One of my torches the button on the battery isn’t raised enough causing connection problems so I was trying to think ways I could extend it.
One of the easiest / most obvious would just to be put some solder on it but if I use a soldering iron and put it in the button to heat it will it damage the battery …. I was thinking I could just drop a dab off of the soldering iron onto a cold button but I think it’d come off quite easily.
The other alternative I was thinking of just cutting a small circle of Ali from a beer can and soldering that on top of the button.
I appreciated the obvious answer is buy more batteries but until I’ve ordered them and had them delivered I probably won’t know if they’ll have a large enough button so could end up with more of the same that don’t work well and the ones I have would pretty much go to waste … althought could be the excuse for another torch that they will work in Lol
My preferred technique is to add aluminium/copper sheet wrapped disc shaped neodymium magnets on top, and then affixing the thing by enclosing it with some hot glue. This creates an ultra-low resistance connection (by far outperforming any factory added button top) that won't go loose easily because of the glue bond over the extra folded metal sheet/foil by the sides. It's a nice mod I've yet to request a patent for… LOL!
I normally have a selection of them lying around from when I used to fly RC Planes but when you need them can I find them … like F…. can I … always the way
I’ll jump online and order some I was thinking 5mm x either 0.5 or 1mm … if I go with the 0.5 and buy a few if ever I need thicker just use more then one.
I would go with the 1mm. The .5mm magnets seem to shatter just by looking at them. Even the 1mm shatter easily. For this reason I use 5mm x 1.5mm and they hold up much better than the thinner ones. Others may have different experience?
Yep. Neodymium magnets .5, 1, 2, or even 3mm thickness and various diameters because it all depends. Also the stronger N50, N52 magnets are best if not using something additionally to bind the magnet. They won’t move too easily but it is still possible and sometimes can be more likely than others depending on how they will seat in the flashlight. I think Amazon names like CMS Magnets and Applied Magnets are sellers with reliable claims. I know that all of the magnets I’ve bought on Banggood have fallen well short of claimed N52, N50 and were more like N28 or N32. Still strong but chimp strong, not gorilla strong.
Also had success fitting several batteries with solder blobs. Touch the contact with a dremel or sandpaper then touch on the contact a little with the hot iron and get that blob down quick. I don’t recommend doing this unless you are aware of what the dangers and your tools/skills are up to the task.
Solder blobs are a 2 second affair . There’s no need to have any discussion at all and the methods have been discussed here at length . Rough up the end add flux load up the iron with a massive amount of solder and just make a blob ….bang …
no heating the battery and it’s not coming off .
NOT doing solder blobs is one of the dumber things i did for years . Feel sort of stupid for ever even thinking it could be anything but a great ideas .
magnets have dented/deformed ,moved a bit and were a dumb idea … the answer is FLUX
Already screwed up some Ni-MH cells by soldering on them in the past. Wherever the solder has to flow into needs to reach fused solder temperature for the thing to work (proper wetting of the surface). This means you'll need a lot of heat because batteries are like big heatsinks and they don't like high temperatures, which is one of the reasons spot welders are for.
With regards to the pics, I used 10 layers of aluminium foil; conductivity should be equivalent to 0'1mm copper sheet. The conductive metal wrapping is also a convenient dampening protection for the magnet . Less hot glue can also be used, a careful dab on each corner should do nicely and be easier to remove if needed.
Cheers ^:)
Original post date: Sun, 09/11/2016 - 10:18; grammar fix edition.
Being a perfectionist, I already thought I had to replace pics 4 & 5 (which weren't meeting my standards ). There you are.
Cheers ^:)
P.S.: papaslightsaber, I don't know what you'd call a strong magnet but, as you can see in the last pic, my ∅8×1'5mm (≈1'4mm actually) magnets are well above 100g of pull force.
@Burkuti , Yes, it’s all good. I just know that magnets coming from certain retailers are quite noticeably harder to pull off of metal given the same sized magnet. I’m not saying that any functionally decent neodymium magnet won’t do the job as much as I’m saying there are stronger ones easily available for roughly the same cost and they can ship out in one day too. The magnets that I’ve personally received from Banggood have been weaker than the ones from CMS Magnets or other big magnet distributers on Amazon (not applicable to all locations). When used for our purposes discussed, the extra reassurance is, frankly, reassuring. Of course given your method, which is quite excellent, this point would be much less of an issue. However, when using the magnets naked on the positive contact, I personally am much more comfortable ordering known N52. I don’t have a gauss meter to show the difference of the Banggood claimed N52 and the CMS or other reputable distributer’s actual N52 but I most certainly feel them as having a stronger pull force. Only cost a few cents more too. Sorry if this comes across as defensive and neurotic, I’m really just trying to clarify my point.
Trying to load images from Flickr is not working. Anyone help? Was going to just show my neodymium magnets for charging 10 or so cells on a hobby charger but can’t load an image. Thanks
While it shouldn’t be an issue, do check the space between the + and - points on the driver. It could be potentially easy to cause a direct short here if a magnet is too big, or moves. But it will depend on the driver and fitment in question.
I often put magnets on the - end of the battery instead. No risk of shorting and if it’s just the battery is a little short, it’ll solve the problem.
Lol
. Less hot glue can also be used, a careful dab on each corner should do nicely and be easier to remove if needed.
). There you are. 