Testing A Battery-Powered Mini Spot Welder

Did you ever see a thin metal tab bonded to a battery terminal with little pock marks? That’s the work of a spot welder. Spot welding is one of those processes that doesn’t offer much in the way of alternatives; either one uses a spot welder to do the job right, or one simply does without. That need is what led [Erwin Ried] to purchase a small, battery-powered spot welder from a maker in Korea and test it out on nickel strips.

The spot welder [Erwin] used is the work of a user by the name of [aulakiria] (link is Korean, machine translation here) and is designed to be portable and powered by batteries commonly used for RC. [Erwin] is delighted with the results, and demonstrates the device in the video embedded below.

Spot welder projects see a lot of DIY, some of which are successful while others are less so. Our own [Sean Boyce] even gave making a solar-powered spot welder a shot, the results of which he described as “nearly practical!”

27 thoughts on “Testing A Battery-Powered Mini Spot Welder

      1. You are probably not alone, but very very lonely. This is a technical forum and i give a shit about grammar, as long I can understand the content. The “correction” by such grammar nazis is way more distracting than some mistakes.

        But I see, what is really wrong with the above described construction: It is very advantageous to have a switch for the welding current. Then you can position the electrodes firmly and trigger the welding pulse.

      2. Both spelling and grammar errors detract from the contents of the written piece; it also suggests that an ignorant / lazy authors writing extends to the subject of the writing.

        And next time you listen / watch someone, see if they use the word ‘So’, which can has multiple functions. It can act as an adverb , a conjunction , a pronoun , an adjective , or an interjection depending on the context.

        Interesting article on the word ‘So’ at > https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-everyone-is-starting-sentences-with-the-word-so-2014-5 <.

  1. ” Spot welding is one of those processes that doesn’t offer much in the way of alternatives; either one uses a spot welder to do the job right, or one simply does without. ”

    *welds comment to forum*

      1. I bought one off of him a couple years back for an electric skateboard build. It also has connections for hakko soldering iron handles, though not battery operated out of the box, it has replaced my old Jaycar iron. I do not regret the purchase one bit.

    1. I’ve done it. It’s not the best process. Start with sandpaper and scuff up the area to be soldered. Prepare a wet rag or cloth. Get your iron HOT and try to tin the area in less than a second — get in and get out — and immediately use the wet rag to cool the area. Minimizing the time-under-heat is the name of the game here.

      Then tin your connecting wire, and bring it in and melt it into the solder on the cell. This is easy and goes quickly.

      Repeat for the other side, test, and cover with heatshrink.

      I’ve done this on more coin cells than I’d like to admit. I haven’t blown one up yet, and some are still in service years later, so I don’t think I’m hurting them too badly, but yeah, a spot welder would be much better.

    1. Nevermind. Here’s info from an electric skateboard company blog:

      DISCLAIMER:
      I am not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Aulakiria. THIS IS NOT A SALES THREAD. And I have no profit nor gain with this, I just think it’s a nice thing and I am sharing it with you. If you are interested in buying one just mail him saying you want one here aulakiria@naver.com that’s his PayPal account as well. If you mail him be brief and use only perfect academic understandable English. Something google translator can deal with.

      The prices are :
      basic set: USD $ 80
      Hakko T12 soldering iron Handle & Tip: USD $15 (option)
      full set: USD $95
      Paypal fees 3.5%, Usd-krw Exchange fees 3%…It is double charged so please consider the option send money to family/friend thank you
      shipping method

      Global RR (KOREA post registered airmail): $15 (20~40 business days)
      Global EMS fee: $25 (10~15 business days)
      more info here: https://m.blog.naver.com/aulakiria/220992039512 1.0k

      Figure on $120 USD to buy one unless you want to wait up to a month and a half to get it, then subtract $10.00

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