‘I started collecting them, and now I have over 650’ - Since 2016, a hobbyist has been powering his house with old laptop batteries
A whole lot of old batteries and a dream. How one man built a self-sustaining power system.
Reddit isn’t the only place to share your wild ideas, cool inventions, or crazy thrift store bargains. There are tons of niche online forums dedicated to specific hobbies – like Second Life Storage, where a community is all about repurposing old energy storage devices instead of letting them end up in landfills. Yeah, it’s a pretty specific interest, but there’s one post from 2016 that’s been going strong and is definitely worth checking out.
Recycling at its best
Restoring vintage furniture or PlayStation relics is one thing, but using old laptop batteries to power your whole house? That's next level – and that's exactly what Second Life Storage user, Glubux, did.
In a thread started back in 2016, Glubux explained how he connected 1.4 kW of solar panels to a forklift battery, then hooked it up to a charge controller with 650 old batteries. To make it all work efficiently, he also needed a voltage reducer and an inverter. With this setup, he was able to power his house’s appliances.
Now that’s what I call an impressive and productive hobby.Source: Glubux, secondlifestorage.com
In more recent post, Glubux says he’s using over 1,000 batteries, all stored in a custom-built shed about 50 meters away from his house. On top of that, he’s got big new solar panels with a much higher overall capacity.
This system has been running smoothly for eight years without the need to replace a single battery. But to make the project work, he had to store the batteries in cell packages, each with a capacity of 100 ampere-hours. Plus, he uses copper cables for an extra efficient connection. Glubux’s project is a perfect example of how creativity and persistence can turn old, discarded tech into something literally powerful.