a123 or lipo.... and other ?s

[MetalMan]

I agree that the SPTs are great to use, and if I had some extra cash I might have gotten them. But for me, soldering works and I know that the joints between the cells are very strong, and so now the weak links are the tabs that are welded to the cells (I soldered to these tabs instead of directly to the tabs).

However, my soldering setup offers something that the SPTs cannot offer - I can have a 2p setup where there are groups of 2 cells in parallel that are then connected in series. With the SPTs, you would have to have two groups of cells in series that are then put in parallel, which IMO, is not as good of a way to do a 2p setup. Of course if you aren't doing a 2p setup like I am (and I know you are doing a 1p setup, starscream), then SPTs would work perfectly.

As for balancing, my packs are built for this. I had read that A123 packs would come into balance better after the first few cycles are completed, and at this point my packs seem to have done that.
You would be able to balance your SPT'd A123 packs, but it would still require soldering. You would cut slits out of the plastic tubes for each cell, and then you would use aluminum flux to solder wires onto the cells.