Equipment / nine machines, three segments
Battery Manufacturing Equipment, Chosen by the
Problem It Solves
Nine machines covering cell handling, module assembly and pack assembly — everything from the moment cells are inside your gate. Cell production upstream of that is a different plant with different equipment.
Nine machines — two in cell handling, six in the module segment, two in the pack segment, one counted twice.
Where the nine sit
- Cell handling — two machines
- Module segment — six machines
- Pack segment — two machines
You are holding three quotations, and all three are lists of model numbers
Which is a problem, because a model number does not tell you what the machine is there to prevent.
The list is the wrong unit
Quotations arrive machine by machine because that is how equipment is priced, not because that is how a line behaves. The unit you are buying is a line; the unit you are being sold is a machine.
Every list looks complete
Each one names a welder, a tester, a conveyor, a dispenser. None says which of your problems each machine is answering, so all three read as if they cover the same ground.
You end up comparing the wrong things
Laser power against laser power. Robot payload against robot payload. Meanwhile the question that decides whether the line runs — who owns the interfaces between those machines — is on none of the three sheets.
The decision you are actually making
Not which machines to buy. Which problems you are paying somebody else to own, and which ones stay with you.
The rest of this page is the same nine machines you will see on any list, written the other way round: the problem first, the machine second. Parameters are deliberately absent — each one is published on the page that owns that station, where it can be compared against something.
Four things a list of model numbers cannot tell you
Each one is priced into the project whether or not it appears on the quotation.
Interfaces
Two machines that are each correct on their own drawing can still disagree about how a part arrives and how it leaves. A list has a row for every machine and no row for the space between them, which is where the disagreement lives.
Takt as a line figure
Every machine carries its own cycle time. A line carries one takt, and it is not the fastest machine on the sheet — it is the slowest position plus every handover between positions. A list of fast machines is not a fast line.
Tooling
The list quotes machines; your parts are not on the list. Whether the fixtures are cut to your enclosure and your module or to a blueprint one is the difference between a price that holds and a price that moves after the order.
Which positions are machines at all
A list of equipment implies a machine at every position. In a pack segment most positions are people, and no list tells you which.
Station by station
Station by station
None of the four is hidden deliberately. They are simply not what a machine quotation is shaped to carry. They surface in the second week of ramp-up, which is the most expensive place to discover any of them.
Every machine on the list can be the right machine, and the line still not run. What a list cannot quote is the space between two machines.
Nine machines
Every one of them on the sheet, priced, with a model number.
Eight gaps
None of them on the sheet, none of them numbered.
The gaps are not numbered
Which is why a complete-looking list can still be an incomplete line.
What you are building decides which line you are buying
Three scenarios cover almost everything that reaches us. The station sequence barely changes between them; the tooling and the envelope do.
Commercial & industrial and grid-scale ESS packs
Residential storage sits here too.
Line takt
4–8 · 8 · 12–15 PPM
What carries it
Cell sorting → module stacking, pressing and busbar welding → module testing → pack assembly, gluing and testing
EV modules or packs
Same two segments.
Line takt
Same three tiers
What carries it
Same sequence; insertion and fixing tooling cut to your module and enclosure, and the compatibility envelope drawn from your pack
Cylindrical and consumer packs
Supporting line.
Line takt
Per project
What carries it
Dedicated cylindrical and consumer pack lines, with 18650 sorting, taping, plastic wrapping, sealing, dispensing and nickel-strip welding and bending
Annual output per tier — and footprint, installed power and headcount — are on the tier-selection page. BLP-P8 output is published when the line is engineered, not estimated to fill a cell.
The sequence is the constant
Cells become tested modules; modules become closed, tested packs. What changes between scenarios is what the fixtures hold.
The envelope is the variable
Dimensions and mass decide which tooling sits on the line, which is why the first question is about your part rather than your output.
One supplier across both segments
Whichever scenario you are in, the takt figure covers the module segment and the pack segment together.
Nine machines, and the problem each one is there to prevent
Parameters are not on this page. Each machine's figures are published on the page that owns that station, where they can be compared against something.
In-line
BLP-UL — Cell unloading and feeding
Cells arrive stacked in trays. They have to enter the line in a known orientation, at line rate, without a person lifting them for eight hours. This machine turns a pallet of trays into a stream of located cells.
In-line
BLP-CS — Cell scanning, testing and sorting
A pack is only as good as the cell it was built around. This machine finds the cell that does not belong before it is welded into a module, and refills the gap it leaves so the line does not wait.
