I agree ,the usual critiq of nickle plated steel strips is that they have higher resistance than pure nickle ones, thus it can get hot in high amperage applications, but, you can always spot weld 2 nickle plated steel strips (or more) in parallel to decrease resistance for high amperage applications. Excelent video and nice explaination.
No. No you can't. It doesn't work that way in "High Amperage situations." Battery spot welders will also evaporate the nickle where they produced a weld. Enjoy your rust.
@@Originalsunrunner20 Could you explain how this wouldnt work in "high ampere Situations"? Because that makes zero sense to me. More strip means less resistance
You just have the right questions and look on the interesting Details and gadgets, just as myself. I have asked myself your thoughts so many times, now i know your Take on them and are NOT alone with my thoughts... ❤
Just a quick FYI for anyone wanting to test their strips. I saw someone mention the Dremel trick with sparks, the other is to scratch up the surface of the strip and leave in some salty water for a few hours (I usually do overnight) if it rusts it’s not pure nickel.
Are the 2 strips the same thickness and width? Check the zero reading of your meter to a thick copper bar, probes as close as possible without touching each other. How do you know the quality of the nickel?
@9:07 your resistance meter passes very little current, so the surfact plating of the nickel on the steel is likely what makes the 1.5x rather than 2x difference. The bigger issue is max current capacity per strip as for say lipo tool batteries you need high current capability. An interesting test would be electrically clamp each type of strip and see what current gets each one to glow red hot. This is where strip thickness choice comes into play for battery pack usage. Excellent video.
This video confirmed my assumption. I used nickel strips to produce nickel acetate, what I got was a brownish color of the acetate instead of green. In addition when I nickelplated brass I got a black surface which I could easily polish off to get the nice nickel surface. I assumed there must be some other material within this nickel strips, this video gave me a clear answer.
Isn't the nickel plated steel really 3 resistors in parallel? (2 of nickel, one of steel). Also, aren't the electrons supposed to run mostly on the surface of a material? To tell the difference between the two, simply make a sharp bend. The nickel bends much more easily, IIRC.
It's more interesting if measuring AC resistance. The higher the frequency, the more the skin effect, the more the nickel plated steel will look like solid nickel.
Interestingly, the resistance tester puts a sinewave onto the test probes to measure resistance (with the other two probes). But it's only 1kHz at 5 volts, so I can't imagine that creates much of a skin effect.
@@JulianIlett It’s the one trapping of digital. We tend to trust equipment due to having many digits but have no idea if the result is actually accurate. Case in point are temperature devices. They tend to show to 0.1C but put two or more together and none of them agree what the correct temperature actually is.
@@BwanaBob Thermometers usually do not measure the temp; they measure the diff of temp. So ordinary thermometers are usually calibrated at two temps. Temp is NOT like mass or length; it is a thermodynamic concept
@@sarkybugger5009 from Gemini Here's a breakdown of why copper and nickel-plated copper strips aren't the ideal choice for spot welding battery cells like 18650s, and why nickel or nickel-plated steel is preferred: Challenges with Copper High Conductivity: Copper has exceptionally high electrical conductivity. This means most spot welders don't have enough power to generate the heat needed to weld copper directly to the battery cell. The copper acts as a heat sink, dissipating the energy too quickly. Sticking to Electrodes: Many spot welders have copper electrodes. Copper welding to copper is likely, resulting in damage to the electrodes and poor welds. Issues with Nickel-Plated Copper Durability: Nickel plating on copper can be thin. During the spot welding process, the heat and pressure can wear through the nickel layer, exposing the copper and leading to the problems mentioned above. Uneven Heating: Since copper and nickel have vastly different conductivities, the heat generated during spot welding won't be uniform. This can create weak or inconsistent welds. Advantages of Nickel or Nickel-Plated Steel Appropriate Resistance: Nickel, and to a lesser extent, nickel-plated steel, have higher electrical resistance than copper. This resistance is crucial for spot welding because it causes the material to heat up at the point of the weld, creating a strong bond with the battery cell. Manageable Conductivity: Nickel's conductivity is still decent, ensuring the battery cell itself isn't damaged by excessive heat. Corrosion Resistance: Nickel provides a degree of corrosion resistance, which is important for the longevity of the battery pack. Workarounds and Considerations High-Power Spot Welders: Some extremely powerful spot welders can weld copper directly. However, these are specialized and expensive. Copper-Nickel Sandwiches: A technique exists where a thin nickel strip is spot welded to a thicker copper strip. This combines the low resistance of copper for the battery pack with nickel's weldability. Cost: Pure nickel strips can be more expensive than nickel-plated steel. In Conclusion While copper has desirable electrical properties for a battery pack's overall performance, its characteristics make it difficult to use directly in spot welding. Nickel and nickel-plated steel offer a practical balance of weldability, conductivity, and cost, which is why they are the preferred materials for this application.
