APIC Safety Lead for the GRACE mission and the LSP Range Safety required AMSAT Engineering to demonstrate the safety of the Sanyo KR-1400AE cells used in the Fox-1A satellite, in light of the cells having no UL listing nor available manufacturer documentation on the cell case pressure and venting pressure.
After a few weeks spent on planning, obtaining components, construction, and rehearsal (there are no “do-overs” once the circuit is closed!) a small team consisting of Bob Fitzpatrick KB5SQG, Shura Buxton KD5FCQ, and Jerry Buxton NØJY performed the test on Sunday afternoon, December 7, 2014. The cell was subjected to a direct short circuit and the current, temperature, and physical behavior were observed, logged, and captured on video. While the report to APIC is For Official Use Only, the video is not and so you are invited to view the raw footage (minus a couple of spots where audio has been muted for expletives or chatter unrelated to the test) on YouTube.
The test was successful, as it was demonstrated that the cell did not burst nor greatly deform, there was no fire or damage, and no liquid leakage. There was quite a surprise, though!
The multimeter is reading mV DC across a .001 ohm current sense resistor, so the reading you see directly corresponds to current. Temperature is in degrees Celsius.
And Murphy was of course present, as a natural part of anything involving amateur radio activities. Fortunately, the stopwatch wound up almost exactly 10 seconds behind so translation of the readings was pretty simple!