Alternative 18650 tack welders

degarb

Flashlight Enthusiast
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Oct 27, 2007
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Location
Akron, Ohio
I read a person used a modified 140watt soldering iron. . Super Capacitors on you tube, microwave transformers.

Most of us don't have these lying around. . This guy uses a car battery, and I have no shortage of borderline lead acid car batteries. . So, this does seem too good to be true. . Here is the video :

https://youtu.be/Gk3vrKc4Y1w
 

degarb

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 27, 2007
Messages
2,036
Location
Akron, Ohio
https://www.quora.com/Electrocution-Is-high-voltage-what-kills-you-even-if-it-is-low-current

Apparently, safe with car battery according to above. . So, I grabbed a car battery, clamped two multimeter leads onto posts. After some practice and mangling one protection circuit, I found the best method was to use left hand lead to pin down the steel tab and very, very quickly touch the right lead onto bare battery near metal. This welded the tab nicely. I think in video they touch both to tab, which will melt the tab of a protection circuit instantly... I didn't play with distance v. Results.

I have not done any welding research on the physics. I couldn't tack Weld anything but steel and galvanized steel, but tried. Failed copper, aluminum, solder, and aluminum foil. . 26 gauge Wire just instantly melted.

Probably, gloves would make it safer. Dry rubber... Not sure how hard on the car battery. Probably, should keep an eye on the car battery voltage, since too low of a draw down is very bad for this piece of junk 1800 technology that costs them pennies to make, yet they sell for over $100.

I had also read steel was hard to solder. However, today, I was pleasantly surprised this was wrong information when I sanded, used my 450 degree iron, and found my galvanized flashing soldered very easily with Flux core solder. Still not got aluminum to solder or braze. Muggy Weld is too pricey, as is doing in the vacuum of outer space.
 
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