@@sarkybugger5009 Too Conductive: Copper conducts electricity too well, so spot welders can't generate enough heat to weld it to the battery. Sticks to Electrodes: Copper welding to copper electrodes (common in spot welders) causes damage. Nickel is Better: Nickel has the right amount of resistance for spot welding, creating a strong bond without overheating the battery. Copper Workarounds: Super-powerful welders or nickel-copper layering are possible, but these options are more complex or expensive.
What I notice is your probs are both touching Ni & the small amount of current passing though it will be taking the path of least resistance ie through the plating. I'd say a better test would be to pass 5a through both strips & measure the voltage at both ends of the strip & use ohms law to calculate the resistance, that way the current would be too high to simply pass through the plating, the excess current then has to pass through the steel.
Easiest way to know is disolve in a mix of HCl and H2O2. Nickel will give an emerald green solution. Steel will give a brown solution. Also nickel will spot weld cleanly nickel plated steel will take a bit higher amps to spot weld.
In a battery pack, sometimes you would want to spend the extra money to get a slightly better performance and/or safety. Hundreds of links that are more resistive and generate more heat might prevent a designer from going the cheaper route. Of course, it always comes down to use cases.
That is odd I do wonder if there if both are have just mixtures of steel and nickle. Well interesting nickle coins are copper and nickle which are not magnetic at all.
If you take a grinder or dremel to it the steel will give off sparks but the nickel will not. I always use pure nickel for building battery packs as the price difference is not that much and when it comes to batteries every little helps. 😉
Brill J, do some spot welding trials pls. also measure the res of your welds - how? cross to pieces and measure a fixed distance from the spot each leg - fascinating
Using a 2:1 ratio for steel:Ni resistivity, your measurements are commensurate with a Nickel plating thickness of .0167mm (16.7um) thick, which is a reasonable possibility. That's .0334mm of Ni in total (because it's plated both sides) plus .0666mm of steel. Given the Ni plated steel was 14.9mOhms, the pure Nickel should then be the 9.94mOhms you measured. Is 16.7um of Ni plating plausible though given that .2um or less is easily possible and the Chinese are not exactly well known for delivering more than the barest minimum possible? I have no idea. I guess the minimum pratical thickness will be governed by other factors such as physical ppearance. Power tool manufacturers have long been using plated steel for relatively high power applications, so clearly they see the cost benefit. Maybe they do use pure Nickel for the very highest power tools. However, for us hobbyists, the price difference is negligable compared to the price of the cells - 1p/cell for 25mm of pure Nickel strip v .5p/cell for plated steel (for small quantity pricing from Aliexpress). So the selection, IMHO, should be made on reliability grounds rather than resistance, especillay for < 10A. Pure Nickel won't rust, but it almost certainly isn't as strong. Is it better at resisting fatigue failure due to vibration or temperature cycling (with the associated expansion/contraction stresses)? I don't know.
Why is 1010 called 'carbon steel'? Steel, by definition, always contains iron and carbon (and often other stuff), but 1010 has _very_ little carbon. I've always thought 'carbon steel' had at least .4% C content, and everything below that was called just 'steel', or perhaps 'low-carbon steel'. This is at least how it is in the forging circles.
I disassembled a dell battery from over 15+ years ago. It was before the counterfeit industry got into it. The nickel strips on those 18650s were soft, almost like a rubber strip. The pointy edges didn't nick or hurt your skin like these current nickel strips do. I don't think today's OEM battery packs use pure nickel strips because of cost cutting. 18650s are already phased out by most laptop manufacturers.
Totally over complicating things, as usual. The probes are measuring resistance against a nickel surface on both strips. Since it has already been established that nickel has a lower resistance than steel, it is obvious that the coated steel will have a higher reading than pure nickel but being coated it will read lower resistance than pure steel. What is best for connecting up the battery packs? Pure nickel. So within the potential for errors in measurement and the accuracy of the cheap meter, the readings are entirely what would be expected.
