J-Mans project

The-J-Man

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May 2, 2017
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Greetings everyone,

starting a general thread here like everyone.

Things are moving on well, tested about 600 cells so far ::)


Im doing a practice run for the soldering and something doesnt seem right.
If you look at the picture you can see the solder is just a ball sitting on the cell and its like brown around it. its not a flat blob like from other people. The one column, third from the right is a different solder (the small roll) and that one looks better.

I have an 80W soldering iron, reaches about 490C according to the manual. Too hot?

What am I doing wrong?

cheers

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You dont need 500C.... (But that should not cause that issue you have) A ball like that is either because the flat surface of the cell wasnt heated enough or you had a surface that wasnt clean enough.

You need to go back and hold the soldering tip longer so it flows out. You can most likely remove them with your nails kind of :)

Im not sure about the first solder you used. It seems weird temperature but it might be me. Someone else will answer about the solder. I use normal 60/40 Lead based solder and it works great. I touch the cell for 1-2 seconds and add solder and it flows straight out.
 
daromer said:
You dont need 500C.... (But that should not cause that issue you have) A ball like that is either because the flat surface of the cell wasnt heated enough or you had a surface that wasnt clean enough.

You need to go back and hold the soldering tip longer so it flows out. You can most likely remove them with your nails kind of :)

Im not sure about the first solder you used. It seems weird temperature but it might be me. Someone else will answer about the solder. I use normal 60/40 Lead based solder and it works great. I touch the cell for 1-2 seconds and add solder and it flows straight out.

Ahh ok, ill try again with heating the surface a bit.

Naaah, they arent coming off ::D Solid

the lead 60/40solder seems to have the better results as you can see. The big roll of solder is electronics solder, the guy at the store was saying "yeah thats the one you want, definitely" Never trust the salesman...
 
i used both, both can work without a hitch, i prefer 60pb 40sn, because i like lead^^ rohs go to hell
 
MajStealth said:
i used both, both can work without a hitch, i prefer 60pb 40sn, because i like lead^^ rohs go to hell

What do you do to make it work? :p because it isnt for me...



Yeah ok nevermind, the solderballs came off quite easily with a screwdriver
 
As i said you lnly melted the solder on top of the cells :) if u dont get it to flow even when heating the cells try some sandpaper first
 
Soldering Cells is all about the Size of the TIP. The bigger the tip the easier it is to heat up the surface and not heat the internal part of the cell

I have a Hakko that allows for different tips and I use it for tiny stuff with the 0.5mm tip and Batteries with the 5mm Tip. the Bigger one takes longer to heat up but I can solder a cell within the count of 3
 
daromer said:
As i said you lnly melted the solder on top of the cells:)if u dont get it to flow even when heating the cells try some sandpaper first

You were right ::D ill give that a shot too
jdeadman said:
Soldering Cells is all about the Size of the TIP. The bigger the tip the easier it is to heat up the surface and not heat the internal part of the cell

I have a Hakko that allows for different tips and I use it for tiny stuff with the 0.5mm tip and Batteries with the 5mm Tip. the Bigger one takes longer to heat up but I can solder a cell within the count of 3

Took that advice
Check the picture. Used the bigger tip I got with the iron. placed the 5mm wide bit on the cell vertically for 2 secs then put some solder. Certainly better results.
Left column left solder, right column right solder.
Should I stick for the lead 60 one? it seems to flow better


Yep, I think we have a winner!
Not pretty but better contact

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Winner winner chicken dinner
 
Hi folks,

there are some cells which are difficult to solder. Not only you are facing this phenomonal but also in other forums peaple are telling about this problem.
Some Sony types and unknown manufacturer from China use some kind of inox metalls.
Just scratch them with sandpaper and solder after - mostly it works. Daromer told it already.
But one time I've got few cells I couldn'n solder them - have to abandon them.
 
BigBen said:
Hi folks,

there are some cells which are difficult to solder. Not only you are facing this phenomonal but also in other forums peaple are telling about this problem.
Some Sony types and unknown manufacturer from China use some kind of inox metalls.
Just scratch them with sandpaper and solder after - mostly it works. Daromer told it already.
But one time I've got few cells I couldn'n solder them - have to abandon them.

