Automotive spot welder as battery welder?

[stan.distortion]

Anyone know it a variable output industrial/automotive spot welder is suitable for battery terminal welding? I've a decent quality unit here that works well on very thin steel sheet but can't find any info using this type of unit for battery terminal welding. I've plenty of dead cells to try it out on and can't see why it wouldn't work but would like to be sure before trying. Cheers.

 

[mcintyretj]

I purchased this automotive starter solenoid from Ebay:


View attachment 1


Have about 150 welds so far, looks like this:





Here is a video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPtiwKFbtBw


Works better than the cheap Ebay spot welders and if you have a 3s lipo or a good starter battery laying around, could assemble for less than $10.00. If you look around , you could purchase a timer for the switch and get consistent welds. Not sure if this is what you are looking for.

 

[eee291]

@mcintyretjI think he meant that he has access to a industrial spot welder and not a contactor.

@stan.distortion Without even knowing what the welder looks like or knowing what values can be changed it's hard to tell, but I'd say most likely yes.

 

[spinningmagnets]

In the interests of full disclosure, I was once a dealer for the kWeld for about a year. However, I do not profit form any particular model at the moment. That ebeing said...

Using a cheap and available car starter solenoid means that the timing will be very crude. If you use semi-conductors as the "on/off" switch, then the timing can be very precise. The most popular seem to be the kWeld, Malectrics, and Boss-Level...

A car battery might be capable of providing a "Cold Cranking Amps" (CCA) of 800A, however...once the resistance of the starter motor is added to the circuit, it has been verified that (for a common 4-cylinder engine) the start-up amps are roughly 200A, and after about a half-second, the amps then stabilised at roughy 100A...

These semi-conductor "timer" welders have no resistance (like the resistance of a car starter motor), so they will flow the full 800A, instead of the normal 200A peak that they were designed for...

This means that the starter switch will be heavily abused with four-times the amps that they were designed to survive. Sometimes, they will "weld" themselves into an unplanned "always on" condition...

 

[stan.distortion]

Yes, I have an industrial spot welder and it should be suitable, if a scooter starter relay can handle repeated doses of the amps needed then I'm guessing most welding transformers should be work ok A relay and timer on the mains input of a cheap stick plant could probably make a reliable low cost unit.

Another question. has anyone tried tungsten electrodes and if so are there any pros and cons between them and copper? 3.2mm tig electrodes are what I had in mind, it would be fairly simple to make a holder for them but I'd have thought they'd be more prone to sticking than copper.

Thanks

 

[999zip999]

When holding the battery I wouldn't bend the nickel strip over and onto the neg. Can even if it has a plastic sleeve. Stored energy. I would also put an extra pos.Side gasket.

 

[CharlySierraGolf]

The most important thing that you can do with that is to see if you can weld the nickel strip to copper plate or busbar.
With that kind of equipment you can make a great leap in battery quality.
For welding the strip to the cell you can use any of the opensource spotwelders without much problems.

 

[18650.UK]

These semi-conductor "timer" welders have no resistance (like the resistance of a car starter motor), so they will flow the full 800A, instead of the normal 200A peak that they were designed for...

This means that the starter switch will be heavily abused with four-times the amps that they were designed to survive. Sometimes, they will "weld" themselves into an unplanned "always on" condition...

So glad someone said this..!

Above is completely true, made worse if the switch contact surfaces aren't totally clean and will weld shut if given the opportunity.

 

[nbtesh]

Yes, I have an industrial spot welder and it should be suitable, if a scooter starter relay can handle repeated doses of the amps needed then I'm guessing most welding transformers should be work ok A relay and timer on the mains input of a cheap stick plant could probably make a reliable low cost unit.

Another question. has anyone tried tungsten electrodes and if so are there any pros and cons between them and copper? 3.2mm tig electrodes are what I had in mind, it would be fairly simple to make a holder for them but I'd have thought they'd be more prone to sticking than copper.

Thanks

Can you share pictures of your industrial Spot welder? Im looking into one, specially with wand movement to increase speed of operation!