I use both, but depending on the environment I'm expecting the pack to be used in, I'll select pure Ni for packs used outside, or in locations where temperature variations and high humidity are likely. Fe + Ni I'd use in packs where are inside in a controlled environment, or are inside a sealed enclosure, where I often place a desiccant to prevent excess moisture.
I have used nickel plated Steel on Battery packs in a cold shed Unheated. In operation over a year now with no problems Battery pack is not Sealed is fully open to the inside shed environment no rusting it not as bad as you are making it out to be.
Especially in today's super charged political environment, it is important to not blindly follow the advice of others (in the comment section for example), and to do your own measurements. Good job Julian. Still, in this example, I'd be far more concerned about the quality of the welds (and resistance thereof), than the trivial difference in resistance of the metal strips.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I agree ,the usual critiq of nickle plated steel strips is that they have higher resistance than pure nickle ones, thus it can get hot in high amperage applications, but, you can always spot weld 2 nickle plated steel strips (or more) in parallel to decrease resistance for high amperage applications. Excelent video and nice explaination.
No. No you can't. It doesn't work that way in "High Amperage situations." Battery spot welders will also evaporate the nickle where they produced a weld. Enjoy your rust.
Also the copper undercoat under the nickel will conduct enough that you will need to crank up the amps to get a reliable weld.
@@Originalsunrunner20 Could you explain how this wouldnt work in "high ampere Situations"? Because that makes zero sense to me. More strip means less resistance
You just have the right questions and look on the interesting Details and gadgets, just as myself. I have asked myself your thoughts so many times, now i know your Take on them and are NOT alone with my thoughts...
❤
Yes, please experiment and spotweld with Pure Nickle. I'm sure many are interested at the results.
Just a quick FYI for anyone wanting to test their strips. I saw someone mention the Dremel trick with sparks, the other is to scratch up the surface of the strip and leave in some salty water for a few hours (I usually do overnight) if it rusts it’s not pure nickel.
Are the 2 strips the same thickness and width?
Check the zero reading of your meter to a thick copper bar, probes as close as possible without touching each other.
How do you know the quality of the nickel?
@9:07 your resistance meter passes very little current, so the surfact plating of the nickel on the steel is likely what makes the 1.5x rather than 2x difference. The bigger issue is max current capacity per strip as for say lipo tool batteries you need high current capability. An interesting test would be electrically clamp each type of strip and see what current gets each one to glow red hot. This is where strip thickness choice comes into play for battery pack usage. Excellent video.
This video confirmed my assumption. I used nickel strips to produce nickel acetate, what I got was a brownish color of the acetate instead of green. In addition when I nickelplated brass I got a black surface which I could easily polish off to get the nice nickel surface. I assumed there must be some other material within this nickel strips, this video gave me a clear answer.
Isn't the nickel plated steel really 3 resistors in parallel? (2 of nickel, one of steel). Also, aren't the electrons supposed to run mostly on the surface of a material?
To tell the difference between the two, simply make a sharp bend. The nickel bends much more easily, IIRC.
It's more interesting if measuring AC resistance. The higher the frequency, the more the skin effect, the more the nickel plated steel will look like solid nickel.
Interestingly, the resistance tester puts a sinewave onto the test probes to measure resistance (with the other two probes). But it's only 1kHz at 5 volts, so I can't imagine that creates much of a skin effect.
Do you test your test kit to see how accurate it is using a known piece of metal?
If I did that, I'd have to test the test kit I used to test the test kit.
@@JulianIlett It’s the one trapping of digital. We tend to trust equipment due to having many digits but have no idea if the result is actually accurate. Case in point are temperature devices. They tend to show to 0.1C but put two or more together and none of them agree what the correct temperature actually is.
A man with a thermometer knows the exact temperature. A man with two thermometers isn't sure.
@@BwanaBob
Thermometers usually do not measure the temp; they measure the diff of temp. So ordinary thermometers are usually calibrated at two temps. Temp is NOT like mass or length; it is a thermodynamic concept
Makes me wonder why they don't do nickel plated copper strip.
Good luck trying to Spotworld copper to Steel
@@adus123 But nickel sticks to copper, right?
