All issues I see so far are of cosmetic nature, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
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A jig to constrain the groups from moving while taping would help with that, and/or some extra glue before tape.
For brick-style packs like this, it can be easier and better to glue/tape/jig all the cells together into the final shape before welding anything. That helps ensure nothing shifts and puts stress on the nickel afterwards.
Just make sure to put some painter’s tape or something over the exposed terminals, so you don’t accidentally short something as you’re welding - It’s easier to lose track of where you are in the series-connection hopscotch, and accidentally make a loop rather than going forward when there are a bunch of cells.
I concur with the others - It could be improved cosmetically, but the overall construction looks fine, and I don’t see any immediate red flags regarding safety.
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Gluing all of the groups together is important. Especially when you have staggered joins like that.
The tension of the fibreglass tape isn’t going to help you here as when the groups inevitably ride up against each other, the tape will just get looser.
With time and vibration, those nickel connections are going to see a lot of stress that will be taken directly by the welds. This isn’t good.
If i were you, i’d be removing all the tape, or just slicing through it at the series connections, then adding a liberal amount of glue at the series connections. It would be better if the glue was right through all the way in between them, but on either side in the little valleys might be good enough.
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So you’re saying glue the groups together with the fish paper still around them or should I attempt to remove that as well? I do agree the fiber tape isn’t really helping anything because it does cause them to just want to ride up on each other as you said. I was slightly considering trying to put something stiff above and below and then taping around that to pull them together and try to prevent them from riding up on each other, but I don’t know how much that would help
If the fishpaper is well-secured to the cell groups (glued or sticky-backed), then just gluing the still-wrapped groups will be absolutely fine.
Constraining the pack this way would also probably help, but I personally would prefer glue.
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When i need to do stuff like that, rather than encasing the whole group in fish paper, i just use small strips or dots so that my glue in between is making contact with the fish paper AND the cells.
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Hot Glue vs Silicone
Which do you use to hold p-groups together before welding them with nickel?
- I only use Silicone
- I only use hot glue
- I do one side with hot glue, other side with silicone
- Neither
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Reason I ask is that I thought back in the day that people recommended silicone so that you don’t damage the cells with the heat from the hot-melt hot glue. (I assume no one is using arts & crafts hot glue lol) But now when I look around, seems like everyone is using hot glue. I asked @Battery_Mooch and he said it’s probably safe.
Those who still stick with silicone – why do you prefer it?
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I used to use little dabs of hot glue at either end and then do silicone.
But these days i join the p groups together with hot glue, and if i need to join series together i do it with silicone.
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Hi, just starting to weld my first pack. Using sequre sw1 with 0.2mm nickel.
Do either of the below look OK?
30ms
25ms
On test battery they both leave a tiny bit on the battery when torn off
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Both look okay, 30ms maybe slightly too hot on that bottom weld. I think somewhere in the middle of the two would probably be perfect, do 27ms if you can 
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Alright, which one of you cleared fogstar out of P42s?!
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Feels so wrong to link this, but since Duck doesn’t have em…
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M boards seems to get a bit of grief, honest question why is it?
I’ve never brought anything from him before.
From what I’ve seen they used to ship battery packs deemed to be underbuilt and they’ve recommended setups on their website (using only parts they sell) that are generally bad ideas, like drawing too much current from a pack or setups that leave performance on the table and waste money.
Seems since esk8con Mike has really been trying to turn the business around and cater to actual esk8 DIY people.
In the past their quality was dogshit (mainly batteries and enclosures), but they improved a lot since then it seems.
Just had a quick look on the site it’s a shame he’s gone for the staggered approach for his 8/6p nickel.
Going to be soldering my pack up soon and just wanted to check somethings.
It’s a 12s4p and want it to be able to flex a bit
My plan is to add some fishpaper to cover the nickel where the p groups touch (I know they will be connected by 2 x 12 guage wire so the touching isn’t an issue but thought the fishpaper may stop some rubbing of the nickel)
Do I need to add any foam / door seal or anything between them and do I need to add the same down the middle of the pack?
I also plan to shrink wrap the side by side p groups separately so they can flex where the wire joints are after joining with more fibre tape
Can you see any issues with this? I have seen so many packs built just slightly different from each other even from the same builders so difficult to find a best practice / norm for it
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