In-line
BLP-SP — Module stacking and pressing
A stack of cells has to reach the welder as one dimensioned block rather than a pile that shifts. This machine makes the stack repeatable, which is what makes everything downstream of it repeatable.
In-line
BLP-AD — Terminal addressing and polarity check
The welder has to know exactly where each terminal is, and that it is the terminal it thinks it is. This machine answers both questions before any energy is put into the part.
In-line
BLP-W6 — In-line busbar laser welding
The joint that carries the current, made at line takt, on a module that has already had a dozen operations spent on it. This is the station the whole module segment is built around.
Off-line
BLP-WG — Off-line gantry laser welding
Welding that does not belong in the line: samples, rework, low-volume variants, a second product family. This machine keeps that work off the takt.
In-line
BLP-EOL — Module end-of-line testing
A module has to be judged before it is closed inside a pack. This machine is where a module stops being an assembly and starts being a part with a verdict attached.
In-line
BLP-GL — Cooling-plate and enclosure gluing
The thermal path is laid down as a bead that nobody can inspect once the next station has run. This machine is why that bead is measured rather than eyeballed.
Where its figures live
Where its figures live
In-line
BLP-CV — Module conveying and positioning
Hand-work positions need the part to arrive already located, or every operator becomes a source of variation. This machine is what makes a hand-built segment repeatable.
Where its figures live
Where its figures live
Alongside the nine there is a set of supporting machines for cylindrical and consumer work — 18650 sorting, taping, plastic wrapping, sealing, dispensing, backing-tape application, and nickel-strip welding and bending. They are quoted per project rather than as part of the module-and-pack line.
Sorting decides what the rest of the line is allowed to build
It is the first machine on the line that makes a decision instead of a movement — and the only one whose mistakes travel forward invisibly.
- Why this one
Every other machine in cell handling moves a part. This one judges one.
Everything else in the segment moves a part, holds a part or joins a part. This machine decides. A cell that passes here is a cell the line will spend the next dozen operations building into something, and nothing downstream re-opens that judgement. - Without it
A cell that differs is not a defect the line can see.
It scans. It fits the fixture. It welds. It tests. The difference only becomes visible once cells are working together inside a pack — which is somewhere else entirely, and by then usually somebody else's problem. - What it costs
By the time it matters, it is inside a welded module.
Getting it out is not a rework operation, it is a demolition operation, and the parts around it are not all parts you put back. Meanwhile the line has kept building modules from the same tray. - What we do
Judge on the way in, and refill the gap.
Every cell is scanned and measured as it enters, sorted against your grouping rule, and the ones outside it are removed automatically. The gap that leaves is refilled from the same stream, so the module segment never sees an incomplete set and never waits for one. - What proves it
One page, with the acceptance method next to the figures.
The scan and measurement figures this station is judged on are published on the cell sorting station page, together with how a group is defined — where they can be checked against the quotation on your desk.
The busbar weld is the one joint you cannot take back
Everything before it can be re-done. This is where a module stops being reversible.
- Why this one
Up to here, a module can be taken apart.
Cells can be re-sorted, a stack can be re-pressed, an insulator can be replaced. The busbar weld ends that. From the next station onward, correcting anything underneath it means cutting. - Without it being right
A weld short of the joint still carries current.
It works on the test bench, it works through commissioning, and it degrades where nobody is looking — at the one position in the module that was never designed to behave like a fuse. - What it costs
It does not scrap a busbar. It scraps the module.
By the time a module reaches this station it is the most expensive thing on the line: sorted cells, a pressed stack, insulation, addressing. All of that is what a bad weld writes off. - What we do
The machine is told where the joint is, not asked to find it.
The weld runs in-line rather than as a separate operation, on a part that arrived located rather than placed by hand, after the addressing station has confirmed where each terminal actually is. - What proves it
Geometry and strength criteria, with the acceptance method beside them.
Weld geometry and joint-strength criteria are published on the busbar welding station page, with the method used to accept them written next to the figures rather than implied.
Which segment each machine belongs to — and the one that belongs to two
Three rows, nine ticks. The pattern is the argument; there is nothing to read underneath it.
Cell handling
010203040506070809
Module segment
010203040506070809
Pack segment
010203040506070809
Cell handling · module segment · pack segment — and machine 09 lit in two rows.