@@sarkybugger5009 from Gemini
Here's a breakdown of why copper and nickel-plated copper strips aren't the ideal choice for spot welding battery cells like 18650s, and why nickel or nickel-plated steel is preferred:
Challenges with Copper
High Conductivity: Copper has exceptionally high electrical conductivity. This means most spot welders don't have enough power to generate the heat needed to weld copper directly to the battery cell. The copper acts as a heat sink, dissipating the energy too quickly.
Sticking to Electrodes: Many spot welders have copper electrodes. Copper welding to copper is likely, resulting in damage to the electrodes and poor welds.
Issues with Nickel-Plated Copper
Durability: Nickel plating on copper can be thin. During the spot welding process, the heat and pressure can wear through the nickel layer, exposing the copper and leading to the problems mentioned above.
Uneven Heating: Since copper and nickel have vastly different conductivities, the heat generated during spot welding won't be uniform. This can create weak or inconsistent welds.
Advantages of Nickel or Nickel-Plated Steel
Appropriate Resistance: Nickel, and to a lesser extent, nickel-plated steel, have higher electrical resistance than copper. This resistance is crucial for spot welding because it causes the material to heat up at the point of the weld, creating a strong bond with the battery cell.
Manageable Conductivity: Nickel's conductivity is still decent, ensuring the battery cell itself isn't damaged by excessive heat.
Corrosion Resistance: Nickel provides a degree of corrosion resistance, which is important for the longevity of the battery pack.
Workarounds and Considerations
High-Power Spot Welders: Some extremely powerful spot welders can weld copper directly. However, these are specialized and expensive.
Copper-Nickel Sandwiches: A technique exists where a thin nickel strip is spot welded to a thicker copper strip. This combines the low resistance of copper for the battery pack with nickel's weldability.
Cost: Pure nickel strips can be more expensive than nickel-plated steel.
In Conclusion
While copper has desirable electrical properties for a battery pack's overall performance, its characteristics make it difficult to use directly in spot welding. Nickel and nickel-plated steel offer a practical balance of weldability, conductivity, and cost, which is why they are the preferred materials for this application.
You can, copper strip 'sandwiched ' under the nickel strip
@@sarkybugger5009 Too Conductive: Copper conducts electricity too well, so spot welders can't generate enough heat to weld it to the battery.
Sticks to Electrodes: Copper welding to copper electrodes (common in spot welders) causes damage.
Nickel is Better: Nickel has the right amount of resistance for spot welding, creating a strong bond without overheating the battery.
Copper Workarounds: Super-powerful welders or nickel-copper layering are possible, but these options are more complex or expensive.
What I notice is your probs are both touching Ni & the small amount of current passing though it will be taking the path of least resistance ie through the plating.
I'd say a better test would be to pass 5a through both strips & measure the voltage at both ends of the strip & use ohms law to calculate the resistance, that way the current would be too high to simply pass through the plating, the excess current then has to pass through the steel.
...Thanks for the mention and yes, Rho is resistivity!
Thanks for the heads up on Rho :)
So, if you are replacing a cell in a drill battery, does it really make any worthwhile difference?
Use a grinding stone on a high setting if one sparks its steel underneath its steel. If not its nickel
It will be interesting when high current used, I suspect a greater difference would be found with a few amps passing through it.
Easiest way to know is disolve in a mix of HCl and H2O2. Nickel will give an emerald green solution. Steel will give a brown solution. Also nickel will spot weld cleanly nickel plated steel will take a bit higher amps to spot weld.
can you measure the internal resistance of a capacitor with that device?
Interesting. Probably.
no, you need to send a DC current through the device. A cap cannot stand a DC current. These are 4 point probes
The last time I checked your channel you didn't have two nickels to rub together. Now you do.
I'll see myself out.
I'll get my coat.
I wonder if you get different results if you run a current through them. And I mean a non linear difference.
Nickel will result in less bandages on your hands.
You should be able to tell the difference from the density. Nickel is 8908 kg/m³. Steel is quite a bit lower, usually around 8000 kg/m³.
In a battery pack, sometimes you would want to spend the extra money to get a slightly better performance and/or safety. Hundreds of links that are more resistive and generate more heat might prevent a designer from going the cheaper route. Of course, it always comes down to use cases.
Nickel resistance is futile...?
Nice H2G2 reference.
Now I want to know the resistance of steel-plated nickel.
That is odd I do wonder if there if both are have just mixtures of steel and nickle. Well interesting nickle coins are copper and nickle which are not magnetic at all.
