I have one of these 10S5P battery packs from diyeboards.com. It’s a great pack. Goes for ever. No issues with it other than it’s pretty big (and a bit OTT for my commuting needs).
I have a Truncated Tesseract with a decent amount of space underneath and this pack is not so long, but kinda deep. In my short 3d-printed enclosure (a bit longer than the pack) it’s kind of ugly too.
I am thinking of disassembling the pack and reconfiguring it to a shallower/longer size. I don’t have a spot welder so everything I do will have to be soldered. I’m thinking that it’s going to have nickel strips already so maybe soldering isn’t the worst idea in the world.
So, does anyone have any experience with this pack, pulled this pack apart, or even have some wise/sage advice?
Im pretty sure around here its not recommended to un(/de ?)solder/weld batteries
learn from my mistake, i wasted an entire battery pack because i goofed taking it apart, I wasn’t confident in its safety when i “rebuilt” it. If you do take it apart make sure to document it here in the thread
It’s possible. Just document everything you do to the battery (pictures equal a 1000 words). Do lots of research on how to build batteries and have a plan before you go dismantling.
The last thing is to share how it goes
This will be relatively easy if you know what you’re doing…
I’m about to do this to a meepo 10s2p for my son’s board…
Make sure you pull the nickel apart carefully and don’t let any of it short. If you need to get nickel off of a terminal get some long nose pliers, grip the nickel and roll out off like opening a tin of sardines.
If you’re putting them out flat, unless your deck has zero flex you’ll need either 10awg silicon coated wire or 15mm flat copper braid for the series joints.
Have a look at some of my work in the photos only topic.
For an enclosure, I’m producing these now that will take a 10s5p pack and two focboxes or a meepo style ESC.
Let me know if you need one or of you need any more help…
Cut the heatshrink (carefully) and show us some photos. Although these are only 2AH cells you can still selll the pack and start from new with better results using something like NESE or vruzend. You could also get the same results from a 10s2p 30Q if you’re a slower commuter
@Newby and @dspx I live in New Zealand and shipping is fairly expensive. If I get another pack (tempted) it means I essentially have a spare battery that I don’t want… or at least won’t need anymore.
I already have 2x5000mAH 5S Lipos sitting on the shelf.
Also: I am a slower commuter. Top speed from my motors at the moment is 25km/h and I’m quite light (71kg).
@darkkevind I’m going to take you up on the offer of some questions (not too many):
When pulling the nickel off, should I be careful about tearing the battery end-caps?
I could do some exploratory removing of the heatshrink to see what configuration I have currently. See how the tabs are laid out. I could just cover it with duct-tape afterwards and continue to use I guess>
If I change it from a 10S5P to [say] a 10S3P, do I need to change the BMS at all? Wondering about charge rates.
Soldering onto to the nickel strips will be safer/more tolerant than soldering on to batteries eh?
I opened this pack because it has water damage.
Here are some pics.
I don’t want to teach you nor will I say you to not do it, but my opinion is, this pack isn’t worth your time. With all the reports on dangerous rebuild packs here on the forum I would not take the risk.
If you have a bunch of experience like @darkkevind you can do it, but I didn’t took a chance.
Looking at the photos, it looks like all I would have to do is cut the extra batteries off each pack (i.e. 2 of the 5S to make a 3S) then reconfigure/rearrange and solder a 20AWG (or is it 14AWG that comes off the pack?) jumper to the next pack.
I hate the idea of having batteries lying around being unused. Save myself US$200+.