One machine is lit twice
BLP-CV appears in both the module row and the pack row, because the conveyor is the thing that spans the handover between them. It carries modules and their fixtures into the pack segment — it does not carry assembled packs, which is why its carrier rating is stated against the module and not against the finished pack. Conveying and positioning →
That handover is a whole-line question
It is opened up on the home page rather than here, because it belongs to whoever owns both segments rather than to any one machine.
The seam
The seam
Six of nine sit in the module segment
Not a preference — that is where the joining work is. The pack segment is mostly hands and fixtures.
Every figure has one page, and this is not it
A parameter repeated on four pages is a parameter that will disagree with itself on one of them.
Why they are not here
A machine's figures only mean something next to the acceptance method that goes with them. Printed on an overview page they become decoration — and decoration is what gets copied wrong.
What that gives you
One page per station, one figure per claim, and a link from every machine on this page to the place its numbers are written down.
What to do with it
Open the two or three stations your project actually turns on, and compare those pages against the quotations on your desk. That is a shorter job than comparing three equipment lists end to end.
- 01Cell unloading and feeding
- 02Cell scanning, testing and sorting
- 03Module stacking and pressing
- 04Terminal addressing and polarity check
- 05In-line busbar laser welding
- 06Off-line gantry laser welding
- 07Module end-of-line testing
- 08Cooling-plate and enclosure gluing
- 09Module conveying and positioning
Tell us the part, not the model number
Cell format, what you are building, and the building it has to fit in. That is enough to come back with a machine list that has reasons attached to it.
Reply within 24 hours / If it is cell production you need, we say so in the first reply
Single machines start at one unit. Lines are quoted per project.
Both are normal, and which one you need is usually decided by what already runs on your floor.
One machine
If a single position is your constraint — a welder, a tester, a dispenser — that is a machine purchase, and a whole-line quotation for it sells you stations you already have. Minimum order is one unit.
A segment
If the module segment already runs and the pack segment is the gap, the question is whether the two join at one takt. Smaller than a line, bigger than a machine.
The whole line
If the bay is empty, the layout can be drawn around the line rather than the other way round, and one takt figure covers both segments. The cheapest moment to decide anything.
Whichever of the three it is, the layout is drawn to the building you already have rather than the other way round, and a change of cell or module format inside the compatibility envelope is a tooling change rather than a new line.
What a line order includes once the machines are unloaded
The equipment is the part you can photograph. These four are the part that decides whether it runs.
01
Layout design
The line drawn into your bay, both segments, before anything is cut.
02
Installation
Machines set, aligned and connected on your floor.
03
Commissioning and acceptance
Run with your parts rather than samples, against figures written into the acceptance document.
04
Operator and maintenance training
The people who will run it, trained on the line they will run.
Certifications
ISO 9001, CE and RoHS. We name them rather than printing numbers on a web page, and provide the certificates on request.
Customisation is layout plus tooling
The bay decides the layout; your parts decide the fixtures. Neither is an extra you discover later.
The acceptance figures are the contract
What each side brings to acceptance is set out on the acceptance page rather than described here.
Seven questions that arrive with the first email
Answered here so the first call can be about your part rather than about our scope.
Do you supply coating, winding or formation equipment?
No. Our equipment starts once cells are inside your gate — sorting, module assembly, pack assembly and testing. Electrode and cell-making equipment is a different plant, and we are not the right supplier for it.
Can I buy one machine instead of a line?
Yes. Single machines start at one unit; whole lines are quoted per project, because the layout is what makes a line price mean anything.
Why are there no parameters on this page?
Because a figure only means something beside the method used to accept it. Each machine's figures are on the page that owns that station, linked from the list above.
Will these machines take our cell format?
Within a compatibility envelope, yes. What falls inside it, and what a format change costs in tooling and downtime, is set out on the compatibility page.
Do you handle installation and commissioning?
Yes — layout design, installation, commissioning, acceptance and operator training are part of a line order, not extras quoted afterwards.
Can the line be built in stages?
Yes. A module segment and a pack segment can be ordered separately, provided one supplier owns the takt figure that covers both.
Which certifications do you hold?
ISO 9001, CE and RoHS. Certificates are provided on request; we do not print certificate numbers on a web page.
Where the pack line, the module line and the figures are written up
- Cell handling
- Module segment
- Pack segment
- Equipment — you are here
Ask about one machine, not only a whole line
Single units and segment retrofits are quoted the same way a line is.
If one station is the problem, that is a complete enquiry
The machine list above is the same list a retrofit is picked from, and each entry names the page carrying its figures.
Phone / WhatsApp
Address
Wuhan, Hubei, China
Response
Reply within 24 hours