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Shorting battery charging leads - A simple Fix with Sugru

Discussion in 'MōVI M5' started by Mike Duval, May 28, 2014.

  1. Mike Duval

    Mike Duval Member

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    Hi All,

    Just wanted to share a quick mod we made to our MōVI charging leads. Obviously, the best practice is to never remove the leads from the charger. That's pretty obvious. However, what about the helpful production assistant who isn't aware of the dangers of pulling the wrong end of the wire from a battery? That's why we looked for a solution to add an extra level of safety. What we found is this awesome moldable silicone adhesive material called "Sugru" (www.sugru.com).

    Basically you open a package and you've got 30 minutes to mold and shape into whatever you want. I used one 5g package to make this unsophisticated mold which joined the charging leads reducing the possibility of a short from loose leads. I can see a ton of uses for this stuff with the MōVI especially with its adhesive properties. Hopefully it helps someone solve a problem they've had.


    movichargersugru1.jpg
    movichargersugru2.jpg

    Mike
     
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  2. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    That stuff looks awesome. Their material sheet mentions electrical resistance at something like 10 to the 14th power. That sounds pretty inert. :)
     
  3. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Sugru doesn't have a great shelf life and is quite spendy. It'll apparently keep for a year if you put it into a freezer.

    Andy.
     
  4. Mike Duval

    Mike Duval Member

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    Hi Andy,

    The new formulation of Sugru has a little over a year shelf life in the package at room temperature, and 4x that in the fridge. I'd think that would be sufficient for most applications. You are right that its not what I'd call cheap, but for this application it works out really well. I'll keep you up to date on how it works out long term.
     
  5. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Thanks, Mike. Based on my own experience, you may see some degradation if you get too much sun-light on the Sugru, but that's based on a very limited sample size. Sample size of one, actually. :)

    Andy.
     
  6. Mike Duval

    Mike Duval Member

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    Good to know. I'll keep my eyes out for that and report back.
     
  7. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    Sounds like some enterprising person with a 3D printer would be able to whip out something very useful.
     

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