NIce little experiment.
3:33- Who is "Bret" ?
A friend
If you take a grinder or dremel to it the steel will give off sparks but the nickel will not.
I always use pure nickel for building battery packs as the price difference is not that much and when it comes to batteries every little helps. 😉
Brill J, do some spot welding trials pls. also measure the res of your welds - how? cross to pieces and measure a fixed distance from the spot each leg - fascinating
Coming up :)
Using a 2:1 ratio for steel:Ni resistivity, your measurements are commensurate with a Nickel plating thickness of .0167mm (16.7um) thick, which is a reasonable possibility. That's .0334mm of Ni in total (because it's plated both sides) plus .0666mm of steel. Given the Ni plated steel was 14.9mOhms, the pure Nickel should then be the 9.94mOhms you measured.
Is 16.7um of Ni plating plausible though given that .2um or less is easily possible and the Chinese are not exactly well known for delivering more than the barest minimum possible? I have no idea. I guess the minimum pratical thickness will be governed by other factors such as physical ppearance.
Power tool manufacturers have long been using plated steel for relatively high power applications, so clearly they see the cost benefit. Maybe they do use pure Nickel for the very highest power tools. However, for us hobbyists, the price difference is negligable compared to the price of the cells - 1p/cell for 25mm of pure Nickel strip v .5p/cell for plated steel (for small quantity pricing from Aliexpress).
So the selection, IMHO, should be made on reliability grounds rather than resistance, especillay for < 10A. Pure Nickel won't rust, but it almost certainly isn't as strong. Is it better at resisting fatigue failure due to vibration or temperature cycling (with the associated expansion/contraction stresses)? I don't know.
Why is 1010 called 'carbon steel'? Steel, by definition, always contains iron and carbon (and often other stuff), but 1010 has _very_ little carbon. I've always thought 'carbon steel' had at least .4% C content, and everything below that was called just 'steel', or perhaps 'low-carbon steel'. This is at least how it is in the forging circles.
If it was an alloy of iron and copper, would that be pronounced "feck you"?
What's with the coin changing? Some secret code 🤔
Just a bit of fun :)
@@JulianIlett I caught Bitcoin, Litecoin and Monero, but I think there were some others.
It's all about the thickness. surely. just buy nickel plated steel twice as much.
that Ni plating probably cost 100x more than iron strip itself
1010 steel is a common, low carbon "mild" steel. 0.1% carbon content. Your bog standard manufacturing steel.
Do you get what you pay for?
I disassembled a dell battery from over 15+ years ago. It was before the counterfeit industry got into it. The nickel strips on those 18650s were soft, almost like a rubber strip. The pointy edges didn't nick or hurt your skin like these current nickel strips do. I don't think today's OEM battery packs use pure nickel strips because of cost cutting. 18650s are already phased out by most laptop manufacturers.
Totally over complicating things, as usual. The probes are measuring resistance against a nickel surface on both strips. Since it has already been established that nickel has a lower resistance than steel, it is obvious that the coated steel will have a higher reading than pure nickel but being coated it will read lower resistance than pure steel. What is best for connecting up the battery packs? Pure nickel. So within the potential for errors in measurement and the accuracy of the cheap meter, the readings are entirely what would be expected.
I use both, but depending on the environment I'm expecting the pack to be used in, I'll select pure Ni for packs used outside, or in locations where temperature variations and high humidity are likely. Fe + Ni I'd use in packs where are inside in a controlled environment, or are inside a sealed enclosure, where I often place a desiccant to prevent excess moisture.
Yes. Interesting that the bag containing the steel strip had a bag of silica gel inside it.
Do you go back on site to replace the desiccant on a metric based schedule? Boy. Saved a lot of money there.
I have used nickel plated Steel on Battery packs in a cold shed Unheated.
In operation over a year now with no problems Battery pack is not Sealed is fully open to the inside shed environment no rusting it not as bad as you are making it out to be.
Ni plated is cheaper compared to resistance but you need weld more layers to achieve that.
Especially in today's super charged political environment, it is important to not blindly follow the advice of others (in the comment section for example), and to do your own measurements. Good job Julian.
Still, in this example, I'd be far more concerned about the quality of the welds (and resistance thereof), than the trivial difference in resistance of the metal strips.
Keep it against your skin, most people are nickel intolerant
Stainless steel is Bad for electric contact, the best is copper plated