongoing saga, partly my fault through changing my mind, then what I wanted is suddenly out of stock, then I'm offered others and now they might be out of stock or maybe they will arrive early next week. I don't want to say definitively what I ordered, who from and cost until they actually arrive.

Really looking forward to watching the progress with the expansion plans, and whilst agree you do have some great capacity already im sure you could easily use a tad more in the grimmer months, like us all.

I remember wading through all the threads on here when i first joined, major overload of my feeble brain and abilities with all the talent presented as i sought to secure my wifes furture from our basic FIT system. Cannot thank enough for the hints tips and steers even when i was talking total rollocks in confusion with what i thought was happening and what i thought i was (not at all) understanding.

A nice new additional thread for the far less talented like me will be a joy to relearn the bits and bobs that i have managed to pick up, so looking forward to reading immensley.

Besides, its clearly in your 'blood' and something you revell in so i say go for it 101% and enjoy!

nowty wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 9:02 pm

Stinsy wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 8:54 pm How much did you pay for the cells? Are they en route?

Its a bit of an ongoing saga, partly my fault through changing my mind, then what I wanted is suddenly out of stock, then I'm offered others and now they might be out of stock or maybe they will arrive early next week. I don't want to say definitively what I ordered, who from and cost until they actually arrive.

OK, I've had confirmation my cells are arriving here at Nowty Towers tomorrow, should have been here today but a delivery driver has gone sick. I've bought the Envision 280Ah Grade B cells from Fogstar. I've bought 32 of them for £1,672 including VAT and delivery, so thats £52.25 each. If your buying anything from Fogstar don't forget to use code "GET5OFF" to get another 5% off their published prices.
https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/l ... ll-grade-b

Several on here have bought them and seem to be happy with them. Pudding has got some recently and they looked fine with no bulging, picture here of his cells, from his recent battery build,


From this thread,
https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... =14&t=3565

Think this is going to be another good thread!

Would be helpful to me and others I’m sure if you could provide some info on things like your end plates, springs etc if you don’t mind I’m sure it will be a great resource for future battery builders!

AGT wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 7:21 pm Think this is going to be another good thread!

Would be helpful to me and others I’m sure if you could provide some info on things like your end plates, springs etc if you don’t mind I’m sure it will be a great resource for future battery builders!

Patience, all relevant details will be revealed in good time.

Good man!