I have one of those inexpensive black plastic 6xAA battery holders. I recently discovered that if I press on it in a certain way the power cuts out, which is kind of a problem for my project. It's worse if the holder has NiMh batteries in it, since they are larger in diameter, but it happens with very type of AA battery I've tried.
That's what I was afraid of. The explosions part, I mean. What happens when you overheat a lithium AA cell?
Can you recommend a particular holder? All the ones I see in searches have that same cheap slightly flexible quality to them. Weight is also an important consideration for this project but reliability is ultimately more important.
I don't mind the tiny cost of using acrylic. But (like ceramic) it's a heavy material. Ounces matter in this project.
If it were just a matter of mounting it to one piece of rigid material that would be one thing. But the access panel to the batteries is also particularly flexible. It's kind of a piece of junk.
It will be in an environment where it might be pressed upon lightly on occasion. Tape, being flexible itself, won't do much if anything to prevent the problem.
The springs all appear to make contact, as do the positive terminals. I'm not really sure what the exact failure is since I can't see inside of it and it doesn't fail when the access panel is removed.
I think the real solution is a rigid container for the batteries. I may just have to put it inside some other box until I can find or build a better holder.
I would (and typically do). The entire cost to you is one email; about five minutes of your time. The benefits to you are: They send a replacement. You can use their response to gauge what sort of vendor they are and whether or not you want to continue doing business with them.
Why not give it an extra advantage. Solder 6 rechargeable nicads in series and make it rechargeable. Don't even use a battery holder. I have experienced the same thing with a metal detector's batterys and I hate those cheap holders. If you want to use them use the 2 battery holders 3 of them. There is not as much stress on the holder with the 2 battery types.
The application involves cool temperatures (~0°C) which favors using lithium. Weight is also important and NiMh cells have an energy density less than half that of lithium AA. There's probably a better battery solution for my project but the issue here is just one of making good contact with the batteries I have.