ORIGINAL: ldelbert
Be careful when soldering anything to a battery because if you get it too hot the battery will explode. I used to solder batteries to motherboards so that they will keep there BIOS settings. I got one too hot one time and it exploded in my face. Thank goodness I was wearing glasses at the time. It was a quarter sized watch battery though not a AA.
Speaking of stupid things I have done in my life:
Many, many moons ago when I was working R&D, I was given the task of high voltage power supplies for a certain flight simulator; the kind that trained the pilots to fly the machine. I was handed a set of drawing which I followed carefully, and was quite pleased with the final product. It went to final checkup where they hooked it up......and immediately blew a two by four ceiling tile out.
Seems in all the zest and zeal to get the job done on time, somehow we forgot to check the polarity of one 1000uf electrolytic capacitor.
Anyway....
Thanks Deadeye! I was wondering if the batteries were reliable. 12 packs/4 years/no failure. That's good enough for me. I do agree with everybody. If you don't have some soldering experience, it'd best not to learn by trying to make battery packs.