I bought this six months ago and I'm pretty impressed with it, couldn't find match reviews on RUclips so it was a bit of a gamble but definitely worth it.
2:46 smokey burned flavor is because you welded that straight on the wooden table, been there, done that. iI usually test a new spotwelder or nichel strip, on a old button battery or AA.
I'd be very interested in seeing a comparison or selection of good spot welders at different price points - something that would help a beginner make some good choices.
You hare holding the probes the wrong way! You shoud push them in 90 degrees directly from the top and use some pressure for a good connection otherwise you are likely to burn holes in the bottoms of the cells! Its also important to clean the tips after a few welds for good connection! Its definetly a handling fault, not the machines fault!
Salutations! I cut my e-bike teeth on your videos. Currently on my second e-bike which I converted an old bike. Used a bunch of your links. I had a blast building it, and a blast commuting on it daily! Appreciate everything you do!
I have this model spot welder and a couple others. I have noticed testing strip on strip welding on wood table isnt a good way to find out power settings.
Bought it around a year ago. Works great! One thing is that the balancer resistors get quite hot (like by a lot). So I've put an heatsink on them and now they seem to work fine and don't get really burning hot
any spot welder is a cell fire risk if you dont use it properly. You had the pulse set a bit too high and that weld was very close to the centre of the negative terminal which is the weak spot.
Great info. My son has the Kent Torpedo ebike and I would love to build a larger battery than the 24v 5.2 ah battery but I’m just not knowledgeable enough about battery building yet. Thanks for all the great videos!
I would like to have an update on your LiFePo4 battery build. LifePo4 is much less of a fire hazard. Also, if you have a 52 volt battery and use a 48 volt charger will you extend the life of the battery? Thanks
Well, a 52v battery tops out at 58.8v A 48v tops @54.6v Charging the 14s (52v) battery with a 54.6v charger, would leave you at 3.9v per cell. Little on the low side, most people I'm aware of go to 4.1v per cell for a balance between cycle life and range. That said, if you are ok with 54.6v and can manage everything you need to do without running the battery too low, should be fine. How fast you're charging is also important, as fast charging shortens lifespan too. In my case, with my 52v system, If I know I'll be using the bike, I try to charge it to full, so it finishes just a short time before taking it out. Letting the battery rest at full voltage is the real killer. If I'm going to leave the bike sitting for more than a few days, I'll make sure to leave the battery as close to 52v as possible beforehand. Either by taking it for a spin, or plugging it in for 20minutes, as the case may be. Also, if your battery has a BMS (which it should), they tend to do most of their work when the battery is full. So charging it up to full and leaving it to balance for a little while isn't the worst thing ever
You say your going to weld negative side as its safer than positive terminal as you know the positive side floats on 4 legs and wouldn't matter if burn through terminal .as you demonstrated burning negative side vents electrolyte...not good .just saying!
Can you educate us more about how to best put off a lithium fire in case catching such a fire ? like recommending what kind of extinguishers are readily available to purchase from Walmart or Home depot before you work on a lithium project? Thank you Mike.
Hi..GREAT video ..QUESTION: the power block is listed 12V and 10 Amp... I live in apartment .. does it TRIP to the main house box when use it..PLUS can tell me how to stored it when NOT in use..plz reply 🙏 thank-you..
I don’t have time to delve into that stuff, so I shipped my ebike battery to a guy I found on eBay. He did a good job rebuilding my battery pack and it took less than two weeks to receive it back. I use my ProdecoTech Phantom 400 V6 to commute back and forth to work 9.5 miles each way. 😄
Might it be possible that the cells had a bigger voltage difference than usual? Cell Venting could have been caused by huge currents from voltagedifferene where one cell is charging up another
I have a unit that I am going to redo the batteries in but in one section two batteries need to be fastened end to end or one on top of the other, how do I do that? Love watching your videos!! Also this spot welder has two settings for pulse, why is there two?
Been toying with the idea of getting into something like this ever since I had a Prius a while back and contemplated the cost of a replacement battery. Haven't really researched it, though. Now I want to build an ebike and the battery costs as much as the motor and controller together, so it seems like a good time to think more diligently. New subscriber.
Look into recyclers, often you can find deals that are pretty nice, although I do suggest doing a balance charge with every charge if you are using used cells or adding in an active BMS. OR hell with new cells anymore for that matter.
