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Help on 14S7P battery

kingjones020

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Nov 9, 2025
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Hello, I am making a 14S7P LiPo battery pack for one my RC Boat and I am using the Ampace J40 cells, I was going to use a spot wielder and I was wondering what type of strips should I use for that, I know I cant use nickel strips as they would melt easily due to the high current and I was looking at some Nickel plated copper tapes but most of them dont show any current rating.

Any help would be appreciated, Thank You
 
I think you need to post the details of your system (at minimum it's current requirements) for us to give you useful parts / tools / etc advice.

If nickel will actually melt from the current you're going to use, then your cells would probably be catching fire or exploding before the nickel melted. ;)

EDIT: There's a good test by BatteryMooch of these cells here:
that indicates they do heat up during high current operation; you might check that out if you haven't already.
 
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If nickel will actually melt from the current you're going to use, then your cells would probably be catching fire or exploding before the nickel melted. ;)

I think you need to post the details of your system (at minimum it's current requirements) for us to give you useful parts / tools / etc advice.
mb, I am not very experinced in terms of LiPo cells or batteries.
Battery Pack Design
  • Configuration: 14S7P
  • Cells: Ampace JP40 (21700, 4000 mAh, rated 70A max continuous per cell)
  • Theoretical Max Continuous Current: 7cels × 70A = 490A continuous capability (not that I’ll run it that hard, maybe around 300A max)
  • This pack powers a autonomous RC boat.
  • The boat's motor system is expected to draw between 100A and 150A continuous, with short peaks up to ~200A during acceleration.
I am considering nickel-plated copper tapes (0.2–0.3 mm thickness, ~10 mm wide) . My concern is not that nickel will melt during normal operation, but that pure nickel won’t handle the current in the series connections (full pack current) without generating heat, so I just need help one like how i can do the connections and such.
Thank You
 
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Well, at that rate, you'll only be getting maybe 10-15 minutes of operation (even less the more you use >100A (also remember the higher the current draw, the less energy you get out so the less capacity and the less runtime even beyond using it up faster)), so if you provide a way to cool the pack, even something like potting it in PCM (phase change material) (whihc would also help prevent water ingress), it might not matter much, other than the energy loss to heat decreasing your capacity.

The cells themselves, per that linked article's statement:
The JP40 has a 45A true continuous current rating and a 60A “temperature-limited” rating. You can run the cell at up to 60A but you must stop before the cell gets hotter than 75°C (which is HOT!).
are really only 45A cells without generating their own problematic heat, so you should consider it at best, say, a 250A pack, if heat is a concern. Probably should be kept lower than that (you'd have to check the test data on that article to see if it has a current at which it doesn't generate notable heat).

The Nickelplated copper would be less heat generative than the nickel; as long as you have something that can weld that to your cells with low enough resistance connections to not generate heat at those points.

If you build the pack as a big block that's 7 wide and 14 long, and use a series strip on every cell (so 7 of them), it will minimize the load on each strip, and maximize the energy you get out of it.

If you have to build it in osme other shape, then your current might be limited (regarding heat) by the narrowest path from one group of 7 to the next in series (as this also means that the parallel connections will carry current, when they shouldn't need to, and so they also will generate heat and cause voltage drop under load).


There are some threads discussing nickel/copper sandwiches, and nickel-plated copper, and ohter alternate interconnect methods, successes, failures, etc., and various welders' performance, that will probably help you when you get to the point of having designed the pack's layout and casing and such.
 
BTW, depending on the space you have available, you could probably use an ex-EV module, intact, from places like GreenTecAuto, Batteryhookup, etc. Then you don't have to do any interconnects, and the pack is already designed and built for the high currents the EV would have drawn. As long as those are as high as you need, it's already done and built for you. :)

If you could live with 12s 44.4v, this $110.00 *free shipping!* 28Ah module does 200A continuous and 400A peak
Length: 14.75 inches
Height: 4.5 inches
Width with studs: 6.5 inches
Weight: 24lbs
1762751095378.png 1762751123189.png

The 98 bare Ampace cells will weigh around 16lbs (rounded up), then there's whatever your interconnects, cables, casing, waterproofing, etc weigh).

Can't give a size comparison as there's no data on your pack shape.
 
A good rule of thumb is that nickel can handle 5A per mm^2 of cross sectional area without heating up, and copper is about 4 times as conductive. To handle the 45A the JP40 is able to do continuously, you would thus want at least 2 mm^2 of copper between each cell.

Assuming the pack can be laid out with a series connection for each cell in the series group (so, 1 series connection per cell) then you only need to consider the right amount of copper to handle the maximum power each cell can provide. I would recommend perhaps some copper bus bars with composite weld points. That way you can have a bus bar with between .3mm and 1mm copper and have the same nickel copper composite strip for spot welding, which allows you to use a normal spot welder and still get good welds.

You can find these sold from various places in standard formats like 2x35 weld points, or get them in custom layouts and c2c distances off of alibaba.

At that scale of power and size of battery pack, it will probably cost you around $100 (inc shipping/import) for custom ones to your exact design, and probably less for standard layouts available stateside.

Also, in regards to terminology, LiPo stands for lithium ion polymer batteries, which is a different type of battery. The JP40 is a non polymer electrolyte cell, with the NMC chemistry.
 
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