Well Im still hoping my samsung cells are genuine ::D



Ran out and got some more lead 60/40 solder, is better then the 40/60 i used before but it still seems a bit ball like for my liking...
That small roll of solder seems better but its years old an I have no idea where I can get it.

Any recommendations regarding a specific brand that you guys know works well?



Hang on, I put some more of that solder grease on the cell and now its looks better!

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Dont add so much solder. Its not needed :) and you dont need to add anyrhing oif you have solder with flux and or rosin
 
daromer said:
Dont add so much solder. Its not needed :) and you dont need to add anyrhing oif you have solder with flux and or rosin

Hahaha im good at overkill ::p
On the solder it says you dont need to add additional flux, but with it it worked much better. hmmm


Next up, soldering to the busbar.
Got the wire for this bus bar out of an electric motor. Ill be using earth cable for the main ones but htis is just a test. THe thin fire is from the main cable from the hoverboard battery packs. No idea what its rated for but I charged some batteries at 4A through it and it did get just slightly warm. Need to test it at one stage.

problem is the solder just isnt sticking to the copper. No chance, it staying on the iron and not flowing to the copper. And when it does seem to stick, i just need to touch it and it comes straight off.
Any more ideas gents? :heart:


edit: Shit I think it has a coating on the wires.....

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The wire used in motors is enamel coated. It can't soldered to unless you strip that part of the wire clean. You 'could' still use it, you'd just need to take a little sand paper to clean the wire first. A lot of extra work, imho.

The other type of "fuse wire" you could use, is go to the arts/crafts section of your favorite low budget store and get the silver/copper crafting wire. It'll blow at a low ampere (just not sure exactly where).

As far as soldering goes, I pretty always use flux with my solder, regardless if it's flux/rosin core. I find that the solder sticks a whole lot better with the extra cleaner. It's not like the stuff stays very long once heat gets to it.
 
Korishan said:
The wire used in motors is enamel coated. It can't soldered to unless you strip that part of the wire clean. You 'could' still use it, you'd just need to take a little sand paper to clean the wire first. A lot of extra work, imho.

The other type of "fuse wire" you could use, is go to the arts/crafts section of your favorite low budget store and get the silver/copper crafting wire. It'll blow at a low ampere (just not sure exactly where).

As far as soldering goes, I pretty always use flux with my solder, regardless if it's flux/rosin core. I find that the solder sticks a whole lot better with the extra cleaner. It's not like the stuff stays very long once heat gets to it.

Well that explains it :DYeah thats a lot of wires to sand off... I presume I would have to untwist it and clean each one then redo it?
Can I burn it off with a blow torch?

I have a 1 store close by, ill check it out tomorrow!

Ill be using the flux as well from now on, gives a cleaner results too as I can wipe it off afterwards and it all just silver. Without it its brown, as you can see from my previous photos, and that stuff barely comes off!
 
if you can remove it from the pack just heat it up with a torch and solder flux should clean it up nice
 
You just gave me a great idea, all the cells destined for the scam heap will become unwilling recipients of my solder experiment. I noticed that you are using a large iron tip, is this the best advice???
 
Always use big iron tip with alot of mass. Watt is not as important as the actuall mass is on the iron
 
jdeadman said:
if you can remove it from the pack just heat it up with a torch and solder flux should clean it up nice

Ill give it a shot!

Edit: nope didnt work. Not worth trying to make it work, ill wait for my earth cable to arrive.
RobertBaumer said:
You just gave me a great idea, all the cells destined for the scam heap will become unwilling recipients of my solder experiment. I noticed that you are using a large iron tip, is this the best advice???

Yes do that :D
The other iron I have with a small tip cooled down when applying the solder so that was crap. A small tip with high watt seems to work but less watt and a big tip (as daromer said) works well because of the thermal mass the tip has.
 
Bummer. Yea I used multi strand house wire that I saw a few guys using. Working well so far. But I just killed my charge controller so I need a new one
 
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