Popping a hole in the bottom is usually fine. I don't think I've ever had one go nuclear on me. I've used packs that've done that even.... I don't reccomend it though, but it's not as bad as you think.
I was wondering, is that a prototype? I can't imagine electronics like that not being in some kind of case to protect one from inadvertent shock or shorting out something.
Might be worthwhile to mention that its not a good idea to try putting water on a Lithium battery fire to put it out, otherwise youre going to have a bad day.
Hi. Couple of questions . I am making 18650 cell 36v battery with 110 cells 3400 10s11p what gauge of wire would I need ? Also I ideally wanted smart bms what amp would I need? Thanks in advance
I don't think you have "burned through". I would rather guessed the cell had a crack there (it appears to me as a stress ring coming from how the cell can is manufactured) since the start and you just opened it by mere mechanical pressure on it...
I'm curious about how the caps are wired. If it's 4s4p as it looks, that's a poor design for caps, as it severely limits current capacity because it reduces capacitance. Are the leads easily replaceable, and what guage are they? Maybe you see where I'm g ongoing with this - nickel bus strips are inherently limiting - copper is the way to go. Aluminum would be a big improvement over nickel, but it's not any easier to weld. I was hoping this was a unit with tips of something other than copper, and also wanted more detail on the timing controls and what it's peak current is. In theory at least, using caps and carbon/graphite tips, you should be able to pull 2000 amps or more depending on how the caps are wired. With sharp tips to concentrate the current, and adequate control of the pulse and current, you should be able to weld copper as long as it's not too thick, with thickness capacity ramping up with current capacity up to a point. For $150 and no new capabilities other than not needing a battery, I'd have to pass in favor of cheaper units of similar capabilities, or spending a bit more on a kweld and modding it with graphite tips. Or just stay on my current track of using cells with terminals I can connect copper or aluminum bus bars to.
looks like the weld is very good quality. much better than those of the hoverboard scooter batteries. in the hoverboard batteries the welds will pull apart just while unwrapping the battery pack. a few years ago i bought 4 hoverboard scooters for parts that was part of a recall i tore down the battery packs to extract the cells and found that some of the cells broke loose from the others very easy. i suspect that welds would fail along with shoddy bms. i am not a fan of the shunting bms where you wire the bms in series with the load. i would rather a bms that you have 2 wires for the charger and 2 separate wies for the output or bms that just monitors and sends an alarm signal for the lvc so you have to tie it into the brake inhibit or a separate circuit that turns off the load. you may want to stop selling. the qb cells as they are shoddy or only use them with the vruzend kits. it is possible that you damaged the cell by ripping the strip from it.
That liquid seemed to be coming from under the strip, not the battery. If you have electrolyte coming out of one of these cans it would be from the burst disc and that makes it a dead battery.
this operates like the melatronics version you can make a spot welder out of just about anything that transformer out of a old microwave but for very cheap you can get a nice spot welder from China a year ago they were 6 bucks today they're 22.....
Could NEVER win your free DIY Lithium Batteries book, Micah. I think this contest is rigged😏... Can’t wait on you ... so I literally just brought it myself. Kindle edition. Amazon. True story. Reads like a regular conversation with tons of easily understandable explanations. A must read for “li-ionerds”, imo. Lastly, gotta 36v 11.5ah battery that reads “.719v” on properly functioning meter reader. No worries, by the time I’m finished this journey, I’ll be able to pick out the bad apples/batteries or bms, have some fun ...and save some lira. okay Micah so......now can I get my free book, bro? lol /Bklyn👑
Big Kudes dude for accidentally showing venting cell safety issue and taking IMMEDIATE action. Hope you all got the msg 10^6 thnx. May your fire bucket be your pal.
Well Micah, if you don't want to slip a bit of silicon tubing over the probe nuts, you could just make a couple of wraps of electrical tape around them-I sure wouldn't use them (even extended as you like) without insulating those fat boys. (But I'm old and clumsy, so YMMV.)
I bought this six months ago and I'm pretty impressed with it, couldn't find match reviews on RUclips so it was a bit of a gamble but definitely worth it.
would youi still recommend this welder?
2:46 smokey burned flavor is because you welded that straight on the wooden table, been there, done that. iI usually test a new spotwelder or nichel strip, on a old button battery or AA.
