New Spotwelder - Most powerful yet?

I bought a new spot welder from Ali Express. The interface is bizarre, but the board is beefy and the spot welder is more than powerful enough for any spot welding job! The way it works is it does 3 pulses and the 3 segment settings control the three pulses.

Link to spot welder

Link to Lipo Battery

[kgrzeg]

I've bought it and checked it with an oscilloskope. It is genereting 3 pulses, SEG1 sets parameters of the first pulse, SEG2 is for the second and SEG3 is for the third one. You will want to set the deley in SEG1 to something like 500 to get the comfortable delay. All values in SEGs are in milliseconds, so 500 is half a second.
All mosfets are used as one block, they are driven from one single driver (TLP250) and are not divided in any way.
I would start with
seg1=2, delay=500; seg2=2, delay=10; seg3=10, delay=10
and fine tune the seg3=10 according to strip thickness and other conditions like battery voltage and internal resistance.
Seg3 is the pulse that does the real welding.

I have never seen a spot welder with 3 pulses, I don't know if it does make any sense to implement more pulses then 2. Other than that the board should be able to make some decent welds, I will try it with nickel-copper sandwich.

[todormarkov]

A three-stage pulse for a battery spot welder is an advanced technique used to enhance the welding process

1. Improved Heat Management
Pre-Weld Heating: The first pulse can be a low-energy pulse that preheats the materials to be welded. This initial pulse increases the temperature of the metal surfaces, reducing the resistance at the weld interface, which can make the subsequent main weld pulse more efficient.
Main Weld Pulse: The second, higher-energy pulse performs the actual welding by rapidly heating the metal to create the weld joint. This pulse must be carefully controlled to ensure it is strong enough to create a durable bond without overheating the materials.
Post-Weld Heat Treatment: The third pulse, which may be lower in energy than the main weld pulse, can serve to anneal the weld area, reducing stresses and the risk of crack formation in the weld. This can improve the overall strength and durability of the weld.

[Lazydawg]

Ordered one because of this video. Used the same battery as you. LED screen was DOA, but it works. Pro tip, inspect board closely. One side of the ground bar on mine was not soldered. I suspect thats the reason others are blowing these up.

[MikeMarston-jf]

This is my second spot welder. I burnt up the first more expensive one within a few minutes. RTFM, I guess. So I bought this one because it looked like the best of the inexpensive ones on the internet.
It actually seems to work well, though it sure would be nice to have more, i.e. any, information on the segmented pulse welding function of this thing. I guess it will trial by error.
I don't think I would of ever have gotten it to work if not for Steven's video. So, muchas gracias Steven.
Oh, and I bought 3 more, all for $40.

[Workshop_UA]

It also seems to be controlling the sequence of pulses. The video 18:35 shows that during welding there is a series of three pulses, which are configured in the menu. And there are delays between the pulses, so before the first one you need to make a long delay. and the following ones are smaller.

[JohnnyP]

Man 20 whole minutes for what could be 3

[jamo]

Another great review Steven. After trying a few options I still find the JQ-DHJ02B by far the best even better and much preferred than my BIFRC. I got the JQ one after one of your videos a yr ago and it does such a solid weld without burning any nickel. It also easily welds copper nickel sandwiches with ease. Perhaps you should add some tougher options for these spot welders to really compare and tell them apart as they ease through your 0.15 nickel. Try with copper or see how they get on with 0.3 nickel

[saifcathum]

You can bypass the automatic trigger by interrupting the voltage sense track. I cut the small track on the back of the board behind the (IN-/GND) and soldered a connector from that to the (IN+). I can now use my foot pedal to trigger the weld.

[stevegorkowski]

The delay is there so you can do 3 hits with the Mosfets. Very nice feature!

[gtxk]

You should connect the white power wire to a separate battery and connect the batteries negative to common ground so that the mosfets wont stay open during a voltage drop and frying the mosfets, especially when using lead acid battery as a source.

[ericklein]

Your video on the JQ welder convinced me to give it a shot and I’m blown away by it. So far I’ve tried a 4S8P A123 pack and a 3S2P Headway pack (ruined a Headway so I’m down to 7). The A123 pack definitely seems more powerful. I’m spot welding 0.20mm thick pure nickel on the middle power setting with just one A123 pack and only 12AWG wire coming off the pack but I am using an 8AWG pen. I have some 6AWG for making even beefier pens but I haven’t figured out how I want to build it yet.

I have another A123 pack and then about 24 good loose cells. It originally was a 12S8P pack I bought off eBay (they are $110 shipped and worth every penny, all you have to do is use a Dremel to cut the pack into thirds). I’m sure with a second A123 pack in parallel using some 6AWG or 2AWG I could blast through just about anything. I genuinely believe 0.30mm nickel might be possible and I’m sure I could do a copper nickel sandwich with 0.20mm copper.

My CNHL Lipo was a terrible letdown. 5600mAh 3S2P “120C” with 7mR IR per cell. Absolute junk.

If you need a power source for a spot welder get one of those A123 packs on eBay before they are sold out!

[villages]

Careful with those powerful spot welders. They punch super small microscopic holes into the cell walls and the electrolyte escapes away slowly.

[marcfruchtman]

Very interesting. My only issue is that I am not into "unboxing discovery" style of making videos... meaning I prefer the information to be explained by someone who has "already" gone thru that process and is providing the important details. I realize this means having to spend the time to edit them, but it also means higher quality videos too.

[MarkFunf]

Hello. I bought this device. I sharpened my welding pen. works with lipo 3s 5600 120c. I set the delay to 999 and the power to 20 on all three sections. the welds are repeatable and great. now I will try to make a copper-nickel sandwich. but I think he will do it without any problem. the power reserve is sufficient

[todormarkov]

2. Enhanced Weld Quality 3. Reduced Thermal Damage 4. Adaptability to Different Materials 5. Control Over Weld Penetration and Aesthetics

[oldmanonamotorbikeinbucks]

looks to be a good option welder going forward, shame it doesn't have an on board connection for a foot switch,

[antomarkic]

Would you like to try pure nickel strip 0.1-0.3 mm thick?

[korishan]

Would be interesting if the mcu can be custom flashed for better menu options and such.
They do expose the SDA/SCL pins, so makes me think this might be possible.

Can you tell what chip is the brains to this nice welder?

[alexhardy]

That looks like a really good spot welder the issue I will have with it there is no manual feature

[POWERMAN]

Just watched the video. I didn’t see the battery pack you powered the spot welder up with but suspect it’s the 11.1-5200mah You use in other spot welder video - ??