Hot glued battery packs

GBananas

New Member
So, I am relatively new to the whole DIY battery building thing, but I've gone through a good amount of trial and error already. My latest issue is with the hot glue holding my cells together, it just doesn't stick all that well lol. I feel like hot glueing is the most common way of building these, so I'm curious to see if anyone has had their battery just break in half on them. I have a 5p 14s pack with Samsung 30q's, that I wrapped with foam and heat shrunk as well. I hit a good sized pothole in the road, and the battery pretty much broke in half and severed one of my series connections. The pannier the battery sits in is padded with 1/4'' of foam as well, and my cells weren't even mildly warm when this happened.
 
So, I am relatively new to the whole DIY battery building thing, but I've gone through a good amount of trial and error already. My latest issue is with the hot glue holding my cells together, it just doesn't stick all that well lol. I feel like hot glueing is the most common way of building these, so I'm curious to see if anyone has had their battery just break in half on them. I have a 5p 14s pack with Samsung 30q's, that I wrapped with foam and heat shrunk as well. I hit a good sized pothole in the road, and the battery pretty much broke in half and severed one of my series connections. The pannier the battery sits in is padded with 1/4'' of foam as well, and my cells weren't even mildly warm when this happened.

try to use spacers like this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/18-...-EV-Pack-Plastic-Heat-Holder/32624586508.html

The pack needs some kind of scaffolding for it to hold onto. These spacers also provide some air gap that will help with cooling of the cells.
Relying on hot glue to keep the pack together is not the best of engineering ideas.
 
Are you spot welding? I took apart two Dolphin batteries from 2015. I had to replace the foam in one and a new BMS in the second. One has spacers. One didn't.

Neither used glue. Both were spot welded and the nickel straps must be the structural element, although one was shrink wrapped and the other wrapped in strapping tape. These were 13S-4P and 14S-3P arrays inside a plastic case.
 
I am spot welding, the sunkko welder I'm using is junk though, good enough if the cells stay in place but they are flopping around when I hit mild potholes. I'm going to opt for some cell holders like ^Ravi suggested. I thought about doing that in the first place but I already had plenty of hot glue and most builds I've seen use hot glue instead. All part of the learning curve I suppose/
 
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