Deconstructing LiPo's?

[Bystickel]

This is my first experience with these LiPo (Lithium Potato) batteries. My prior RC involvement has me limited to 1200Mah NiCads. Those were dark days. It's amazing that the hobby survived the horrible batteries. I digress.

I got my 2200mAh 3S packs for my crawler, and see that they're made up from 3 .250"-ish-thick cells. It got me thinking about laying those 3 cells flat, much like the way that 1:1 vehicles are doing. This could help quite a bit in constructing a full interior.

Has anybody explored this? I'm willing to open mine if nobody has. I'm just not sure about how these are wired, and if it's a challenge to extend any connections to make a flat pack possible.

It might help some builds. I'd love to learn more.

 

[Kear]

As someone that still uses nimh packs, the concept of having a lipo evenly spread out under my build is horrifying...Buuut I imagine it could be done? It could probably be better to custom build a pack out of raw flat cells sourced from a bulk supplier though, at least from a cost point of view. Another issue could be charging and mounting of such a battery. I'd also be extremely worried about it bending during the process... But I've long wondered why no one uses airsoft style butterfly batteries. https://www.evike.com/products/57968/ fitting high power lipos in rifle shaped objects is a cursed art that has produced some rather interesting shapes. Some of which could probably be hidden quite well.

 

[zanthrax]

Haven't tried but it's an interesting idea that certainly sounds possible.
The cells in a pack are in series, so re-wiring them is pretty simple.
The tabs on the cells are soldered together so that should be easy to deal with.
Just be VERY careful to not short out a cell when working on it, things would get very hot very fast. Lots of Kapton tape is used to prevent during use.
You can find some videos on YT of people turning for example a 3s pack with one pad cell into a 2s pack, that should help.

 

[Bystickel]

Thanks for the input, and for providing the link to those Airsoft batteries.
I haven't had one apart, and don't know the first thing about how the balance wires function, so that would be new to me.
I could imagine something like a smaller 2S fitting nicely into the backrest of a bench seat, for instance. Re-configuring the packs might open up some options. The cells wouldn't even have to adjacent to each other, so you could stick them anywhere you had room.
I will provide some updates if I ever try it.

 

[zanthrax]

This should help, there is no magic to the balance plug. It just allows the charger to measure voltage on individual cells.

 

[Bystickel]

Nice! Thanks for that. That's not complicated at all.

 

[Sphaxz]

This is a super interesting idea. I don't see why it wouldn't be theoretically possible, but I'd also recommend using bulk sourced cells rather than trying to disassemble a battery. Those airsoft LiPos seem like a really interesting idea as well to get the battery split into more manageable sizes.

 

[Itruckhard]

You could grab lipos in 2 or 3S that are the size of a pack of Pez for like 5 to 8 bucks. With 500 to 700 mah. Tuck those anywhere.