How to Avoid Damaging Tabs of Pouch Cells During Grading?

Grading Tests: Avoiding Damage to Pouch Cell Tabs in Battery Sorting.Regardless of how the battery is graded, it’s important to protect the tabs of a pouch cell during the process; because the tabs are the only points of electrical connection from the interior electrochemistry of the cell to the rest of the external circuitry, simply bending the tabs will lead to a malfunction or failure.
Rather, the removal of such quick action is only the first step in protecting a pouch cell from damage during grading: some additional risks to the tabs of a pouch cell during retracting include:
Too much pressure without damaging the return spring in retracting, which can bend the tabs, crimp or simply tear them away from the cell.
Sharp edges on the chromatograph machine during grading of the pouches; ripping or cutting some section of the pouch open.
Unregimentation or inability and/or aversion to starting points when fanning out all four cells as cells in descending order for trash.In this case, machines with soft gripping or by vacuum-based cell holder machines prove most effective in preventing possible tab-stress damages to cells during the actual sorting and grading operations.
Make Sure That Your Automatic or Semi-Automatic Sorting Machines are Well Calibrated: As always, the proper use of pressure exertion by the separate machines as well as its well-distributed action can be a great protection against tab-affecting damages to the cells. So, for starters, make sure that your sorting machine can also gently handle pouch cells and perform the actual pressing of each cell with the proper amount of pressure.
Always Be Very Careful When Manually Handling Cells: Whenever manual cell handling becomes inevitable, be sure to properly train all operators in the precise care that a pouch cell would require during inter-departmental movements. When manual handling still cannot be avoided even at the grading department, proper clothing provided with cotton gloves that could avoid accidental contamination, and clean dry surfaces to work upon or over would tend to reduce damage to the cell’s any overasensitive part, in this case, the tabs. Finally, the care should also always be inherent in the manual handling of a delicate product like pouch cells intrinsically posing avoidable damage risks, especially concerning sharp object movements.
Use Tab Protective Fixtures: These could come built-in or bought separately for sorting machines in your company.
Opt for Non-Contact Testing: Then, the use of non-intrusive (actually non-contact) testing on these cells (if machine-run), could go a long way in greatly preventing the verge of damages to the cells: reliable affective techniques like infrared thermography and/or ultrasonic could be tried.
Avoid Too Much Exposure to Temperature Extremes in Pouch Cells and Their Grading Process: The cells’ substances can be permanently affected by extreme temperatures, so a good grading process should be conducted where temperature (and celltenders?) are well controlled.
Use Pouch-Specific Sorting Machines: Also, you can add your machines made specifically for pouch-type cells further, and which would gently and lightly support the pouch cells without stressing the tabs: machines essentially made for that.
Actual Testing and Inspection of the Connected Tabs After Grading and Other Handling If concerns had not already reached a well-kept tab state, there could still not be any dog hiding until a thorough inspection has been gone through. Through a careful inspection, one should be able to sight probable bending or actual cracks that could not have been noticed when grading the connected cells had of course also been done by sight, and other sources such as simply reading voltages should alert you of any bad connections through the harmful currently-maimed tabs. Dispose.