The "go to" material for the paralleling strips has been pure Nickel, because..."that's the way the big companies do it", and...they must know what they are doing, right? It turns out that most factory battery packs put out low amps, so Nickel is "acceptable".
The high electrical resistance of nickel means that it is easy to spot-weld the parallel and series strips onto the cell groups. Once we decide that we want high amps from a medium-to-small battery pack, the resistance of nickel becomes a liability. It is also an annoyance that pure nickel strips are expensive, and they are slated to become even more expensive in the near future. What are our options?
I have recently become convinced that pure copper flat bars are the only reasonable material for the series connections between the paralleled sub-pack modules. There is a thread exploring the use of spot-welding copper strips to make the parallel connections (easily DIY'd from using tin-snips on locally-acquired copper sheets). https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=84680
The series connections can cheaply be made from a very affordable DIY spot-welder using a salvaged Microwave Oven Transformer (MOT). https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=85023
I started this thread to raise awareness of the option of using brass sheet as the paralleling strips, and to also consolidate any info that we may find out about this possibility.
The high electrical resistance of nickel means that it is easy to spot-weld the parallel and series strips onto the cell groups. Once we decide that we want high amps from a medium-to-small battery pack, the resistance of nickel becomes a liability. It is also an annoyance that pure nickel strips are expensive, and they are slated to become even more expensive in the near future. What are our options?
I have recently become convinced that pure copper flat bars are the only reasonable material for the series connections between the paralleled sub-pack modules. There is a thread exploring the use of spot-welding copper strips to make the parallel connections (easily DIY'd from using tin-snips on locally-acquired copper sheets). https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=84680
The series connections can cheaply be made from a very affordable DIY spot-welder using a salvaged Microwave Oven Transformer (MOT). https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=85023
I started this thread to raise awareness of the option of using brass sheet as the paralleling strips, and to also consolidate any info that we may find out about this possibility.