Hello, i have 2 of these spot welders. From what I've notice the sparks appears when the blinking led is on. Do not put the leads on nickel when the led is on (the leads are energized), that's why u have the spark. And one more thing: do not accidentally touch the needles together 'couse you'll burn the mosfets (don't ask me how I know). Nice video. Thanks.

Wanted to share this with you. I was spot welding tonight and got a huge chuckle out of having a small neodymium magnet bouncing every time it hit when it was close to the leads. I'm still using one of the first ones you recommended but with heavier gauge leads and a capacitor bank for the power source instead of a lipo. Its been working pretty well for me. Appreciate your content as always!

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

Nice. That will be the electromagnetic pulse as the current runs through the leads.

I think thickening up the traces with some solder will help with power delivery and heat dissipation.

Hello I was hoping someone has managed to sort which version is the one that allows you to use the manual mode? I have the version 3(advertised as such) but mine has no printing on it. Any help would be great. Thanks

I just got a new one of these and I think mine is the newest one but I noticed the one you got is matte while the original one is glossy and the one I have is glossy. But mine also came with the capacitor and connector not soldered on. And also the solder on mine looks nearly perfect so maybe the one you got was just built sloppily

My BIFRC V1.2 Spot Welding PCB has a SMD resitor (R4) missing. R4 is located above the silk screen printed "KEY" text. Can you please tell me what the value of R4 is?

I just bought one of these and thought the idea of dragging so much current through an XT60 connector was a bit silly, so I soldered 8-gauge cable directly onto the the two main contacts on the back of the board. These are the ground side of the circuit (that is switched through the mosfets). The positive line is taken directly from the battery (I'm using a car battery) on 8-gauge cable. The XT60 is now used only for driving the circuitry on the board. All I can say right now is that it works but I need to do more testing.

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

Not the worst idea ever. Some people have suggested powering the board with a separate power supply which you could easily do if you never connect the battery positive to the board....

@gb614erg

3 жыл бұрын

​@@stevenc22 Thats true, separate power will definitely save mosfets from burning out, but looking at oscilloscope I found that in this case mosfets are closing too slowly, like if there is capacitive load: closing time about 100 milliseconds, much longer than pulse length which is 10 to 70ms depending on chosen mode, so if powering board separately it is good idea to add 1k resistor between out- and in+. At least this is what I found on my board, it looks similar but still a bit different: without version and serial number...

Very nice. Another great video. I have Problem finding proper battery.

@alexackermann7127

3 жыл бұрын

I use a li po jump starter. I cut the cables, that came with it, just before the diode pack, leaving the ec5 connector on one end. I soldered the negative cable, about 50mm long, directly on to the spot welder. The positive from the jump starter is connected directly to the positive weld cable. I than ran a thin piece of wire from the positive cable to a diode connected to positive on the spot welder. The diode stops the capacitor discharging during the weld cycle and keep the welder voltage stable. I put female ec5 connectors on the positive cable from the jump starter and the negative weld cable point on the welder. By putting male ec5 connectors on the weld cables I can move them between different welders.

@moya9450

3 жыл бұрын

@@alexackermann7127 Thank you so much for the help. Appreciate it. I'm looking for the same battery but the prices are little high and doesn't worth it. (I made my own welder using microwave Trandformer and just curious to test this one too if I find the good price battery).I noticed that Chinese markets like AliExpress found out that Their prices are too low for US and EU citizen they they increase prices every week accordingly. Now I found out some of products on AliExpress can be find cheaper here in Finland even with Finnish insane Tax law.

I got one and did the higher gauge wealding leads per your suggestion. Using 2 12v 9ah lead acid batteries in parrallel and it work great. thanks for the videos. You have a new subscriber.

@brewman684

2 жыл бұрын

Sadly after about 5 cells it flashed and blew the strips on the bottom of the board like a fuse. I didn't thin I crossed the leads. Any ideas? Thank you

@samohraje2433

3 ай бұрын

@@brewman684lol bro. I think you used a sealed AGM batteries or am i wrong? 18Ah is not enough. Although the SC amperage is way above 100A it does not mean it can supply enough voltage right after the first weld hit. Or, for you, after fourth weld. The batteries can not supply high enough voltage after short circuing it for like 0.1 or 0.15s, after that the voltage will sag so low that the gates stay open and you got nickel destroyer rather than nickel welder because your mosfets are completely gone brother. I tried it with 110Ah Car battery with 950A of starting current and just after i unplugged it from the charger i tested it and blew right a way after first weld or i did not completed the first weld because it happen exactly what happened to you. The best solution is to use rather expensive LiPoly battery pack with highest C rating and capacity you can afford or how much you would like to pay for such a thing. Never use car batteries or if so, take 2 or 3 2200uF caps and place it between plus and minus in right polarity. That should keep the voltage sag above 10V after a many welds and the second , the nonstop plugged and hooked lead acid battery charger so the voltage of that battery will be always above 14V and it gives you small headroom for longer welding

Green flashing light on board indicates it is firing. so put needles down when there is no green light....

