13S15P Battery Pack Build

I like it! How much does each pack weigh? What is the mAh? What was the total cost? Did you spot weld them? Did you already post on here about making them?

I figured we would need a 12S16P pack and that’s essentially what you have there when using all four packs. Plus, you only need a 6-cell charger to charge your packs. I have four 6-cell chargers for my Bonkas.

@f33x Do you have any more process photos of your battery pack build? Looks great and I like the possibility to strap them on the motor just like I do the Bonka batteries! A list of parts and where you purchased them would be great.

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Looks good! Also interested in specs, weight and pics of the build. Are those 7 or 8mm bullet connectors?

Lets say they weigh 2.5KG each but I’ll put them on a set of scales tonight to confirm.
Batteries are 2500mAh each so a 6s8p pack comes in a 20000mAh at 22.2V nominal.
I spot welded and bolted (that will make more sense when I put together the parts list.

6s chargers are easy to find and reasonably priced so keeping the packs as 6s made sense from that point of view.
I could have gone with 6s16p in one pack however dealing with 300+ amps is a little more challenging and keeping the physical size similar to the bonka meant I can drop those in place if needed/wanted without any changes to mounting or cabling.

I’ll put together a parts list and costs tonight when I get home.

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Photos, yeah thats a great idea :stuck_out_tongue:

Let me see what I can find but generally I forget to take photos until I’m finished a project.

Those connectors are 7mm antispark AS150’s

you can find them elsewhere for cheaper if you look around

So soldering the 8AWG cable to the nickel strip, and then spot welding it to the battery was a bit of a headache. I had to, just like with the rest of the battery, solder several strips on top of each other, one after the other (as the spot welder can not spot weld more than one strip at a time) to have enough material for the 300 Amps that are going to flow through it.

This was sort of difficult, as soldering the 8AWG Silicone Wire to the bunch of strips was required first, to avoid destroying the cells with a hot soldering iron.

Here’s a picture of the result. I was not happy with it, so I tore it apart again (picture was taken after I tore it apart)

what I will do now is a build a bus bar with a flat piece of copper, to which I will attach the nickel strips by clamping them down with screws.

That should definitely handle the 300amps loads. Nice work. Can I ask where you got your lg cells from? Are they legit? So many fakes on the market that look very similar to original with same capacities but handle very poorly under loads. Almost bought some from local guy but after asking him about the ohms resistance of the batteries to confirm they are legit I didn’t hear back from him.

I got them from voltaplex.com - 4,70$ per piece for 200 pieces. I purchased them in early May 2018

So I found a copper bus bar that should fit, on ebay. I asked the seller if they can cut it to size and whether they can drill the holes and cut the threads, the flat copper material is 20x4mm, I am planning to have it cut to 286mm which is exactly the length of the 15 cells in parallel.
Here’s the sketch for my inquiry:

The threaded holes will be for these M3 Screws:

M3, 4mm length, large flat head

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Any word from veconcepts on pricing for a battery? And specs?

I haven’t heard back for a while so I messaged him again.

So as mentioned above, I ordered and received a flat piece of copper (4x20mm with 1000mm length).
I had to cut it accordingly and add the threaded holes for the M3 Screws, so that it does make a nice bus bar.

It turned out quite well:

Next step was to measure the required length for the nickel strips, cut them to size and also drill a hole to be able to connect them with the copper bus bar

quite a good plan, however it didn’t turn out so well. drilling holes in such a thin material apparently isn’t working.

However I have an idea that I’ll be testing in the next couple of minutes. will keep you posted. :slight_smile:

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So since I have access to a couple of lasers, one of them being a fibre laser to cut and engrave metal, I thought I could just laser the hole.

It just worked great.

Cut and drill at the same time:

this is three of the strips at each cell-position attached to the bus bar:

I can now spot weld each strip, three per cell, one by one to each cell:

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Looking great! How do you get to a bad cell?

@Etienne,

Nice build. Do you have an estimate of the current weight, estimated flight time and capacity of the pack once done? Also, can you post more pictures of your build showing overall size, construction and configuration? (newbie still learning about 18650 battery pack builds)

how about you scroll up a bit?

Busbar with two 8AWG wires soldered to it. On the other end the RC ProPlus.
It was not too easy to solder the RC ProPlus connectors, plus the casing, it was all a very tight fit.

Here’s the negative busbar with the BMS soldered in between:

I added some double sided tape (the strong type from 3M with some thickness), before putting it together: