Electronic – the best way to mount a LiPo battery in a project box
batteriesenclosurelipo
If you were going to use a LiPo battery such as this one:
. . . and needed to mount it safely and securely inside a project box similar to what is pictured below what best way to achieve that?
Best Answer
If you want it to be permanent, I recommend VHB 4905 tape by 3M. You can use it to secure the battery to an enclosure, then use it to seal the enclosure, then use it to attach the enclosure to something :)
It has a body thickness of 20-mil, so it's pretty compliant. It's non-conductive (10^16 Ohms/square), and has a breakdown voltage of 630V per mil.
The datasheet for the entire line of VHB tapes is here. Page 7 shows the electrical characteristics. It's not cheap, but you can get some from Amazon for about $12 USD.
Don't use it if you want to remove the battery later. I spent a lot of time with safety glasses and an X-Acto knife cutting a LiPo free from VHB, and I'll never do it again. LiPo's shouldn't be bent, pierced, or punctured.
For a removeable solution, I like the Velcro idea mentioned by @Linkyyy in the comments.
As an aside, once I took some home and taped a pewter key hook to my wall. A year layer, when I tried to remove it, the paint and sheetrock tore away before the VHB! Nothing like a little quick spackling as you leave :)
There's battery monitoring, and battery protection. They're two different things, and different design considerations apply to each. Sending a signal to a microcontroller is a good design for monitoring -- you can alarm and tell the user their battery is low.
But generating a digital signal isn't stopping discharge, so it doesn't provide any protection to the cells. The only way you can read your digital signal is by powering the microcontroller... which continues to drain and damage the battery.
Having used the Sparkfun battery charger you listed (and in general designing with the Microchip MCP73831 battery charger), I have found that while it is supposed to be be safe, the Sparkfun device will get alarmingly hot when charging a large, almost empty battery from 5V USB power. I suspect this is simply due to the linear nature of the battery charger and the small un-heatsinked package., but I would be a bit weary of leaving it plugged in unattended because of this.
Best Answer
If you want it to be permanent, I recommend VHB 4905 tape by 3M. You can use it to secure the battery to an enclosure, then use it to seal the enclosure, then use it to attach the enclosure to something :)
It has a body thickness of 20-mil, so it's pretty compliant. It's non-conductive (10^16 Ohms/square), and has a breakdown voltage of 630V per mil.
The datasheet for the entire line of VHB tapes is here. Page 7 shows the electrical characteristics. It's not cheap, but you can get some from Amazon for about $12 USD.
Don't use it if you want to remove the battery later. I spent a lot of time with safety glasses and an X-Acto knife cutting a LiPo free from VHB, and I'll never do it again. LiPo's shouldn't be bent, pierced, or punctured.
For a removeable solution, I like the Velcro idea mentioned by @Linkyyy in the comments.
As an aside, once I took some home and taped a pewter key hook to my wall. A year layer, when I tried to remove it, the paint and sheetrock tore away before the VHB! Nothing like a little quick spackling as you leave :)