Published January 25, 2019

DIY CD Spot Welder - Part 1

I want to make a CD spot welder for battery packs or other stuff that cannot be soldered.

IntermediateWork in progress26,883

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino Micro

Adafruit RGB Backlight LCD - 16x2

Rotary potentiometer (generic)

SparkFun Pushbutton switch 12mm

LSP-1403

For charging, I used a lab bench power supply, but you can use any kind of charging method.

Crowd Supply Perf+ 2

Supercap 50F

Resistor 100k ohm

Resistor 220 ohm

100W Mosfet

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Soldering iron (generic)

Story

I like battery packs, they are handy, rechargeable and have better output characteristics but there is one small problem: It, s not the best idea to solder them. You will shorten their lifespan or even kill the battery packs completely!

The Alternative

The alternative is spot welding. There, you apply a short but high power pulse to a condictive metal like silver. At the two points, where you press the anode and cathode on will be so much heat, that the points will melt a little bit and produce a strong connection. The best thing is, that the terminal of the battery will not heat up.

CD Spot Welding

CD spot welding is nearly the same as the normal spot welding but with one difference: The power source is not the mains power grid, but capacitors in my case, I used 4 supercaps with each a capacaty of 50 farad in parallel. This equals around 1000W of power when fully charged.

My Design of a CD Spot Welder

I use an Arduino micro as the brain and a Mosfet as a high power switch. The LCD is for showing the pulse time. I also programmed a lockphase, so that the caps and the Mosfet can cool down after every pulse.

Code

CD_spot_welder_Serial.ino

int MOSFETpin = 3;
int footswitchorbutton = 2;

int dlay = 0;
unsigned long timetilnext;
unsigned long locksec;
int oneafterlocked;
int prevdlay;
int prevlock;

void setup() {
  pinMode(MOSFETpin,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(footswitchorbutton,INPUT_PULLUP);
  pinMode(A5,INPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  timetilnext = millis();
  locksec = 0;
}

void loop() {
  
  if(millis() <= timetilnext){
    locksec = (timetilnext-millis())/1000;
    if(locksec != prevlock){
    Serial.print("locked for:");
    Serial.print(locksec);
    Serial.println("s");
    prevlock = locksec;
    }
    oneafterlocked = 1;
  }
  
  
  dlay = map(analogRead(A5),0,1023,1,15);
  dlay = dlay*10;
  
  if(millis() >= timetilnext){

  if(dlay != prevdlay || oneafterlocked == 1){
  Serial.print("Pulse:");
  Serial.print(dlay);
  Serial.println("ms");
  oneafterlocked = 0;
  prevdlay = dlay;
  }
  if(digitalRead(footswitchorbutton) == LOW){
    digitalWrite(MOSFETpin,HIGH);
    delay(dlay);
    digitalWrite(MOSFETpin,LOW);
    timetilnext = 5000+millis();
  }
  }
  
}

Credits

Westpol

8 projects • 22 followers

DIY CD Spot Welder - Part 1

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

CD Spot Welding

My Design of a CD Spot Welder

Schematics

The scematic

The scematic

Code

CD_spot_welder_Serial.ino

Credits

Westpol

Comments

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DIY CD Spot Welder - Part 1

DIY CD Spot Welder - Part 1

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

CD Spot Welding

My Design of a CD Spot Welder

Schematics

The scematic

The scematic

Code

CD_spot_welder_Serial.ino

Credits

Westpol

Comments

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