Building a battery box is something that has long appealed to me, but something I never put much more thought into, other than watching YouTube videos on them. I really enjoy seeing the creativity other have with their creations to build a power supply to fit their personal requirements. Some go all out with a huge battery, tons of ports, lights, switches and meters. Some go bare bones with a very sleek layout with simple wiring.
For a long time I have been in the camp of thinking; while battery boxes can be useful and a fun project to build, I really didn’t have much use for one. I tend to put together my kits for portable radio, backpacking, and other activities to be as modular as possible. And to me, dedicating a battery and the items to a battery box didn’t seem to fit that mindset. With that said, I feel the battery box I have recently put together still fits nicely into my ideas of modularity.
Built around the battery
After seeing and using the battery box my friend Shacking Greg built, I got to thinking I should make something similar based around my 30Ah LiFePO4 battery. The logic behind that choice was since that battery is not very convenient to take portable beyond a picnic table top POTA activation or an event like Field Day, it would make a great candidate for what I had in mind.
A decent size battery that could power a radio or two and some maybe a laptop, while having the ability to charge a phone or other USB chargeable devices.
After taking a closer look at the battery box Sacking Greg made during a recent POTA camp out, I started ordering the components I used for a pretty simple, yet effective for my needs, battery box build.
Here is a list of the components used in my battery box
Amped Outdoors 30Ah LiFePO4 battery
Harbor Freight Apache 2800 hard case
Genasun solar charge controller
Powerwerks PowerPole distribution block
Powerwerks PowerPole single port
Powerwerks PowerPole double port
Combination voltmeter and USB port
Above are Amazon affiliate links, except for the Apache Case.
Now the some of the above were not in the box in this video. It didn’t take me very long to find ways to improve. That is some of the fun and a benefit of building your own battery box. It’s very easy to make improvements along the way. Easier on the budget, or if you come up with improvements it’s easy to modify.
My original plan was to have the case large enough so I could add a second 30Ah battery that I could wire in parallel to give me 60Ah. Even though I use Anderson PowerPoles with all my portable radio and some of my camping gear, it made sense to include the obligatory 12v cigarette lighter plug since you never know who may be showing up for the party. Rounded out the components with a combo voltmeter and USB charging port. After a few uses, I decided that instead of doubling the battery capacity in the future, I’d add a solar charge controller right away.
At first I was planning to skip the solar option, since I have a charge controller I use for portable radio. But after further review I thought I would keep a very simple no thrills controller that fits nicely in the box and is RF quiet. Since I’m getting more into solar for camping, I thought it would make sense to have solar built into this build. But more on that later.
So far I am very happy with is little build and I should have done it years ago when I purchased the 30Ah battery. It's been pretty useful in the field working in and out of my vehicle.
Much, much more to come.