Been thinking about my own take on a solderless, modular, printable, 18650 battery design that doesn’t require specialized hardware. The “tabs” can just be tinned copper braid woven into the plastic bits as shown in the last image. The terminals would be similar to the NESE with a machine screw and square nut. Can of course be scaled for more cells in parallel or scaled up to accommodate larger cells like for 32700 LiFePO4 cells.
It’s not modeled in the images, but the the whole assembly is held together by long machine screws running parallel to the cells. This is also what provides the mechanical compression needed to maintain continuity from the cells to the tabs. I wouldn’t do the extensive testing for this that was done with the NESE system. I would still advise to use the NESE system for a proven solution. I figured this design could at least be decent for bench top testing or other low-stress purposes. What do you guys think?
I like the design but trying to get that buss bar through the tabs looks like a headache. Maybe the tabs just have 1 big opening across so you could pre bend and slip the tabs on
Good job at @Winfly! I like how your running the copper braid. Less complicated than weaving it like in my design. Do you have a thread for your cell holder design?
Does anyone see any value in me continuing this for the community? I’m still going to develop it for myself since I need something for 32700 LiFePO4 cells. It would basically just be a remix of @Winfly’s design but would have similar terminals as the NESE.
If you want me to, I can resize for ant cell dimension. If you wanna use nese tabs tho. You will need to make your own press. Those tabs are only spaced for 18650 atm.
Friendly warning: weaving braid though tiny gaps is very difficult. Tape the ends shut before weaving
Thanks for the heads up! As of right now I want to stick with the braid due to low cost and easy availability. I may actually go to something like your design for placing the braid instead of requiring any weaving. The 50A or so limit for the size of braid I have in mind is plenty. I’m going for high-voltage low-current applications.
bump, doing some searches for the queen 26800 sized batteries. And this look like a good fit
Just a thought, have you thought of making similar cell holders as Nese, but use copper braid instead of nickel strips? And have the 3D printed holder with the “bump” instead of the pressed nickel strip.
I like nese’s enclosures better and it is easier to set up rather than having lots of long screws/stand-offs doing the compressing
@shaman did you end up doing more to this? Do you mind if I can see the files?
Thanks
Yeah that’s one of the topic of discussion in this thread. Copper braid for low cost and availability
The NESE uses the foam part to ensure compression but I want to stay away from niche hardware. Without this foam, then I need something else to ensure compression so that’s where the screws come in.
I haven’t worked on this since i started this thread. My time went to my ESC projects but i still want to finish this someday. I want something for at least a modular bench top battery for ESC testing
