So I’ve been going through many design iterations for this M6 battery carrier / floater plate thing-a-ma-jig for the last half of the day… The cheapest, least invasive, safe, and quick design I’ve come to is this…
First, with the factory board at the tail, cut all the traces like Mike C did in this pic.
Second, remove two of the springs from opposite (diagonal) corners and replace them with a solder blob or 6x2mm brass buttons that you find at FT or MTN. Connect each of these with a mate that is still sprung with a silicone insulated wire.
Then for the hard part…
Someone (I’m trying to learn how to do it myself finally) needs to draw out an oshpark board for the front end. I have it drawn in Google SketchUp, but there’s still work to be done obviously.
The front board will look like a ‘pizza saver’ once complete, and will sandwich between the body tube and the brass driver retaining ring for the negative current path. Springs will be used on the driver side of the plate for (+) positive contact to the driver. The key design element of this setup is the four 5/16” nylon legs that will locate/center the contacts and make it impossible to rotate and short cells as it’s tightened. I spec’d out 5/16” OD by 7/16” length #4 nylon standoffs (tubes) and some oversized (#6-19) plastite type screws to secure them to the board.
I managed to order one of the XHP70 emitters from DigiKey.
Now I’m trying to figure out where to get a sink pad. Ideally, since I’m in Canada, I’m looking for a “shipped free” pad - which generally takes me to eBay first.
I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what has the same pad footprint as the XHP70. It seems like XML is too small and MTG2 is too big.
The two marked with X appear damaged maybe. I can see some scratches that traverse the full pad that might be at issue, Im not sure what issue that creates, but its the only thing they both have i common that i did not notice on the unmarked ones. I think DB was willing to part with some for sale/trade or whatever (there was a minimum order quantity from the source IIRC) and maybe he just wants to make sure he doesnt send those ones by mistake?
SinkPAD determined that those 2 were not up to their specs, so they cut em with a box knife and marked the X on em. I tested em with my DMM and they’re fine. I was told they shouldn’t be, but continuity or lack thereof showed them to be just fine. Beats me.
I would probably have put one sheet of 15 in a small frame and hung em on the wall if they’d left the X off and not cut em up.
Good thing I have nothing better to do than moniter these pages 24/7! I nabbed one for $12.32 total. Aluminum star and free shipping. I already have a Noctigon to use.