Hello everyone! I have almost completed the first pack. As you can see in the picture in 1 or 2 areas I did not hold the electrodes down firm enough and it caused it to make a hole in the nickel. Is this cause for concern? From what I can tell it has not damaged the actual cell.
On the other side of the cells youâll be burning on the battery electrolyte and film so this could possibly have more of an impact but really hard to tell how much - iâm pretty sure it would be judged as a defect by a professional company building batteries.
Do you think it is worth the time to attempt to replace the cells? It doesnât seem to have burned through the nickel on the terminal just burned a hole in the nickel strip. I guess I will know pretty quickly if the battery is punctured if it starts corroding from the electrolyte.
Happened to me many times. Sparks fly because weld current goes only through nikkel strip because there is an air gap, hence the terminal is undamaged, so no need to worry about that. Looking at the pic the only issue might be that the weld is weak and might come loose because of punctured strip, so maybe put in a nickel patch between neighbour cell and the âburnedâ cell. Press firmly when welding to avoid new burn through
Thatâs what I worry about as well but the electrolyte inside of these cells is extremely corrosive. If punctured and it doesnât enter thermal runaway you will soon have a very corroded battery. My question is do you think the risk of internal damage is great enough to go through the work of replacing the cell? This happened one other time on the negative side but not nearly as bad just a small burn through.
In case my post wasnât clear enough: The weld never got into the (positive) terminal. It only burned through the nickel strip. So you dont have to worry about the cell, just make sure that the weld is done properly the second time, by adding a patch, since the small area that was available for the positive terminal is damaged. I would just use a file to flatten the burned area to make it prepared for a new weld that connects to the neighbour cell. Iâve done about 5 packs (mostly ebikes) and itâs always annoying when this happends, because you worry if this will cause problems down the road, but in this case the cell is not damaged and the only thing is to make sure the cell has a good connection to the other cells, which doesnât look the case in the picture.
Thank you very much for the tip itâs a big help. The connection to the nickel looks much worse in the photo through the kapton tape. I was able to get 2 more successful spot welds onto the cell after the burn through so it should be connected alright. I will add the patch to ensure a sturdy connection to be safe though. but I Is there any risk of having different thickness nickel in that small area? Have you ever had a problem of the connection becoming weak? I will post a picture to update when I add the nickel patch.
Since you got 2 good welds, it might be fine to just leave it as it is, but adding a small strip on top dont hurt either, just make sure the burned area is filed flat so the strip doesnt get an airgap when welding on top⌠It is also easier to run it across from the negative cell instead of the positive, as I said previous. Difference in strip thickness is also not an issue.
In any case, your initial worry about damaged cell is not an issue and no need to try to replace it, which could lead to bigger problems when trying to remove the cell.
Hey guys so I have finally completed the first of the two packs. When I soldered on the balance leads some of the leads crossed over other balance leads. I made sure to add a layer of kapton tape over crossing leads to insulate them. I think I should have fused the balance leads just for safety. I donât mind tearing off the heat shrink to add the fuses. What amperage fuses should I use?