Battery Leak Tester
Non-destructive leak testing for IPX5 battery packs, one minute each at over 99% accuracy.
Summary
How do you certify IPX5 water resistance without destroying the pack? I built a non-destructive leak test for a drone-delivery startup that pressurizes with air instead of water. A correlation study tied air-leak rate to real water ingress, so we could catch defects automatically at over 99% accuracy, one minute per pack.
The Build
The foundation was a correlation study: using precision optical laser pinholes, I mapped air-leak rate to real water ingress so a clean air test could stand in for the destructive one. To trust the numbers, I designed and machined an aluminum master volume that validated the equipment's accuracy.
Testing combined pressure-decay and wind-blown rain methods, all driven by a MATLAB-based end-of-line app for fully automated runs. Strict pass/fail thresholds on water ingress kept quality control consistent across the line.
Results
- Cycle time down to one minute per pack.
- Fully non-destructive, no more water testing.
- >99% defect-detection rate.
- Standardized and repeatable for consistent QC.
Specifications
Gallery
