The battery builders club

Yeah I used my kweld and got the settings good enough to not blow the trace out of the pcb. And I solder the nickel again under the braid anyways. So they should be pretty. secured. Soldering the whole thing seems unnecessary to me. Since I’m using a 2p strip.

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Watch out for the braid on the series connections. It tends to fray and break.
Using cable is the preferred method or even nickel.

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Untinned braid seems to be more resistant to stress fraying vs tinned. Think the tin makes it stiffer or something. I’ve done a few packs with raw copper braid and just tinned the ends for soldering, sometimes I sleeve the middle with flat heat shrink.
But cable is probably better if there is extra room for a proper size gauge. Idk about nickel tho.

How many Jouls did you set it to? (For welding to the PCB) I made a big bang with mine and I was at a very low number I think :sweat_smile:

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I have also been interested about this, and got the chance to find out the other day…

With my travel pack i removed the balance wires from each pack individually while leaving the full balance plug plugged into the BMS… nothing popped :rofl:

I’m just using a cheap low discharge one as a charge only, but hopefully if it works for one it works for all?

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I mean I always assumed that way would work. It’s the action of plugging all balance wires in or out simultaneously that I’m interested in :stuck_out_tongue:

I was using 15J on 0.15mm nickel

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Also plugged them back in one by one (2x2 rather) and all was well as well.

How else are you meant to do it without doing it simultaneously? Does that bms come with individual balance plugs not a single connector?

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In my humble opinion braids are wonderful.
What @taz said is true though. They must be loose. Otherwise they can break solder making silicone wire a better option.
I think @Winfly’s braids are loose enough. Depends on the deck flex which I don’t know.

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Now I’m confused – I thought you weren’t doing it all at once via the connector.

By doing it individually I meant already having the connector plugged in, and then soldering the balance leads to the p-groups one by one.

Ohh i see what you mean. I’ve done it both ways, no issues.

But not that BMS.

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Yeah I agree. The braid could be a bit longer. There’s Only a tiny bit of flex across the deck body and most of the flex is on the drop so there isn’t too much flex going into the braid. I’ll try pure copper braid next to compare the softness.

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The gap is right. The length is short. I see you used pvc shrink. Depending on the rigidity and deck flex is perfect or insufficient. You are to judge yourself. Braids are great yet could be tricky.

Must hold back… $4 a cell again


20S4P 2.3KWh and 60KW out.

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whoa. where?

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Haha, dude, stop! Have you found something really useful for these yet? I’m getting a spot welder just because I’m looking for reasons. My pouches will make their rounds through a few projects and probably end up in a cart, but IMO 7-8 nissan leaf modules would have been better, weigh less, and for less $ for some equivalent power.

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That might be true actually, but the Nissan modules I would have had to tear apart. These come more or less ready to go.

Today I am spending $300 on @torqueboards so stop indeed I must.

@RyEnd damn one of the 4 32Ah cells is 118Wh for $12.5 :thinking: pretty compelling, the teardown video I watched was not though.

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Hey guys, I’m nearly done making my first ever battery (wish it was a simpler design than what I have :sweat_smile::gun:), and wanted to check in with you first before I finish.

I’m pretty tired of sanding away the middle beam of the Haya shortboard, so I was thinking I wouldn’t wrap each group in fish-paper and heat shrink (which would make the pack wider, requiring me to make more space), but just put fish paper on top of each p-group, then solder the balance wires like I already did with the first (fish paper would be between the balance wires and cells, protecting from shorts). Finally, I would use kapton tape, and then packing tape (because kapton isn’t durable) around each p-group connection point to protect the balance wire connections and nickel from shorting with anything from above.

Do you guys think that would be safe? Maybe you see any mistakes I’ve already made? Any other ideas? Or do you think doing it properly by completely wrapping the groups + heat shrinking the whole pack is the way I should go…

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I would trust that. Wood isn’t conductive, no real purpose in wrapping it more because nothing will short even if the battery wrap got worn through. Just lay some fish paper or cloth harness tape underneath the balance wires and maybe some thin foam or something on top to keep the cells from vibrating around. Could go one more step and put some hot glue between the cells and the side of the wood but don’t think it needs that either.

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