Battery terminal mold insert

thingiverse

I've printed approximately 20 of these battery compartments, as I needed only 14 but many of them turned out poorly due to bad prints. My biggest challenge was creating the terminals for the battery connection. I've included photos to illustrate the issue; essentially, I ended up with a warped mess that was nearly impossible to straighten and assemble into the battery compartment. To overcome this problem, I designed a new model that allows me to hand-compress the terminal strip in the provided jig without warping the rest of the strip. Everything functions as expected, but when creating the terminal, follow the video instructions: cut the strip, then instead of hammering, place the model over the top of the terminal strip and compress it with your hands until all parts are pressed down. This will indent the strip and create contacts without warping it; it should still be around 90-95% straight. Next, use pliers to crimp each battery connection once on each side, making them slightly straighter. You should end up with almost perfectly straight terminal strips. After printing 28 strips, my insert collapsed in the last hole so I reversed it and compressed the final three holes from the other direction after compression. I've included a photo showing some of my best results using the original method alongside one achieved through the new approach. The battery image demonstrates how straight the terminal is once inserted into the compartment.