Building battery packs
 

Hi,

I've got two sets of 2400's which I want to break down and rebuild into 3 side by side 4 cell packs for my mardave. I've got a soldering iron and some orion battery bars. I've never done much soldering so looking if someone can give me an idiots guide to soldering cells and battery bars together.

Any help appreciated in advance.

big tip on the iron!
if its small then it doesnt matter what "wattage" it is, it wont work.
the cells suck all the heat out of the iron if the tip is small and you end up holding the iron on too long and heating the cells up.

make sure your cells are tinned, I usually put a lil blob of solder on the cells so i can put the battery car on top - iron on top of that and then poke a bit of solder in..

all a bit hard to explain like, but practice makes perfect.
the flux in your solder cleans the join, solder will never stick without flux, so if youre having a problem melt a bit more solder to get some flux going, but if you have too much flux on then the solder can just bead up and float on top!.
If it gets like that, i just rub the iron around a bit on the join and the solder eventually bites..
if you get stuck on a cell for a while then leave it and do another, come back to it when its cooler and try again.


sorry that was a total mess and confused me too! lol

You need a powerful iron, 40w min, 60w better. If you cannot make a clean joint in 2-3 seconds, you either havn't got a powerful enough iron or your technique is wrong. If you leave the iron in contact with the cell too long you get too much heat transfer and risk damaging your cells. You will always find the -ve side is harder to solder. Solder isn't a particularly good conductor of electric (comparatively) so "less is more" is a good policy.

A tip I find works well, in addition to the above advice, it to roughen the surface on each cell where it is going to be soldered with a small file. This helps the solder bite better. Lastly use a battery Jig if you have one, if not devise something to hold the cells firmly as you intend them to be assemled while you do the soldering !

There is a good guide on the Team Almighty website, here's a link for you to http://teamalmighty.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7

cell soldering
 

Cheers guys, from reading this and the link I think I need a better soldering iron and a bigger tip first.