The rechargeable battery industry uses both nickel and nickel plated material as mainstream products for interlink cells and battery connectors. These connectors or ‘tags’ link any number of individual cells to form a pack. The ever increasing demand for smaller, lighter battery packs that have higher storage and output capacities places greater demands on the quality of materials used in the connectors.
As output power increases so does the current carrying capacity of the connectors. The design of the packs requires materials to provide minimal resistivity. Weight is also a consideration so movement towards thinner materials can also be beneficial. Some assemblers also require specialised crimps for wire connectors that negate the need for time consuming solder connections. There are also requirements for specialist multi-cell tags.
Nickel Plated Steel
Nickel plated steel is ideally suited as links for battery connections, to link cells together either as a single tag from cell to cell or as a special etched or stamped tag, which can link multiple cells. This material is both easy to spot or tag weld and solder. It can be used as a substitute for nickel depending on the battery packs requirement, and can be used as electronic parts.
Nickel Strip and Tags
We use Nickel 200 and 201 grades, which conform to the ASTM B162 standard. It’s commercially pure (99.6% and higher) with good mechanical properties, and is resistant to a range of corrosive media. Our nickel strip and tags make excellent battery connectors because they have a low electrical resistance.
Battery Crimps
We have developed a crimp to replace the soldering process commonly used to join wire to tags. The crimp can accommodate wire spec gauges from 20–26 AWG and Standard 7/0.2mm along with others