custom meepo battery

When my bike got stolen, I needed a new form of transport. While I could just get another bike, it was almost summer and biking is honestly horrible when living SF for a few reasons.

1. If you have a slightly nice bike and lock it outside, even for 30 minutes…
2. Hard to bring up stairs and fit in narrow spaces
3. Hills

Coincidentally I found a senior from Stanford that was willing to sell me his Meepo Mini 2S for 50$ which is a steal considering these skateboard retail for at least 400$. And an electric skateboard solved all my problems:

1. You can basically bring it with you anywhere so you never have to leave it outside
2. Much smaller and lighter than a bike
3. Electric motors!

One issue was that, the battery only had around 4-5ish miles of range since the skateboard had 2600 miles on it! Looking into replacements like the standard Meepo battery or the ER Meepo battery were both quite expensive.

So the natural conclusion is that I’d do it myself obviously.

After some research I found some cells on Alibaba that were would actually make a better pack than the 300$ one that ER battery that Meepo sells (and cheaper)!

Then all it took was some spot welding zinc strips and soldering some balance leads for the BMS.

With all the other parts required: