Hey everyone,
So a couple days ago I noticed in a thread that some people were aware on how to mod you lipos to be slimmer but most were not! So im gonna post how I made my lipo’s slimmer and the safe way to do it.
So i purchased a pair of Multistar 10 amp hour, 6s, 10c LiPo batteries. http://www.ebay.com/itm/RC-Multistar-High-Capacity-6S-10000mAh-Multi-Rotor-Lipo-Pack-/251752433534?hash=item3a9d9d477e:g:mNQAAOSwj0NUiQJ7
(i purchased them somewhere else but they are identical)
My end goal was to make a battery that i could safely put under my deck without having it smash into things when i drive (because usually high capacity LiPo’s are HUGE and slim packs are so ridiculously expensive) Note this is not the first time i do this, Just the most recent.
First i carefully took off the heat shrink and all the tape and soft pads holding the pack together. (this is the part that requires the most patience and a steady hand, as if you use a knife and cut into the Lipo’s they can vent and youll find yourself in a mess)
So i was pleasantly surprised when i noticed that Multistar doesnt glue theyre cells together because that saved the headache of spliting the cells apart! Usually how i would do this is to grab a credit card and slowly apply pressure in between the 2 cells and make sure to not push too hard to avoid making a hole in a cell. just be patient if you have to do this step.
Next youre going to want to open the lipo up like a bookand de-solder the midway point to your battery turns into (2) 11.1 volt packs. Do not remove any balance leads except for the midway point balance lead. I had to cut the aluminum tab because it was spot welded.
Here is the annoying part, The aluminum tabs on Lipo’s do not ‘wet’ to regular solder. So you can try to solder it all day long and your standard stuff wont stick to it. You’ll notice that one tab has regular solder (that is how it came) but the other I had to purchase special aluminum solder paste.
Once you put the aluminum paste and melt it with a soldering iron, you can apply regular solder to it and it will stick.
After that i took an 8 gauge fine stranded wire and attached the two tabs back together and resoldered the balance lead to that connection.
The last step is to insulate all your connections with whatever you would like. Hot glue, tape, whatever. And then tape the pack together so it is solid again and add heat shrink to the whole pack or tape it all up if yo udont have heat shrink!
Thats it! now you have your own slim lipo packs!
I hope i enlightened even just one person!
With this method you can save money if you cant afford 18650 based packs (me) and with basic knowledge you can create even thinner packs that span the entire bottom of the deck.
