Save Those Plastic Bottles!

[kyleservicetech]

For the newbies, those plastic bottles that are used for bottled water, and various soda types can be "shrunk" down with a standard heat gun. If you're making battery packs, these bottles can really do the job.

Even those bottles used for soap and similar materials also work, but just not as good as the bottled water types. The individual battery cells are held in place with pieces of fiberglass packing tape, before placing the plastic bottle over the battery pack. When shrunk down, this stuff is REALLY strong.

Once the plastic has been shrunk over your project, their labels will peal off with application of heat. You will need acetone or similar to remove the label adhesive.

Take a look at the attached photos of an 8 cell A123 battery project. Also used was a plastic bottle from a bottle of root beer. The weird shape was for cg balance purposes.

[CNY_Dave]

Does it shrink in all dimensions, or only in one like heat-shrink tubing?

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by CNY_Dave

Does it shrink in all dimensions, or only in one like heat-shrink tubing?

Depends on the bottle. Those plastic drink bottles I've tried shrink mostly in diameter, and the "long" dimension shrinks about 1/2 as much. I just hit both ends with the heat gun, then hit the middle to complete the job.

It takes a bit of heat with the heat gun, and doing the battery in this project took several minutes.

[startazz]

Nice job and i've seen this done for canopies for planes,but they used a wooden mold and then put the cut out plastic bottle part over the mold then applied heat,came out really well.

Any way thanks for sharing as i love seeing all these little tips as they can come in very handy.

[bluzjamer]

Nice tip but be careful with acetone it is highly flamable and be careful with the heat gun, especially around acetone and I don't know about lipos and heat and not sure about batteries of any kind subjected to a lot of heat.

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by bluzjamer

Nice tip but be careful with acetone it is highly flamable and be careful with the heat gun, especially around acetone and I don't know about lipos and heat and not sure about batteries of any kind subjected to a lot of heat.

Good points. LiPo cells are usually all ready set up ready to go. Don't know if I'd point a heat gun at a LiPo pack though. I do my acetone stuff out doors, don't want to stink up my work shop, or my lungs.

I've checked my A123 metal jacketed cells after hitting these bottles with a heat gun. They only get slightly warm doing this.