Unfortunately I don't (yet) have pictures to show .. so I'll make do with words instead.
I got some of those receptacle's which were referenced earlier on mouser.com, which match the connectors used in the dewalt packs. (Re: Advice on connecting DeWalt packs)
The first thing to know is they make for a very secure (and hard to pull apart) connection between receptacle and connector.
My first idea was to solder the receptacle to a 1x1 PC board. I started to do that, but then realized it would be nigh on impossible to get the PC board to fit inside the battery pack after I put the cover back on. Even if I cut the PC board in half. Soooo...
What I ended up doing was to solder the receptacle on the end of a cable. It's actually two cables, because there's two connectors to connect with. This brings the BMS connectors outside the battery pack.
The next part is to use a terminal block as the bus to join together all the batteries. After looking at several ideas, I really like the simplicity of the terminal block. You just tighten a screw to hold wires in place .. This is different than the usual barrier block where it's best if you use ring lugs .. here's two varieties of the terminal block I'm using.
Molex 0395340021 is one variety of this but isn't the one I'm using.
0391000802 is the style I'm using. You'll see in the illustration you can stick wires into holes on either side, and there's a clamp which you can screw into place to hold the wires.
It should be fairly obvious how to proceed from there. I'll try and get pictures into my computer ASAP.
Hi David,
Sounds like a nice solution to the connectology problem. I had to place my small proto board just outside the battery pack, because of the tight fit inside, and then I had to shrink-wrap it to protect it. I don't like having these little boards hanging just outside the pack - I am afraid I am going to bang them up or knock them off while using the pack for drilling or sawing.
Pictures would really be appreciated...Did you solder two wires to each pin? One to go to the corresponding pin on the pack and one to go outside the pack? Would it be easier to fit inside the pack if we used a straight wire to board connector instead of a right angle wire to board connector? Are you going to do the same setup on all your packs?
For my multi-purpose drilling and sawing applications, it would also be cool to be able to disconnect the bms wires from the packs right where they exit the side of the yellow top. I may try to come up with a way to mount a connector in a cutout slot on the yellow top that would allow easy disconnect - this would avoid having these many thin wires hanging outside the pack when being used for drilling or sawing.
Regards,
Brian