As much as I like doing shiite on my own (provided I can find the time and get arsed enough to actually do it, of course), a lot of this stuff is just cheaper to buy off the rack, where they make 'em by the 10k lots, in volume, and sell them for similarly rock-bottom prices.
Especially stuff like batteries, what’s needed to spot-weld them together, the enclosure (likely way bigger than something commercially sold), and all the ancillaries… plus all the design time, shopping around for The Right Parts, delivery time waiting, “whups, that didn’t work…” mistakes, and so on.
Yeah, if something’s available remotely similar to what I want something to do, I just get the off-the-rack version and be done with it. Not to be a downer, but it just saves a lot of ag.
Where are you seeing these things for £120? Like 50 tops. You can probably buy a used one for £5. I have 6 in a drawer next to me right now I’ll mail you one if you want
It’s what quindor recommends from Ali express as they are a 100watt and do USBC 5v at 3.3 amps but not solar chargeable. That’s why I want to look at building my own
Why do you need a 100w powerbank if your lights only use 16.5w? You can just go on amazon or w/e and get a 30,000mah usb-c 20w powerbank for £25.
If you want to be able to recharge it with solar you’ll need to buy the panels seperately. You need a couple panels. Or one big one. You get very little power from solar. A lot of them are just a gimmick.
Quality 21700 from a trusted retailer is about £9 for c.4000mah.
So you’d need between 9 to 12 of these for the capacity you require.
Plus, if you’re going to do it properly they need spot welding, though bolt together DIY kits are available.
The Baseus 100w in the link is showing as £60 before tax/delivery for me.
Solar input is the tricky one, lots of these devices won’t charge while other stuff is connected, so you might have to disconnect the load to get solar to work.
Might be easier to get two smaller power banks and just charge/swap the packs?
Assuming this for a garden shed/garage? Is there no way to run power?