Reducing Welding electrode sticking?

[redilast]

Hello,

I've owned a battery spot welder for about 3 years or so now. At first it was just a cheap China 110V transformer based welder from aliexpress. First one was DOA, and second one worked great for 1 year then went out. I couldn't ever put it past about 50% power though without it tripping a 15A breaker.

Anyways, I moved on and acquired a much nicer CD Sunstone Engineering welder. The stock weld head that it came with however I believe had high resistance in the wires, switch, connections etc that lead to poor overall power from this 240ws unit. I was unable to even weld 0.15mm pure nickel on max power @ 240ws. But it welded 0.2mm nickel plated steel no problem.

I ended up getting some pretty nice looking battery welding probes from China with ~4AWG wire and overall look pretty beefy. I cranked it up and was able to weld the 0.15mm nickel with great results with 100-110 ws. So less than half the power and far better results than before.

TLDR: My current problem is that I'm having quite significant electrode sticking on one of the probes. It's so significant I'd estimate at times it requires 10-20 pounds of force to remove the probe from the nickel! This can't be normal. I'm looking for suggestions. All I can figure is that the company that made this used maybe the wrong kind of copper? I'm pretty sure a specific kind of copper needs to be used for these electrodes. Any other suggestions?

 

[mistercrash]

I want to try Chromium Copper alloy for electrodes. http://www.copper.org/resources/properties/microstructure/chrom_cu.html It has a much higher tolerance to heat than pure Copper so it should not melt and stick to the work material but the resistance is higher than pure Copper, it might keep a poor quality welder from making good welds.

 

[999zip999]

Also the shaping of the tip and pulse time.

 

[redilast]

Also the shaping of the tip and pulse time.

I've not messed with pulse time, but its set to the longest right now. Can you elaborate on the shaping of the tip and what you feel is ideal? Rounded tip, flat top or pointed?

 

[okashira]

I use cheap copper from lowes on 0.3mm nickel pulse time about 14ms, almost no sticking
Using JB welder
Try to slowly rotate the electrodes as you weld to prevent stick

 

[redilast]

I use cheap copper from lowes on 0.3mm nickel pulse time about 14ms, almost no sticking
Using JB welder
Try to slowly rotate the electrodes as you weld to prevent stick

I saw in your post here that you at least tried tungsten copper. How did that work? Are you currently not using that anymore? What advantages/disadvantages did you see?

With the copper that came with my probes I'm getting a small amount of copper plating on each weld I do on one of the probes. So I know im losing some of my electrode every time I make a weld. How about you?

What kind of tip profile are you using? Flat, slightly rounded or quite pointy etc. Thanks

 

[litespeed]

You should be using Sunstone tips.....made my CD welder in a monster.

Thank you for contacting Sunstone Engineering. The electrodes that we recommend using for welding nickel battery tabs is Glidcop, it is a copper/chromium mix. We have special electrodes that we sell for battery welding, part number EL125BATT. These are 1/8” shaft with a 1/16” welding surface on either end. You can find them on our website here:
http://sunstoneengineering.com/products/accessories/electrodes/

Look over this information and let me know if you need anything. You can order electrodes online, or you can contact me directly to do it as well. Let me know if you have any questions or need anything else, I’m always happy to assist in any way.

Best wishes,

Bryce Bytheway
Welding Consultant
Sunstone Engineering
1693 American Way #5
Payson, UT 84651
Direct: 1-385-999-5222
Office: 1-877-786-9353
Email:bryce.bytheway@sunstoneengineering.com
Web: www.sunstoneengineering.com

Mine welds .03 like its nothing with no stick at all. For me copper sucked no matter what the shape or diameter. My CD welder is just over 800WS so it's got some power.

Tom

 

[okashira]

I use cheap copper from lowes on 0.3mm nickel pulse time about 14ms, almost no sticking
Using JB welder
Try to slowly rotate the electrodes as you weld to prevent stick

I saw in your post here that you at least tried tungsten copper. How did that work? Are you currently not using that anymore? What advantages/disadvantages did you see?

With the copper that came with my probes I'm getting a small amount of copper plating on each weld I do on one of the probes. So I know im losing some of my electrode every time I make a weld. How about you?

What kind of tip profile are you using? Flat, slightly rounded or quite pointy etc. Thanks

Flat/slight round

The Tungsten copper was terrible for nickel Sticks like crazy
Use copper

 

[redilast]

Well, I believe I already have EL12BATT electrodes in my other sunstone engineering handheld welding head that I removed because of its very poor performance (high resistance). Couldn't weld 0.15mm nickel on 240ws max power.

But I'll see if I can try to remove just the electrodes and put them in my welding pens and see if that reduces sticking.

