William Sommerwerck wrote:
Very last resort is to just slop some epoxy on the flat wire and
battery terminal, and hope that it holds.

Unless it's silver-filled epoxy, no way.

I don't mean slopping the epoxy in between the battery terminal and
the flat wire. I mean push the two wires together, and slop some
epoxy on top in order to just hold them together. The Dustbuster
doesn't draw all that much current so I suspect a simple mechanical
connection will work. Kinda like the contacts for D cell batteries in
kids toys, flashlights, games, etc, where a welded contact isn't
necessary.

But there's a spring applying pressure.


If you're not sure if it will work, and don't want to deal with
permanent epoxy, use Duct Tape to hold the flat wire in place.

The problem (from my point of view) is oxidation. I figure the Dustbuster
draws ~1amp, so I need a clean, tight, connection.

You should measure it. I was too lazy to get out the big power supply,
but 3A would hardly get mine started.
I've replaced the batteries in mine twice and finally gave up.
The load current is very hard on batteries. Especially since people
don't stop when it slows down. They just keep on trucking pumping
5A backwards into the weakest cell. And the constant current
charge 24/7 is also very hard on the battery. Bad design.

Regardless, I'm going to have it welded tomorrow morning.