18650 3-Cell Battery Holder

thingiverse

I needed a case to house three 18650 Lithium Ion cells to make a battery pack for an RC model. After looking on Thingiverse for one I could not find a model that suited my needs, so I went into SolidWorks and designed one myself! The case is comprised of 3 parts, a main center body that holds the cells, a bottom cover and a top cover that has exit holes for the power leads and a 4-wire, 3-cell Balance lead. The center body has a hole down the center that will allow the negative lead from the connector to get to the bottom of the battery pack. There is also an oval hole running down one side that will allow 2 wires from the balance connector to get to the bottom of the battery pack. I used 16 AWG main power leads and the balance connector extension I got had 20 AWG leads on it. The upper and lower covers are each held on with three socket head M2 x 0.4mm threaded screws that are 6mm long. The holes in the center body for these screws are sized so that the cover screws will self thread into the plastic when they are screwed in. I ran a screw into each of the holes to form the thread before I assembled the battery pack. The holes for the 18650 cells are sized just right so that the batteries will slide in with a small amount of pressure and stay in place in the holder without sliding around. I printed all the parts for this battery holder on an Ender 3 Pro printer with a stock 0.4mm nozzle and 0.2mm layers. No supports are needed on the parts when printed.