TEST & MEASUREMENT
Unveiling the steps of custom battery and charger manufacturing
Neil Oliver, technical marketing manager of industrial battery manufacturer Accutronics, shows how each stage, from understanding successful production of custom batteries and/or chargers
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very custom battery or charger order begins with an enquiry and ends with volume production. However, there are many tasks that happen in-between to ensure that performance, and safety requirements of each customer.
The initial step is to thoroughly understand the customer’s requirements and expectations. This involves close communication and collaboration to gather all the necessary information, including desired battery/ standards or regulations that need to be met. Based on this, a detailed technical serves as a comprehensive guide for all involved in the project, as it describes what is (and what is not) required from the product. It includes parameters such as electrical ratings, environmental considerations, mechanical constraints, and regulatory requirements. established, the battery goes through a detailed electrical and mechanical design phase. This step involves blocking out the internal structure, circuitry, and mechanical components of the battery/charger to meet the customer’s requirements. The design phase may also include purchasing initial design proving components and conducting bench testing to validate that it performs as expected. As well as verifying the design of components, it is also necessary to evaluate the design of the battery’s/charger’s housing, using rapid prototyping techniques to fabricate the casing in a quick and cost-effective way. This is done using 3D printing or other similar technologies and is a useful way of showing if After fabricating the case, a small number of
batteries/chargers are assembled and tested following a test plan that is created based on
This helps to identify any potential issues in results are documented in a validation report, which assesses whether the batteries meet the
After the validation of prototypes, the manufacturing process moves towards hard tooling. This step involves the production of the components required, which could include injection-moulded plastics, formed metal parts, PCBAs (Printed Circuit Board Assemblies), light pipes, packaging, labels, and membrane panels, among other things — tool trials are
56 JULY/AUGUST 2023 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS
conducted to ensure the quality and precision of these components.
With the production-tooled components chargers is built. These batteries/chargers are they are not yet tested to external regulatory standards (if required).
Most of this batch is sent to the customer for approval, and the remaining balance is retained at the manufacturing facility for further reference or analysis. Batteries over 100Wh are subject to more costly and complex shipping regulations.
To enable volume production, production designed and built where necessary. These
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