I'd be very interested in seeing a comparison or selection of good spot welders at different price points - something that would help a beginner make some good choices.
is baout not be ass instead of proper tool.. timing and energy is important same as you not gona weld a elephant chain by 0,4mm CO2 MIG_MAG
You hare holding the probes the wrong way! You shoud push them in 90 degrees directly from the top and use some pressure for a good connection otherwise you are likely to burn holes in the bottoms of the cells! Its also important to clean the tips after a few welds for good connection! Its definetly a handling fault, not the machines fault!
When will the electric motorcycle project be finished?
The cell that bubbled was the one you ripped. Did ripping the strip off damage it first?
Salutations! I cut my e-bike teeth on your videos. Currently on my second e-bike which I converted an old bike. Used a bunch of your links. I had a blast building it, and a blast commuting on it daily! Appreciate everything you do!
I have this model spot welder and a couple others. I have noticed testing strip on strip welding on wood table isnt a good way to find out power settings.
Bought it around a year ago. Works great! One thing is that the balancer resistors get quite hot (like by a lot). So I've put an heatsink on them and now they seem to work fine and don't get really burning hot
any spot welder is a cell fire risk if you dont use it properly. You had the pulse set a bit too high and that weld was very close to the centre of the negative terminal which is the weak spot.
Great info. My son has the Kent Torpedo ebike and I would love to build a larger battery than the 24v 5.2 ah battery but I’m just not knowledgeable enough about battery building yet. Thanks for all the great videos!
I would like to have an update on your LiFePo4 battery build. LifePo4 is much less of a fire hazard. Also, if you have a 52 volt battery and use a 48 volt charger will you extend the life of the battery? Thanks
Well, a 52v battery tops out at 58.8v
A 48v tops @54.6v
Charging the 14s (52v) battery with a 54.6v charger, would leave you at 3.9v per cell.
Little on the low side, most people I'm aware of go to 4.1v per cell for a balance between cycle life and range.
That said, if you are ok with 54.6v and can manage everything you need to do without running the battery too low, should be fine.
How fast you're charging is also important, as fast charging shortens lifespan too.
In my case, with my 52v system, If I know I'll be using the bike, I try to charge it to full, so it finishes just a short time before taking it out.
Letting the battery rest at full voltage is the real killer.
If I'm going to leave the bike sitting for more than a few days, I'll make sure to leave the battery as close to 52v as possible beforehand. Either by taking it for a spin, or plugging it in for 20minutes, as the case may be.
Also, if your battery has a BMS (which it should), they tend to do most of their work when the battery is full. So charging it up to full and leaving it to balance for a little while isn't the worst thing ever
You say your going to weld negative side as its safer than positive terminal as you know the positive side floats on 4 legs and wouldn't matter if burn through terminal .as you demonstrated burning negative side vents electrolyte...not good .just saying!
you could put some heat shrink around the collets to help with isolation, all in all it looks great.
Can you educate us more about how to best put off a lithium fire in case catching such a fire ? like recommending what kind of extinguishers are readily available to purchase from Walmart or Home depot before you work on a lithium project?
Thank you Mike.
Needs constant water to cool it till the chain reaction stops.
highly explosive and no way to stop
Thanks. I am researching these before I buy my first one and your video was very informative. Awesome work
Hi..GREAT video ..QUESTION: the power block is listed 12V and 10 Amp... I live in apartment .. does it TRIP to the main house box when use it..PLUS can tell me how to stored it when NOT in use..plz reply 🙏 thank-you..
Slap some sort of insulation on the ends to reduce the chance of triggering the welder.
Shrink tubing or even electrical tape.
Love watching you tinker with the spot welders. you always get a thumbs up from me buddy
I don’t have time to delve into that stuff, so I shipped my ebike battery to a guy I found on eBay. He did a good job rebuilding my battery pack and it took less than two weeks to receive it back. I use my ProdecoTech Phantom 400 V6 to commute back and forth to work 9.5 miles each way. 😄
Still hoping for a follow-up video to your unboxing and quick testing of the Sequre SQ-SW1. Have you built any battery packs with that one yet?
i like the idea of the brick vs keeping an extra battery around
You made it look so easy to use, the controls looked intuitive to you.
Might it be possible that the cells had a bigger voltage difference than usual? Cell Venting could have been caused by huge currents from voltagedifferene where one cell is charging up another
Hi what is the capacitor value means voltage and capacitance and how many?
