Laser cleaning battery components
AssigneeMilwaukee Electric Tool Corporation
InventorsMatthew R. Polakowski, Kyle C. Fassbender
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A battery pack including a supporting structure, a battery cell housed within the supporting structure, a sleeve partially surrounding the battery cell, a bus bar, and a wire. The sleeve extends over a portion of a first end of the battery cell and has a laser-cut cutaway portion exposing a laser-cleaned first bonding area of the first end of the battery cell. The laser-cleaned first bonding area is positioned adjacent to an outer perimeter of the first end of the battery cell. The bus bar has a laser-cleaned second bonding area. The wire is bonded to the first and second laser-cleaned bonding areas to electrically connect the battery cell to the bus bar.
Claims17
A method of manufacturing a battery pack, the method comprising:
- activating a light source;
- directing a first pulsed laser beam from the light source toward a bus bar of the battery pack;
- removing a layer from the bus bar with the first pulsed laser beam;
- directing a second pulsed laser beam from the light source toward the bus bar;
- and
- laser welding the bus bar with the second pulsed laser beam.
A laser cleaning and welding machine comprising:
- a light source;
- a vision system;
- and
- a controller operatively connected to the light source and the vision system, the controller configured to
- adjust an aim direction of the light source toward a bus bar of a battery pack,
- activate the light source a first time to emit a first pulsed laser beam to remove a layer from a portion of the bus bar,
- detect the portion of the bus bar that has had the layer removed, and
- activate the light source a second time to emit a second pulsed laser beam to weld the portion of the bus bar.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.