New Battery Damage Can it be Fixed

[parcou]

Hi

Sure this is newbie mistake but only had this Spektrum battery for less than 2 months and used only 3x. I am thinking when I had the battery in the RC I was not focused on the wire harness location. It must have been hitting\touching moving part somewhere inside the RC.

The question I am sure this WILL NOT be covered under any warranty....can the wires be fixed and how? Currently if I put it on the Spektrum charger, I get no reading or detection at all:

 

[slick2500]

Hi

Sure this is newbie mistake but only had this Spektrum battery for less than 2 months and used only 3x. I am thinking when I had the battery in the RC I was not focused on the wire harness location. It must have been hitting\touching moving part somewhere inside the RC.

The question I am sure this WILL NOT be covered under any warranty....can the wires be fixed and how? Currently if I put it on the Spektrum charger, I get no reading or detection at all:

View attachment 72438View attachment 72439

Yeah the wires do not appear to have been damaged easiest option is electrical tape, best option would be heat shrink.

 

[jkflow]

If you get no detection, that is not good.
On the big wire use electrical tape. The little wire, most likely the copper is no longer present, check and see. Can be fixed by carefully cutting the one broken one and either soldering it back together or add a short piece of wire and re-solder.
If you do have copper visible inside, that would be bad news as something else probably shorted it out and killed the 'smart' in the battery and is now useless. Don't have much experience with spektrum batteries, that is my guess though.


Looks almost like there is a burn mark and I bet it's dead.

 

[r4nd0m]

When using a lipo checker on the balance lead do you get any cell counts?

 

[jondilly1974]

Hi

Sure this is newbie mistake but only had this Spektrum battery for less than 2 months and used only 3x. I am thinking when I had the battery in the RC I was not focused on the wire harness location. It must have been hitting\touching moving part somewhere inside the RC.

The question I am sure this WILL NOT be covered under any warranty....can the wires be fixed and how? Currently if I put it on the Spektrum charger, I get no reading or detection at all:

View attachment 72438View attachment 72439

I would say it was a manufacturer’s defect as clearly that clear shrink wrap was a half inch too short. ???‍✌?

 

[slick2500]

Also secure your battery cables, don't just let them flop around.

 

[parcou]

When using a lipo checker on the balance lead do you get any cell counts?

I think jkflow hit it might be dead and I cannot solder wires.

I don't get a cell count

On my S2100 Smart charger the battery

• Will not charge
• Does not detect the battery to show what the cell's voltage inside
• The balance lead is not detecting

If I use my XBC100, it does not detect it if I connect with the EC5 or balance lead separately. Same if I connect them to it together.

 

[jkflow]

Do you know someone that has a little more knowledge or access to a lhs?
It seems odd that you are not getting anything on the balance wires, that never happens, at least on the undamaged ones.
I assume you used something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/PACK-Battery...ds=lipo+battery+checker&qid=1585677121&sr=8-2

 

[slick2500]

From what I see in the pictures the negative lead just nicked the wire and the spot on the balance lead looks like it just barely made it through the casing, not sure how that would cause the battery to not show any voltage. Only thing I can think of is that the wires inside the pack came disconnected somehow.

 

[olds97_lss]

From what I see in the pictures the negative lead just nicked the wire and the spot on the balance lead looks like it just barely made it through the casing, not sure how that would cause the battery to not show any voltage. Only thing I can think of is that the wires inside the pack came disconnected somehow.

I have had that happen, but not on anything that looked so new... it's a pain to fix on a normal pack, not sure if the spektrum packs have a circuit board in there or just wired weird for the smart connector.

On a soft pack, you can cut the pack open and get to it. On a hard case, it's more involved, but doable. I use a dremel to cut along the entire seam of the pack at a low RPM with a thin cutting wheel. I make light passes for about 1 inch at a time until I see silver, then move on. Takes about 5 minutes to work around the entire case. Then you have to somewhat gently pry the case halves apart as they typically are double side taped to the top/bottom of the cells inside.

Then it's a matter of removing the heat tape and finding the damaged lead, then replacing it/resoldering it.

Put the heat tape back on (I bought some so I don't have to care about the original stuff), then just use reenforced packing tape to put the pack back together. The heat tape I bought: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XH9Y7FU

I did this quite a few times to build 3S packs out of old 2S SMC hard case packs. I just recently took 4 of my old 2S packs apart (had them in matched pairs) to build 2 "new" 3S packs for this year. 2 of the 2S packs were literally brand new, never used that I had bought over a year ago.

Before I put the heat tape in so the wires didn't rub on stuff:

After taping the cases:

In my use, the packs were now taller, so the case halves didn't reach each other, so I got creative with the old cases and cut them in strips to cover the gap before taping. Seems cheap to do, but since I literally had no use for these packs anymore, I figured I'd at least repurpose them to get some use out of them.

 

[Rainger40]

I feel your pain, I just did the exact thing to the same battery on its first charge. I ended up cutting and re-splicing the damaged wires. I used a butt connector I’d never seen before. Heat shrink no crimp with low heat solder in the middle at wire junction(Amazon 2 days). I used a micro torch to “quick start” shrink to hold in place then heat gun on low to finish shrinking and melt solder. Liquid electrical tape over them all just for a little added security. Worked great, pack chargers and runs fine. The balance leads had the tiniest arc while handling it before repair and I haven’t got it to balance, but I can live with that, better than $50 right down the tubes. Good luck!

 

[slick2500]

I feel your pain, I just did the exact thing to the same battery on its first charge. I ended up cutting and re-splicing the damaged wires. I used a butt connector I’d never seen before. Heat shrink no crimp with low heat solder in the middle at wire junction(Amazon 2 days). I used a micro torch to “quick start” shrink to hold in place then heat gun on low to finish shrinking and melt solder. Liquid electrical tape over them all just for a little added security. Worked great, pack chargers and runs fine. The balance leads had the tiniest arc while handling it before repair and I haven’t got it to balance, but I can live with that, better than $50 right down the tubes. Good luck!View attachment 77069

Idk why I just can't bring myself to trust those things.

 

[crimsonfancy]

Idk why I just can't bring myself to trust those things.

I bought a pack of those collars but haven't used yet. Need a simple project to test reliability but from what I've read, folks seem to like em. I'm optimistic because I'm too impatient to solder with the tools I had before I bought a new butane solder pen....also remains unused.

 

[Rainger40]

Idk why I just can't bring myself to trust those things.

I’ve used the mechanical crimp weatherproof connectors for a long time, but the metal ferrule in them never gets smaller outside of the crimp itself making things bulky if multiple are used next to each other. The ones I used on the battery pack shrink the entire length and remain way more flexible which is helpful when bending wires to connect to truck, charger, ect. I gave one a good tug to double check and it was gtg.

 

[olds97_lss]

Idk why I just can't bring myself to trust those things.

I bought some, but have yet to use them on anything. I only needed them once and it was with something that was a pain to splice together, my eJato motor wires. I did it just using an iron/solder/flux, found these things after I had the work done and ordered them for the future, then they sit in a drawer for me to forget about. lol!