Thick copper tape to increase conductivity?

Hey Guys,

Was thinking about a way to avoid the mess of spot welding copper.
What if I use 0.1mm thick copper tape over the serial connections of a battery pack?
0.1mm thickness is as conductive as 0.4mm pure nickel and the tape can sit pretty firm on the connections.
My only concern is that the glue of the tape will ruin the conductivity.

A link to the kind of tape:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/25-...-conductive-heat-shield-tape/32822080932.html

What are your thoughts?

rg12 said:

Hey Guys,

Was thinking about a way to avoid the mess of spot welding copper.
What if I use 0.1mm thick copper tape over the serial connections of a battery pack?
0.1mm thickness is as conductive as 0.4mm pure nickel and the tape can sit pretty firm on the connections.
My only concern is that the glue of the tape will ruin the conductivity.

A link to the kind of tape:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/25-...-conductive-heat-shield-tape/32822080932.html

What are your thoughts?

Click to expand...

I've been seriously considering using this copper tape that has conductive adhesive. I did find a reference to the adhesive which suggested pretty good conductivity if applied with sufficient pressure, but I've mislaid it at the moment.

What happens when it gets warm?

Especially with vibration in a non-stationary application?

Most adhesives soften with increasing temperatures, so unless you have something else that maintains even and constant pressure on the contact points, any form of "sticky tape", conductive or not, would probably get higher and higher resistance, increasing the heat at the connection point, making the problem worse and worse, with the potential for complete disconnect under the wrong circumstances.

If that happens to a cell or cells in a parallel group, the rest of the cells now have to take up the whole load, and they heat up more, and sag more, etc.


But you'd have to build a pack that way and test it out long term in use to see what happens.

If you do, I recommend instrumenting it with sense wires on each side of each connection, so you can externally measure the resistances (or voltage drops at specified currents and calculate the resistance) after various amounts of time and under various conditions.

rg12 said:

What if I use 0.1mm thick copper tape over the serial connections of a battery pack?
[...]
My only concern is that the glue of the tape will ruin the conductivity.

Click to expand...

That would be my concern. My experience with thermally mounting LEDs is that no matter how thin the adhesive layer, even with silver filled adhesives, the glue serves as an electric insulator.

In an earlier thread here on conductive glues, I remember learning that such glues are highly resistive by our standards-- suitable perhaps for electronic signals, but not for power transmission.

amberwolf said:

What happens when it gets warm?

Especially with vibration in a non-stationary application?

Click to expand...

My plan was to overwrap each set of cells and tape connections with shrink wrap and/or silicone rubber tube (old inner tube).

I picked up some conductive cu tape. Wanted to see if i could weld through it.
I could not and it is not.
Conductive that is. Measurable resistance in full ohms.