Nice demo, glad you/us didn’t have to see fireworks 😁
cool! i want it! been saving up old 18650 batteries for makita packs and now have enough for a 32 amp/h 48v pack for my ebike.
Thanks for the good spotwelder demo!
Translation of the little image and text on the board: "One thing you can see on my face: handsomeness"
Good review! Decent welder then? What about a comparison between similarly priced units?
I have a unit that I am going to redo the batteries in but in one section two batteries need to be fastened end to end or one on top of the other, how do I do that? Love watching your videos!! Also this spot welder has two settings for pulse, why is there two?
nice. have you tried kWeld?
Cost long term compared to using the non-spot weld method? Is it worth it if your only doing an occasional battery?
Been toying with the idea of getting into something like this ever since I had a Prius a while back and contemplated the cost of a replacement battery. Haven't really researched it, though. Now I want to build an ebike and the battery costs as much as the motor and controller together, so it seems like a good time to think more diligently. New subscriber.
Look into recyclers, often you can find deals that are pretty nice, although I do suggest doing a balance charge with every charge if you are using used cells or adding in an active BMS. OR hell with new cells anymore for that matter.
Hi, could you please do a review of the niubility b14 e-bike? I want to buy one and the specs seem to be very good for the price.
great idea with the metal trash bin. i usually just keep a window unlocked so i can hopefully chuck the runaway out if there is a problem.
🚂 Those of us who do model railroading could use this spot welder - Well done demo 😎
Popping a hole in the bottom is usually fine. I don't think I've ever had one go nuclear on me. I've used packs that've done that even.... I don't reccomend it though, but it's not as bad as you think.
Don't burn down the building was the wifi password at my lithium ion battery pack building job. Ha ha
I dont even need a welder, yet I watched the whole thang, lol! I suppose that's because I once chickened out on building a battery pack ;)
Umm how did it vent from the negative?
Show a 32700 lifepo4 battery build? For a qs 205 and/or test a sabvoton
I was wondering, is that a prototype? I can't imagine electronics like that not being in some kind of case to protect one from inadvertent shock or shorting out something.
this is the joy of buying from overseas where there are no safety regulations. Add you own case when you buy it.
Noice! Wow real time leakage of a lithium battery! I could always smell if a battery has leaked/died weird right?!? 😂
Did you forgot to put the link to it, or was it intentional? Also, links to 500W and 1000W kits are broken, and probably some others too. Cheers.
Link yo!
I would put some heat shrink on those collets.
Might be worthwhile to mention that its not a good idea to try putting water on a Lithium battery fire to put it out, otherwise youre going to have a bad day.
You have to cool it with water until the reaction ends.
Another great video! Thank you. Keep up the great work.
Hi. Couple of questions . I am making 18650 cell 36v battery with 110 cells 3400 10s11p what gauge of wire would I need ?
Also I ideally wanted smart bms what amp would I need?
Thanks in advance
Jk bms is great.
I like the little countdown bar
is it common practice to weld a cell, tear the weld, and weld again right onto it? or is it just ...
I don't think you have "burned through". I would rather guessed the cell had a crack there (it appears to me as a stress ring coming from how the cell can is manufactured) since the start and you just opened it by mere mechanical pressure on it...
I'm curious about how the caps are wired.
If it's 4s4p as it looks, that's a poor design for caps, as it severely limits current capacity because it reduces capacitance.
Are the leads easily replaceable, and what guage are they?
Maybe you see where I'm g ongoing with this - nickel bus strips are inherently limiting - copper is the way to go.
Aluminum would be a big improvement over nickel, but it's not any easier to weld.
I was hoping this was a unit with tips of something other than copper, and also wanted more detail on the timing controls and what it's peak current is.
In theory at least, using caps and carbon/graphite tips, you should be able to pull 2000 amps or more depending on how the caps are wired.
With sharp tips to concentrate the current, and adequate control of the pulse and current, you should be able to weld copper as long as it's not too thick, with thickness capacity ramping up with current capacity up to a point.
For $150 and no new capabilities other than not needing a battery, I'd have to pass in favor of cheaper units of similar capabilities, or spending a bit more on a kweld and modding it with graphite tips.
Or just stay on my current track of using cells with terminals I can connect copper or aluminum bus bars to.
