Building a Spot Welder for E-Mag Batteries

[ArmyEngineer]

Hey guys,
I just ordered 25 feet of nickel strip for use in E-Mag battery packs. I am hoping that by the time it gets here, I will have completed my homemade spot welder. It is practically impossible to assemble NiMH packs without one. The nylon insulators melt and the battery vents close up. This afternoon will be spent scavenging Craigslist and Freecycle for broken microwaves. Once I have everything working and properly adjusted, I might start offering packs for sale. Start saving your battery tops!

Price list (updated regularly):
$23 - 25' x 0.125" x 0.005" Nickel Strip
$0 - 1350W GE Spacemaker Microwave
$12 - 20 ft of 6 AWG wire

Day One - Find a microwave. Found a GE unit manufactured in February 1990. Opened it up and found that a capacitor on the display/control board had exploded and caught fire. Salvaged the High Voltage Transformer, the Magnetron, a blower, the vent fan, and the HV capacitor.

Day Two - Rewind Transformer for high current output. Went up to the machine shop and removed the secondary transformer winding. Took a couple of hours. I left very sore. Went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of heavy copper wire. Wound the new secondary with 4 turns. Ns/Np=Ip/Is. So, 4/64=15 A/240 A. Well that would be impressive, but the microwave only drew 11 Amps, my coil is not ideal, and my wire gauge is only 8. I figure that I am putting out closer to 100A. My ammeter is only good to 10 amps though, so it would be hard to say.
The spark is impressive though!

Pics coming soon.

[ArmyEngineer]

Might need this real estate later.

[Ando]

Don't go sterilizing yourself.

Happen to me once. :mad: My boys were out of commission for 6 months. I was :shooting: blanks.

[ArmyEngineer]

Don't go sterilizing yourself.

Happen to me once. :mad: My boys were out of commission for 6 months. I was :shooting: blanks.

ROFL. If I get shocked by this thing, the result will likely be worse than sterility. :tard:

[Ando]

I got zapped by the ALQ 144 on a blackhawk.

[ArmyEngineer]

I got zapped by the ALQ 144 on a blackhawk.

:cuss: , dude! That'll do it! I'm surprised they were out of commission for only 6 months. Don't touch the disco ball. lol

I think my nickel might have come in this afternoon. Or it could be my geddon. I'll find out tomorrow. :)

[Ando]

I was supervising a few guys doing maintenance on the APU, I was sitting on the ALQ while both the boot camps were knee deep in work. Some A-Hole avi guy comes over and applies power to do some checks. He yells up to us before applying it and I yell back all clear. He's down there for a good 3 min and then after a while I start getting this blood taste in my mouth. I blow it off till one of the guys working with me says the same thing. I think for a sec and jump the hell off the aircraft, run to the cockpit and this jackass never ck'ed the switches before turning on power. ALQ was on and cooked all 3 of us. Was a bad month, for me especially cause I was sitting on the damn thing. :mad:

[ArmyEngineer]

I was supervising a few guys doing maintenance on the APU, I was sitting on the ALQ while both the boot camps were knee deep in work. Some A-Hole avi guy comes over and applies power to do some checks. He yells up to us before applying it and I yell back all clear. He's down there for a good 3 min and then after a while I start getting this blood taste in my mouth. I blow it off till one of the guys working with me says the same thing. I think for a sec and jump the hell off the aircraft, run to the cockpit and this jackass never ck'ed the switches before turning on power. ALQ was on and cooked all 3 of us. Was a bad month, for me especially cause I was sitting on the damn thing. :mad:

OMG Ando. That is insane. I hope y'all beat the crap out of him.

Well I am still waiting on my nickel from sunstone engineering. They called and offered me an extra 25' for the wait. I gladly accepted. My impatience got the best of me this afternoon and I took all my cells to batteriesplus. Get this, the assembly of the cells only cost $16. It should be ready for me on Monday. So thats a grand total of $44 for a 1000mah Sanyo battery pack.

http://www.batteriesplus.com/