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0_____004/01/20252 repliesview on HN

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.


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Workaccount204/01/2025

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).

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znpy04/01/2025

> 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.

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