Good video Mica!
looks like the weld is very good quality.
much better than those of the hoverboard scooter batteries.
in the hoverboard batteries the welds will pull apart just while unwrapping the battery pack.
a few years ago i bought 4 hoverboard scooters for parts that was part of a recall i tore down the battery packs to extract the cells and found that some of the cells broke loose from the others very easy.
i suspect that welds would fail along with shoddy bms.
i am not a fan of the shunting bms where you wire the bms in series with the load.
i would rather a bms that you have 2 wires for the charger and 2 separate wies for the output or bms that just monitors and sends an alarm signal for the lvc so you have to tie it into the brake inhibit or a separate circuit that turns off the load.
you may want to stop selling. the qb cells as they are shoddy or only use them with the vruzend kits.
it is possible that you damaged the cell by ripping the strip from it.
Let us know how it holds up after a few hundred welds or so, would you please mate?
These batteries very scary to have around?
Super nice welds!
I bought another cheap 8000w aliexpress welder. It works fine.
That liquid seemed to be coming from under the strip, not the battery. If you have electrolyte coming out of one of these cans it would be from the burst disc and that makes it a dead battery.
this operates like the melatronics version you can make a spot welder out of just about anything that transformer out of a old microwave but for very cheap you can get a nice spot welder from China a year ago they were 6 bucks today they're 22.....
shall i buy this or malectrics arduino spot welder what is the thickest nickel u can weld with this
Add advertised .2..possibly more by the power of this thing. I'm thinking of getting even though I have 3.🤣 almost 300 bucks
Waw, this looks like a really cool device !
I may have to invest in this one.
That's a pretty nice spot welder.
Does anybody know where to get 60V 25ah battery with 2 discharge sockets for dual motors electric scooter?
Awesome, I hope to build a battery like this someday.
Interesante, cuánto vale?
Poco más de 130€
Ten cuidado, si lo compras compra en la tienda westx hay muchas imitaciones
Ah the ol' magic smoke! Happens to all the time I work with electronics.
best welder casing I've ever seen
The Bubbling occurred probably because you ripped out the first weld very strongly!!
Do you have a site where we can all talk about battery making and pre builts? A Reddit page?
Could NEVER win your free DIY Lithium Batteries book, Micah. I think this contest is rigged😏...
Can’t wait on you ... so I literally just brought it myself. Kindle edition. Amazon. True story.
Reads like a regular conversation with tons of easily understandable explanations. A must read for
“li-ionerds”, imo.
Lastly, gotta 36v 11.5ah battery that reads “.719v” on properly functioning meter reader.
No worries, by the time I’m finished this journey, I’ll be able to pick out the bad apples/batteries or bms, have some fun ...and save some lira.
okay Micah so......now can I get my free book, bro? lol
/Bklyn👑
Very Informative, Thanks Micah
0.3mm nickel?
100% am considering getting it next month
The RUclips AI was good to me today and offered up this video. I am going to buy a spot welder to modify two factory built 7s 24p modules to 21s 8p.
Hello Micah! How are you? :)
You worry more about transformer explosion but not the super capacitor explosion? :D
Yeah, a link???
I like this spot-welder.
How much is it?
He shows the price on the 12:00 mark !
$200....:-\ IDTS
5:44... Maybe put a non electrical conducting, fireproof lining in the bucket would be safer. No shorting batteries that are venting.
Are you related to the bee gees or do you just have the same dentist?
Big Kudes dude for accidentally showing venting cell safety issue and taking IMMEDIATE action. Hope you all got the msg 10^6 thnx. May your fire bucket be your pal.
I'm not receiving notifications. I will go back and check things again. Thanks and Be Well.
Nice welder!!
You make it look easy.
i wish to have 1/10 of the brain of this guy
I would love to have a book
Nice vid!
I'd like to get a cheap one just for practice.... This is what I'd get after practicing.
waiting for LFP project
Well Micah, if you don't want to slip a bit of silicon tubing over the probe nuts, you could just make a couple of wraps of electrical tape around them-I sure wouldn't use them (even extended as you like) without insulating those fat boys. (But I'm old and clumsy, so YMMV.)
Of course, you are more portable with a battery as a power source
Left a good burn on the table
Nice price for a good item.
Nice welder.
burny smell from the varnish of the wood
11:40 lol