first off : terrible advertising. second : how many times do mechanical-contact 18650s need to be attempted before it's settled universally that it's a bad ide

first off : terrible advertising. second : how many times do mechanical-contact 18650s need to be attempted before it's settled universally that it's a bad idea for vehicles (like e-bikes that your advertisement mentions)? I hated the VRUZEND design too and they at least had the insight to use 18650s with overlapped bus-bars for the sake of rigidity and continuity through deformation. The design that you're using is, imo, most similar to the JAG35 pcb-over-terminal designs -- but as far as I know he doesn't bother trying to use PCBs over loose 18650s; only to interface with existing and pre-welded packs or packs with pre-welded stud interfaces, usually already fairly rigid prismatic packs [0] PCBs aren't that rigid necessarily; it's easy to imagine conditions in which batteries might drop out of the network. Even with lots of bolts and thick PCBs -- uneven thermal expansion due to a poorly made cell, for example. The kind of conditions that would fry a lot of motor controllers under load should the voltage suddenly change somewhere. No thanks. Let's stick with welding, it's now dirt-cheap to buy a battery welder and it's not nearly as irreversible as groups that sell things like this would make you believe. [0]: https://jag35.com/products/fully-assembled-12v-4s2p-1200a-lev60f-battery-lifepo4 https://jag35.com/products/fully-assembled-12v-4s2p-1200a-le...