Need battery building help asap

[Tonys rustler]

im building two 6 cell side by side packs with integy gp4300s i am using the deans 3.0 battery connectors and a weller 100 watt soldering iron with deans racing solder with proflux and when im solder the connectors to the battery they seem to be very weakly connected and the connectors come off very easy can anyone give me some tips or explaination into what i might be doing wrong or if i missed doing something to help with the soldering of the cells thanks for your time.

[mzs_biteme]

Click here (http://monster.traxxas.com/showthread.php?t=379149)

[cooleocool]

Here's a great post:
All right guys, "Soldering 101."

The Weller 80-watt iron with the 3/8" chisel tip is perfect for assembling battery packs. I've literally assembled thousands of packs using these irons.

Purchase Trinity's liquid soldering flux. Its great stuff and makes soldering so much easier! It can be corrosive to the iron tip so be sure you wipe the iron clean on a wet sponge after each solder joint.

Clean the cells ends with motor spray or even better yet, just plain rubbing alcohol. Place a little rubbing alcohol on a rag and wipe the cells ends clean. Arrange the cells in a solder jig and apply a small drop of flux to each cell. DO NOT TIN THE CELLS! Apply a small drop of flux to the top of each end of the battery bars and place the bars on the cells. Again, DO NOT TIN THE BARS! Melt a very small amount of solder onto the iron, no more than the size of a BB. While holding the bar tightly to the cell, place the iron to the bar end. The solder should immediately (within a second or 2) flow down around the bar and cell. If after 2 to 3 seconds it does not flow remove the iron and allow the cell to completely cool before trying again.

http://users.adelphia.net/~razer1/rcpics/PC020081.JPG

http://users.adelphia.net/~razer1/rcpics/PC020091.JPG

[RC Mechanic]

Have you soldered b4? If your new to soldering then it is very easy to do it wrong. Make sure you are not simply painting the solder on with the soldering iron tip. WHen soldering the surface being soldered has to get hot enough. You actually melt the solder onto the soldering surface, you don't apply the solder to the iron directly.

So put a small dab of flux on the battery, place the bar on the battery over the flux, then apply a little bit of solder to the iron tip, (make wure tip is clean), then put the tip on the battery bar for like 2-3 seconds MAX. ALso make sure you apply some sort of down pressure on the bar.

BTW what is your sldering iron like? Its not a gun style one is it? What type of tip do you have on it? You want a really thick chisel tip. If you have the gun style one don't attempt this at all. I tried to build batterys with a gun style and well, 14 tenergy cells with less than 30 runs on them, poof. Now all they are good for is running a small fan to cool things off.

[Tonys rustler]

i think my problem here is i didnt buy just rosin flux i thought the flux in the solder coil would be enough it seems like just putting some on the battery also with it in the solder is what makes thiis all hold so well i do have the gun style soldering iron but i knew to make sure to not let the cells get hot and to only touch the solder to the tab for 2-3 second so tomorrow ill go out and buy rosin flux and see if thats my problem thanks for the help all i will keep everyone updated

[Unsullied_Spy]

DO NOT TIN THE CELLS![...]Again, DO NOT TIN THE BARS!
OK, which one do you tin? I thought you were supposed to tin the cell, then press the battery bar onto the cell :confused:

[cooleocool]

He says neither, I guess.

Those packs are some of the best build battery packs I have ever seen, so I think he's doing something right!

[mzs_biteme]

OK, which one do you tin? I thought you were supposed to tin the cell, then press the battery bar onto the cell :confused:

Clean the cells and put some flux on them, then tin the bottom of the bar...
When you press the tinned bar against the flux-ed cell end, and apply heat, there should be a nice distribution of solder between the two....

[RC Mechanic]

Just be careful with that gun style one. I found that the tips didn't hold enough heat and didn't have a large enough tip to solder battery bars.

[Tonys rustler]

I found out you can solder with just the flux core solder because the flux gets under the bar and then when the solder runs under it holds really nice i had to redo a bar and i couldnt get the bar off haha it was really me not heating up the bar surface enough to get it to really meld together. Now i need to put on the pigtail deans i bought and i should be ready to roll but thank you guys for all your help the input helped me go back and rethink my method and figured out the flaw ill try to get up some pics of the finished packs

[Shelby VNT]

I've built plenty of battery packs too. The reason for NOT tinning the ends of the cells, or the battery bars, prior to assembling them, is because you cannot heat both ends of the battery bar at once, and if you tin the joints, the battery bar will not be sitting flat or parallel to the cells after making the first joint. In other words, you'll re-melt the solder from tinning on one end, but the other solder will not be melted and you end up with a battery bar that doesn't sit flat to the cells. Sure, you can still solder the other end, but the bars will either not sit flat, or they will sit flat, but they will be under stress because they weren't sitting flat to begin with.

It sounds to me like you need more heat at your joints. I've also soldered without any flux, and had good results, so I think your problem is a lack of heat, or what they call cold solder joints.

The best tip I can give you is you need to heat the battery bars and cell ends and apply the solder to them, and not so much to the tip of the iron.

As suggest, put a small amount of solder onto the iron tip and press it against the battery bar. Any solder you add now, should be added to the battery bar or cell end, and not the iron tip. If it isn't melting fast enough, apply a little more to the iron tip to start it melting, but then drag it across and to the battery bar. The melted solder will transfer the heat better then the tip alone.