Recently, we’ve seen a lot of semi-portable power stations. These have some big rechargeable battery and various connection options. [Dereksgc] wanted to make his own and decided the perfect housing would be a small PC tower case. (Video, embedded below.) It makes sense. There are plenty of easy-to-work front panel inserts, a power supply box with an AC cord (the power supply is long gone), and it is big enough to fit the battery. You can see the result in the video below.
The bulk of the work was installing power supply modules and a charge controller on floppy disk blank panels. The battery — a 50 Ah LiFePO4 unit — fits nicely in the bottom. Some of the buttons and connectors find use in the new incarnation.
Economies of scale mean computer cases are cheap. Besides, if you cruise flea markets or even the dumpster, they are often very cheap all the way down to free. We were surprised he didn’t slip in a cheap AC inverter, although he added a handle to keep with the portable moniker. Since the charger gets hot, it made sense to put fans in the case which, of course, it is all set up for already. He did mention at the end that he had inverter plans for the future.
Is the case overkill? If you can design something, you might as well overdesign it. If this power bank isn’t big enough for you, we have a suggestion.
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