prong
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 19 Jun 2004
Posts: 839
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Xu1 cells Battery Pack
Today I pulled apart my Xu1 drill battery packs to check the cells and build them into new packs. This is one of the packs i ended up building.
http://www.robowars.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=411
I have found that 3 packs running in parralell work fine to run robort for about 2 matches, after that they start to slow down.
After pulling the pack apart I decided that the battery conectors already there were fine, so I would just repackage the batteries into a more convient shape. I found some of that black nylon garden tubing and decided to use that.
The pipe is about 4cm in diameter. I pulled the drill pack apart and streteched all the cells out, being careful not the break the connectors. In the end i had the cells in a 2 lines, 5 batteries long and 2 wide. I then cut a piece of the tube to the right length. I drilled holes every two cm along it for extra airflow and then pushed the batteries inside the tube. To fit the batteries the tube had to be flattened into an oval shape. The plastic pipe is quite springy so the batteries are held very tightly on their edges by the pipe.
To remove the batteries you squeeze the pipe flatter, and the batteries slide out easily. The batteries have plenty of air gap around them for cooling, and I drilled the holes for even more airflow, though this should not be a problem as the drill batteries do not get very hot. The batteries are held in very tightly and the pack is very strong and lite.
I left the normal drill connector thing on the end two batteries for now so I can just plug them on and off my charger easily. This pack was very easy to make, it took me about 10 minutes. It is 23cm long, 5cm wide and 3.5cm high. Using the same technique it would also be very easy to make other shape packs with different size pipe.
I just think of the pipe as extra extra thick strong heatshrink
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