I found this fascinating thread on a Chinese website, full of pictures of someone replacing their OEM Prius batteries with Cylindricals. Looks overall similar to newpriusbatteries however these batteries look kinda janky - especially the bent bus bars. https://club.autohome.com.cn/bbs/thread/aa42ef02c9819b68/74317926-1.html It is very interesting what you can find copy/pasting Chinese characters into a search engine and a translater. The title of the thread comes through as "3 generation Prius replacement domestic power battery pack full disassembly diagram sharing"
If you Google the cylinder batteries you can find a Chinese distributer with very similar kits, but I'm not sure if they are in any way associated with the products 2K1Toaster supports.
I believe @2k1Toaster worked with one of them to develop the clips holding the cells together. I remember him saying that their cells did not test to have their stated capacity, unlike the ones he sells. I have not heard of any complaints about the newpriusbatteries kit, even from the experts here that tested them.
If you scroll through the photos in the OP's link, you'll see the guy building the battery actually snapped off a stud and then soldered the busbar to the broken module. That's one thing that can happen when you don't use the right tools. No place in any of the photos was there a torque wrench....
Maybe battery kits could be supplied with a cheap but effective torque wrench, tailor-made with just the bus bar torque value (48 in/lb). Just some sort of go-nogo wrench, maybe with T-handle. Food for thought for @2k1Toaster ?
I believe that any included wrench would probably be seen as a universal tool for every bolt, and would end up getting broken before the rebuild was complete.
Meh, seems akin to a Ikea supplied Allen-key. As long as it stayed pristine for the battery install, it would have served it's purpose. Too, at some point you have to quit leading balking horses to water: if someone's going to order a battery rebuild kit, immediately yoink out the purpose-built torque wrench to do tire rotations, there's no hope for them, B Ark material, lol.
The purpose-built torque wrench has to last past the removal of the reinforcing brackets, cage, and the removal of all the modules. You would think someone investing in this alternative would have better common sense but...
They have these already. I have a couple that I use on my test bench. Calibrated for 60 inch pounds. Believe they're called a plumbers clamp wrench or something similar. I use them for all the test bench work I do and save the torque wrench for actual assembly. The photo below is what I have. Made specifically for an 8mm or 5/16 fastener. Rotating clockwise it will release at 60 inch pounds. Rotating counter-clockwise, the handle just spins. The arm sticking out is normally down around the shaft. It can be moved to the position shown in the photo to allow loosening a fastener. More accurate than I ever imagined it would be. Runs about 60 bucks if I remember correctly.
That's good, you pretty much can't overtorque. I lie: the B Ark crew would leave that appendage out at 90 degrees, use it tighten down extra.
