How to build a lithium ion electric bike battery pack from recovered used laptop batteries. Save hundreds of dollars by salvaging 18650 li-ion cells from used or even dead laptop batteries bought off eBay.
My pack is 24 volt 20AH which should hopefully provide a 30-45 mile range per charge on my ebike (and cost less than $150 dollars). In the video I show you how to calculate the capacity, then wire and test the completed battery.
When we stopped drinking soda 5 years ago, we wanted to make seltzer water at home. This was before the SodaStream was popular, so I made my own carbonated water maker that connected a co2 tank to a 2 liter bottle.
When we moved back to florida, we never bought another co2 tank, but we dreamed about having club soda on tap. Today we made that dream a reality. We bought a used soda fountain carbonator and installed it under our sink. Now we have unlimited seltzer water whenever we want!
A quick video about microwave oven transformers (MOT) and how I plan to salvage one to make a DIY spot welder and electromagnet.
This is the introduction to a new series about the electric bike I’m converting to run on a homemade lithium-ion battery pack made from old laptop batteries (18650 cells).
Lauren asked me how I learned to build things after our jewelry organizer video. I didn’t have a good answer. I’ve just been slowly acquiring skills in carpentry, mechanics, electronics, and design my whole life.
As best I can remember, these are the 4 stages that every DIYer has to go through before their projects turn out “better than buying.”
Our question to you is: Do you think anyone is capable of turning a wrench or pounding a hammer? Or are some people just not able to take care of things themselves?
I swear Alex is able to compound, buff, polish, and wax some of the crappiest cars back to life. He recently bought a 1995 Honda Civic for $900 and I thought it would be the perfect time for him to teach me (and you) how to do it.
The results were a bit underwhelming…We still had a lot of fun, and the information is still accurate. If you’re thinking about getting your own car detailing kit together, you can do it for under $100 bucks.
The car really did look a lot better in person and he probably added $500 dollars of value to the car, just by cleaning it up. It just wasn’t the extreme transformation I was hoping for in the video.
I?ve talked before about how I don?t have a lot of clothes, but I do like to accessorize what I have to keep it looking fresh. I ended up collecting a plethora of costume necklaces, and they all just got piled up on my dresser and looked like a huge mess. I started looking for something to hang them on, but anything I found just cost too much to justify buying. So in the meantime I started hanging all the necklaces on a clothes hanger in my closet just to keep them out of the way.
A few months of this went by, and my necklaces were still getting in a jumbled mess that I would have to pull apart every time I wanted to wear one.
Mike of course is very handy, but I am not. I decided I wanted to change that and asked him if he would help to teach me some wood working skills, and he was totally on board. I looked up a few pictures online and found an idea for a cabinet that I really liked on Ana White?s website (https://ana-white.com/2012/06/plans/wall-jewelry-cabinet). Mike liked it too, but made a few adjustments to it to make it our own.
Unfortunately, the day we selected to do this ended up being a bit busy. We had to squeeze the project into a two and a half hour window between teaching in the morning and a bridal shower in the afternoon. Mike was a total trooper and gathered all the supplies and tools needed and was ready to get to work as soon as I got there. The two and a half hours weren?t enough to get everything done, so Mike had to finish up the door to the cabinet after I left. Even though I didn?t get to do a ton of work, I really enjoyed helping Mike and learning the processes needed for a project like this.
And it also doesn?t hurt that I LOVE the finished product!
All the cool kids are drinking Moscow Mules. But they?re supposed to be served in copper cups, which are expensive. Here?s how to make your own DIY copper cups with nothing more than 3/4 inch copper pipe. You can buy all of the materials for about $3 per cup from the hardware store, or find scrap metal and make them cheap or free.
I?ve never done any sort of copper or sheet metal fabrication so this is about what you can expect if you?re a beginner. Overall I?m happy with the results. The hardest part was learning to solder or ?sweat? the parts together.
Our Moscow Mule recipe is 2oz vodka and 4oz ginger beer. These cups ended up about 7 ounces which are perfect.
Recommended Video – Vintage Knife Blade Light Switch
Looking for the ultimate car buying guide? This probably isn’t it. This is just our opinion about the best used car you can buy and how much you should pay for it. Are all dealers scams? What about the craigslist killer?
We quickly review consumer report’s most reliable cars and then talk about where to buy one. We include 4 tips and tricks for buying a used car from a dealer without getting ripped off.
BONUS INFO:
We want to start adding more information about each video in our blog posts, so this video will be our first attempt at that.
Are the best deals really on craigslist? Something that didn’t make the video was the fact that I actually have my dealers license in the state of Florida. We got it when we were buying and selling motorcycles last year, but never used it for cars. But, it did give me access to the auctions that all the car dealers buy their cars from. And I actually bought Lauren a Honda Insight when we got back from Europe to see what the process was like.
You can imagine the excitement and chaos on the auction floor as 5 rows with hundreds of cars crept through the building all at once. Each lane had an auctioneer just like you hear on TV, all competing with each other over the loudspeaker.
To my disappointment, all of the cars were being sold for just about exactly their KBB trade in value. Not only that, but most of the cars “sent to auction” were the junkers that dealers had a hard time selling on their lot.
Fortunately, the auction I went to had a “lane” for off-lease Hondas. They were mostly late model civics and accords in excellent shape. We paid $12,000 for our Insight, and then an additional “fee” of $475 on top of it. The trade in value was $12,000. I went inside and paid cash on the spot.
Lauren drove the car for a few months and then we sold it for $12,000 and bought the Prius for $6,000 off craigslist. Comparing those 2 cars, it’s easy to see which was the better deal. At the auction we spent $475 over trade-in, on craigslist we spent $3,000 UNDER trade-in value.
Yes it’s convenient to have a stream of hundreds of cars all in one place for you to choose from. But, if I couldn’t beat a craigslist deal at a dealer auction, there’s no way you’ll beat it once a dealer tacks on all the profit and fees.
What is the best camera for making videos or vlogging on Youtube? Both the Sony RX100M3 and the Canon G7X have great video quality, flip out selfie screens, and fit in your pocket.
Although we ended up returning both cameras for unrelated reasons, I think the canon is the best all around fully automatic pocket video camera for YouTube. But there are some limitations, and the Sony RX100iii excels in a few areas.
Which camera did you enjoy watching more? Most of the video was recorded with a Canon 70D, 18-55 kit lense, and a Rode Videomic Pro.
All footage (including the 70D) is not graded, corrected, or altered in any way. Both the G7X and RX100M3 were used with automatic focus and white balance settings.
There’s only a handful of DIY projects I don’t like doing. Drywall finishing, window tint, and carpet installation. But I’ll still do them to save some money. After today, I’m never going to attempt one particular project again. Tire installation.
I ruined my scooter rim this morning because I didn’t want to pay the 20 bucks to have my new tire mounted by the professionals.
From now on I’ll be buying my tires online and taking the rims and tires to a professional to be mounted.
