I'm redesigning a product for automatic assembly (DFA / DFX). The current product includes a lithium polymer battery with solderable leads, very similar to this:
Right now the leads are hand-soldered.
How do I make this into something that can be assembled automatically?
I don't think there is any battery like this that can survive reflow, so it has to be added after the main pcb is assembled. There are batteries with JST connectors (adds cost, and still wouldn't be easy to automatically plug in), and batteries with metal foil tabs (no protection circuit - it would have to be on the other pcb; and the tabs probably have to be hand soldered anyway).
I'm sure this is a very common problem in the manufacture of small wearable devices like mp3 players and bluetooth headsets, but how do people usually solve it?
P.S. It turns out everything else in the product can be assembled by (essentially) pick and place: picked up with a vacuum tip and dropped in from above. The parts drop onto alignment pins in the bottom half of the case, then the top half of the case snaps on.. the battery is the one headache.