The ACEY catalog places battery research equipment in three separate categories: Battery Lab Research Machine, Battery Lab Lines and Laboratory Equipment. Those categories cover electrode preparation, cell fabrication, material treatment and cell testing, and the lab line pages are named for coin, cylindrical and pouch cells. This guide lists the equipment and the workflow using the category names, product page names and process steps printed on the ACEY website.

The three lab equipment categories on the ACEY catalog

The website lists three top-level lab categories, each with its own page and its own scope. The table below gives the category name and what that page states.

The starting point for a laboratory configuration is the battery lab lines for coin, cylindrical and pouch cells, where the three cell formats are listed as separate lines. The other two pages hold the individual cell fabrication machines and the material treatment equipment.

Lab lines and pack assembly lines are separate catalog entries

The lab categories above are not part of the Battery Pack Assembly Line category. That category is a separate entry titled "Battery Pack Assembly Lines & Turnkey Solutions", and its page states that "ACEY supplies semi-automatic and fully automatic assembly lines for cylindrical, prismatic and pouch battery packs, tailored to your production requirements." The same page names energy storage systems, e-bikes, electric mobility and UAVs as applications.

The equipment listed under the lab categories belongs to cell fabrication rather than pack assembly. Lab pages name slurry mixers, coating machines, roll presses, die cutters, winding and stacking machines, grooving machines, tab welders, pouch case forming machines, electrolyte filling equipment, vacuum standing boxes, cell sealers and cell test chambers. The pack assembly line pages name cell sorting, stacking, compression, laser welding, EOL testing, PACK assembly and MES traceability.

R&D and pilot work is therefore matched against the lab categories, not against a pack assembly line. The Battery Environment Testing Equipment page states that its equipment is "mainly targeted at research institutions, universities, and battery manufacturing company experimental centers". The coin cell cycler page states that it is "mainly aimed at research institutions, universities, and experimental centers of battery manufacturers".

Three cell formats, three lab line product pages

The Battery Lab Lines category carries separate product pages for coin, cylindrical and pouch cells. Each page names one cell format, and the coin cell pages list specific coin cell models.

The coin cell lab research machine page is the one that prints the CR2016, CR2025, CR2032 and CR2430 models, so a coin cell project is identified by those model names rather than by a general description of laboratory work.

Material preparation and heat treatment equipment

The Laboratory Equipment category holds four machine groups used before and during cell fabrication. The description in each row comes from that group's own category page.

The glove box page states that the equipment handles air-sensitive materials for lithium cell assembly. The drying oven page describes forced-air circulation with a programmable temperature controller for drying, storing and annealing in laboratory applications.

Electrode preparation: mixing, coating, rolling and cutting

The battery lab equipment for cell fabrication category lists the electrode preparation groups in the order the process uses them. The table names each group and what its category page states.

Cell assembly: winding, casing, filling and sealing

After electrode cutting, the lab categories list the machines that form, join, fill and close the cell. These category names are printed on the website under the lab equipment section.

Testing equipment listed for laboratory cells

The lab categories close with test equipment. The Battery Environment Testing Equipment page is titled "Battery Test Chambers, Nail Penetration & Short Circuit Testers" and describes temperature and altitude chambers, nail penetration, impact and short-circuit testers for assessing lithium cell and pack reliability and safety.

That page describes a unit that "integrates an 80-channel high-precision battery cycler with a 100L high-low temperature chamber", providing a simulated environment for battery charge-discharge cycling and safety performance testing. It states that the equipment "can accommodate 160 coin cells" and is "mainly targeted at research institutions, universities, and battery manufacturing company experimental centers".

The coin cell lab research machine page lists a "5V 50mA 200L Botton Cell Battery Cycler Tester Constant Temperature Test Chamber" with the model ACEY-WHW-200L-5V50mA-160CH, used for charge/discharge testing and constant temperature testing of coin cells. The page states that it can accommodate 160 coin cells and is aimed at research institutions, universities and experimental centers of battery manufacturers.

The workflow named on the cylindrical lab equipment flow chart

The "Cylindrical Cell Lab R&D Equipment" flow chart published on the Battery Lab Lines page names the stations in a set order. Reading the arrows from the Tube Furnace to the final test step gives the sequence below.

1. Tube Furnace and Planetary Ball Mill for material treatment.
2. Vacuum Mixing and Electrode Coating for slurry and electrode preparation.
3. Heat Rolling Press Machine and Sheet Cutting for electrode calendering and cutting.
4. Vacuum Drying, Ultrasonic Spot Welding Machine and Electrode Winding.
5. Spot Welding, Grooving and Glove Box.
6. Electrolyte Filling Machine and Electrode Diffusion.
7. Cylindrical Cases Sealing Machine, then the 5V 3A 6A 8Channel Battery Testing Machine.

The "Flow-chart of Coin Cell Lab-scale Fabrication" published on the same category page names a different sequence, beginning with Material, Tube Furnace, Ball Mill, Slurry Filter and Vacuum Mixer, then Film Coating Machine, Rolling Press Machine, Disc Cutter, Three-Electrode Split Test Cell, Vacuum Drying Oven, Glove Box, Electrolyte Injection, Manual Sealing Machine and Battery Cell Tester. The two charts belong to two different cell formats.

What the lab line product pages list

Three lab product pages print their own equipment lists. The items below are the machine names written on those pages.

The coin cell lab research machine page lists its configuration as "the vacuum mixer, manual film coating machine, electrode roller press machine, electrode cutter and crimping machine for coin cell sealing". The three lists do not share the same machines, and each one is tied to a single cell format.

Product page fields printed on the coin cell lab line

The laboratory coin cell line page publishes the fields below. They identify the product that a laboratory request refers to.

Alongside these fields, the pages name the cell format, the coin cell models, the equipment list and the test equipment. A request that names only "laboratory equipment" without a cell format does not identify any of the lab line products above.

Common mistakes when reading a lab equipment list

• Placing R&D and pilot work in the Battery Pack Assembly Line category. The catalog lists it under Battery Lab Research Machine, Battery Lab Lines and Laboratory Equipment.
• Using the coin cell flow chart to describe a cylindrical cell line. The website publishes separate charts for coin cell and cylindrical cell fabrication.
• Mixing equipment names from the three lab line product pages into one list. Each page names machines for one cell format.
• Using pack assembly equipment names for lab equipment. The lab category pages name mixers, coaters, roll presses, die cutters, winding and stacking machines, grooving machines, sealers and cell test chambers; the Battery Pack Assembly Line page names cell sorting, stacking, compression, laser welding, EOL testing and PACK assembly.
• Inventing category names. Use the category names exactly as printed on the ACEY website.
• Leaving out the test equipment. The lab pages name cell test chambers, coin cell cyclers and battery testing machines as part of the line.

Questions about battery lab equipment