This is dangerous, try at your own risk, there is a lot of power and a lot of ways to screw up. I am in no way responsible for the damage or injuries you sustain attempting this.
Some of the other guides/forums I have read through show a very tedious process of cutting the top black part of the black casing. Any slip up or wrong move leads to a short or cutting a pouch. Instead I pried along the outside of the pack to snap the plastic welds between the black top and the yellow body. The pack will not come apart at this point, because the cell tabs are soldered around the black top. Since my goal was to separate the cells to single cells anyways, I began the difficult process of breaking the factory weld tabs. I taped off any tabs I wasn't working on to prevent shorts, and simple began prying with different flat head screwdrivers. The results were mixed, but in general I believe I have walked away with usable tabs.
Step 1
Break the plastic welds from the black top to the yellow body. I used a flat head near the welds and pried until they popped. Work your way all around the top.
- Breaking Plastic welds between top and body
- Prying Plastic.jpg (109.54 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
Tape off all tab tops except the one you intend to separate. I also had a rag with tape on it in case of slipping under force to prevent me from piercing through a single layer of tape and shorting.
- Covered Tab Connections
- Covered.jpg (118.54 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
Begin prying all 3 tabs away from the bus bar. Be careful to reduce taring, I tried to get my screwdriver below the weld joint and pull up. Honestly mileage will vary and you just have to get in there to do it, to get the best feel.
- Prying all 3 cells away from bus bar
- Prying cells 1.jpg (105.96 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
- Prying all 3 cells away from bus bar 2
- Prying cells 2.jpg (109.24 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
- Prying all 3 cells away from bus bar 3
- Prying Cells 3.jpg (114.84 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
Once you have removed the 3 cells from the bus bar, I flattened them back against the bus bar. This helps keep the metal from catching on things and assist for removal. You will want to repeat the previous steps on the other side of the cell. Once both sides are free, the cells and either 1 or 2 sleeves of the yellow plastic should drop out the bottom away from the black plastic top. This will give you a single 1s3p module. (Note sometimes the cells will come apart from each other when you remove them from the bus bar.)
- Flatten tabs off of bus bar
- off bus bar.jpg (99.07 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
- 1s3p Module removed
- 1s3p Module.jpg (106.11 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
Continue with the previous steps until you have removed all the 1s3p modules. Then you will need to continue your careful prying and peeling process to separate each cell from each other. Again, the process is not very clean, I used a combination of pulling, prying with flat heads and rolling away with pliers to peel each one off each other. I have some holes in my tabs, but I believe I have plenty of material left to recombine them into 6s1p packs. I will probably utilize these existing holes as screw holes to clamp on copper plates.
- Single Cell tabs
- Single Cell tabs.jpg (88.14 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
- Single Cell tabs worse
- Single cell Tabs worse.jpg (67.87 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
Recombine the cells in the style you see fit. I am going for 6s1p packs, as it makes charging much easier. I will run two of these modules in my kart for a total of 12s1p. Process to hold the tabs together still to be determined.
- Temporary 6s1p setup
- 6s1p Voltage.jpg (114.37 KiB) Viewed 71733 times
- 6s1p Together
- 6s1p Together.jpg (136.17 KiB) Viewed 71732 times