I did try the technique of rotating slightly the electrodes as I press the foot switch and this did help reduce sticking. However, I'm still losing quite a bit of copper from each electrode on every weld. I'll post a picture of the weld and you can see the copper I believe mainly on wherever the + electrode is. Do you guys see copper left behind on the surface of your welds?

 

[999zip999]

Shape to point then round down tip ? Start with a clean point. Maybe the type of nickle ?

 

[redilast]

Well I swapped out electrodes from the ones on my original sunstone engineering weldhead and the sticking has been reduced greatly. I'd say its been reduced by 80% or so. So I guess the main thing is the type of copper. It doesn't seem to leave nearly as much copper behind per weld compared with the other electrodes. Those you could clearly see copper inn each weld dimple.

Now the begging question is where can I get replacement electrodes at a decent price. $25 from sunstone is pretty steep. I tried some other chromium copper ones from China and they were no good either.

 

[litespeed]

All I would ask is, "what's your time and convenence worth?" Go with a sure thing or search/trial/error.

I would say you could easily weld 2000 cells on a set of electrodes as a simple guess. My pack is 360 cells and had to replace a couple 15p due to loosing a cell and my tips look pretty new still as in not much wear.

Good luck which ever way you go but know that if you do find a equal or better alternative that is cheaper I'd like to know about it as well.

Tom

 

[redilast]

All I would ask is, "what's your time and convenence worth?" Go with a sure thing or search/trial/error.

I would say you could easily weld 2000 cells on a set of electrodes as a simple guess. My pack is 360 cells and had to replace a couple 15p due to loosing a cell and my tips look pretty new still as in not much wear.

Good luck which ever way you go but know that if you do find a equal or better alternative that is cheaper I'd like to know about it as well.

Tom

I run a business an am always open to finding new products to sell. Recently started selling some battery manufacturing supplies so some quality electrodes to offer to the ES community at a reasonable price might be a worthwhile venture.

The stock copper electrodes that came with the welding pens I bought were showing signs of wear just after welding like 15 cells.

 

[okashira]

I run over 3000 amps on JP's welder and have very little sticking. I can get 10,000 welds from 5 cents worth of cheap copper electrodes from Home Depot.
0.3mm nickel is no problem, could probably do 0.35mm. Even without slotting. Perhaps 0.5mm nickel with slots.

 

[bobfandango]

I run over 3000 amps on JP's welder and have very little sticking. I can get 10,000 welds from 5 cents worth of cheap copper electrodes from Home Depot.
0.3mm nickel is no problem, could probably do 0.35mm. Even without slotting. Perhaps 0.5mm nickel with slots.

How do you know how many amps you are running? What battery setup are you using? I can only weld (with a JP Welder) .3 with cut or slotted material and would really rather not have the extra step.

Thx

 

[redilast]

I run over 3000 amps on JP's welder and have very little sticking. I can get 10,000 welds from 5 cents worth of cheap copper electrodes from Home Depot.
0.3mm nickel is no problem, could probably do 0.35mm. Even without slotting. Perhaps 0.5mm nickel with slots.

You have a much different setup, much different welder and are welding much thicker material. I'm running a sunstone engineering CD welder with 0.15mm pure nickel. No idea how many amps, but I'm using 110ws (watt seconds) of power. The difference between cheap copper and the sunstone electrodes are night and day as far as sticking goes.

Can you see copper left behind on each of your weld spots?

I run over 3000 amps on JP's welder and have very little sticking. I can get 10,000 welds from 5 cents worth of cheap copper electrodes from Home Depot.
0.3mm nickel is no problem, could probably do 0.35mm. Even without slotting. Perhaps 0.5mm nickel with slots.

How do you know how many amps you are running? What battery setup are you using? I can only weld (with a JP Welder) .3 with cut or slotted material and would really rather not have the extra step.

Thx

I would guess he is a larger lower resistance battery, perhaps lower resistance mosfets and also probably thicker copper wire and electrodes. It's not just amps or power you have to consider its the total resistance of your wire and electrodes that makes a huge difference. In my case I cut power consumption almost in 1/3 by going with lower resistance electrodes/cables.

 

[bobfandango]

I would guess he is a larger lower resistance battery, perhaps lower resistance mosfets and also probably thicker copper wire and electrodes. It's not just amps or power you have to consider its the total resistance of your wire and electrodes that makes a huge difference. In my case I cut power consumption almost in 1/3 by going with lower resistance electrodes/cables.

Good point re: the electrodes and cables. The electrodes get uncomfortably warm after welding maybe 30 or so welds (into .3mm at full power/pulse width) in fairly quick succession... So yeah, the resistance has got to be fairly significant. I'm just about done with this pack (12s4p), But may experiment with the probes for the next one. thx