Hi, what do you think about have a separate power source for driving the mosfets? the heavy duty battery will only have to weld and you will not have to worry about the voltage drop.... i have already fried one so i'm looking forward for a solution like that

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

A couple people have suggested that. I'm going to look into that

Nice video. Have you tried adding a dedicated 12v power source for the board and remove the capacitor? I have a hunch that the mosfets are getting warm because it is being operated at non peak voltage during a part of the cycle. If you have a decent lipo, this is will cause mosfet to just get warm. If the lipo is bad it will cause huge voltage sag and the mosfet will blow up because Rds on is very high for high current at low Vgs voltage. Basically it is like spot welding the internal of the mosfet. I got this idea from another German spot welder video.

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks. Interesting idea!

@zarbonida

3 жыл бұрын

Can i use a 100Ah SLA battery?

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

@@zarbonida yes. 100a is just big enough. I would use something bigger but 100a should work

Logic level MOSFETs would not need 9V for the gates or a gate driver chip with an internal charge pump would be great too, I don't know what MOSFETs are used, probably the cheapest stuff they can get away with. Because of your recommendation in the first and second review video, I ordered this spot welder, the latest version is advertised as "V3". You saved me from buying this spot welder, which is screwed directly to this large Lipo cell.

Can we use 12 volt 3s 6ah lithium battery pack which i made from laptop batteries as a power source

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately not. 3 18650's can't deliver enough amps. You need 200+ amps to weld

What's the lowest voltage I can use to spot weld if I power the bifrc with external 12V? 2 3000F ultra caps in series would be enough? TIA

@stevenc22

Жыл бұрын

Do not go under 10v. The MOSFETs could get stuck open at low voltage

@ericklein5097

Жыл бұрын

There are boards out there meant for 5.4V spot welding (they recommend charging your 2.8V caps to 2.7V just to prevent overcharging. You should also use those cap balance boards that prevent one from overcharging when you charge them in series). So search "5.4V spot welding board" or something similar and look at options. "2S farad welder" is another way the Chinese label it. Some boards specifically say not to use caps but i Don't understand why.

that cap will discharge fully if the battery goes down, it will go down with it, with no diode blocking it from discharging when welding, it is abundant, or it will "help" the weld, but really not with that tiny capacitance.

@vavo9269

2 жыл бұрын

so is there a way to help with lower batteries?

@xibidit

2 жыл бұрын

@@vavo9269 but do the diode/inrush resistor mod and change the R4 resistor for one under 500 ohms, i use 200 ohms right now, works great. check luca youtube channel for more info and guide how to mod

@vavo9269

2 жыл бұрын

@@xibidit ok but identifying the right resistor on board or other boards will be tricky

@xibidit

2 жыл бұрын

@@vavo9269 no man it's easy, at least on the unit i have, Check "luca" youtube channel, there is clear instructions and testing. I have used it a lot, without issue. Did not use it until i modded it first, and it has held up to some real abuse actually. 0.2mm nickel is not easy to weld with these small welders and it does it fine with a powerful battery.

First let me say, I have years of experience working with 18650 cells. Thought I would give this welder a try. For the first few welds it seemed to be a good little unit. Then it began to heat up, failed to weld. Charged it over night. Next day. Same issue. Tried different setting, still not capable. Charged it overnight again. Next day same issue. 30 good welds, then failure. It actually went into an alarm mode. Charged it, tried different settings, stayed in alarm mode. Green LEDs stayed on, even when shut off. Returned it. Word to the wise. There is no such thing as an inexpensive welder that works. I tried many different nickel strips with the unit , hoping to give it a fair shot. This is the forth budget welder I have tried. None of them perform in a manner you could use them as a reliable tool. IMHO , save your money, buy one of the better, more expensive units. You’ll be better off in the long run 18 people found this helpful

@hunter.on.channel.19

2 ай бұрын

I must have received a good unit because I've done at least 1400 welds with mine

@stevenc22

2 ай бұрын

Yeah me too!

Thanks for the uploads. Based on your reviews, I purchased this unit (with cap) but I'm struggling to get it to work well. The unit is powerful and is blowing a hole through the nickel strips even on the lowest red setting. My battery is a liPo turnigy 14.8v 5200mAh 12-24C battery. Is it too powerful or is something else the problem?

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

Is it pulsing or is it stuck on and dead shorting on the nickel? I've had one get stuck on and I thought it was just super powerful but actually it wasn't pulsing or was stuck on and was just melting the nickel.

@briancharlton2292

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 thanks for replying. It appears not to be shorting. The nickel to nickel wrote weld fuses together but blows a hole at one of the needle contact points.

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

@@briancharlton2292 Try rounding the needle points. it should spread the current out and reduce the blow out.

@briancharlton2292

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 I will give that a try. I was thinking I had an issue because of my battery.

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

@@briancharlton2292 weirdly your battery is actually kind of weak.

Hello we also get an enclosed mini BIFRC spot welder with built in rechargable battery. And the machine is like 103x83x29mm in size. How does a small inbuilt battery provides such a big current for welding? Have you seen those?

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

I have seen them. Lipo batteries are incredibly powerful and tiny. It's probably not as powerful as my battery but still powerful.

@KetansaCreatesArt

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 , Thats good, thank you. I am getting this setup. Can you please tell, how much spots does your 80C 5200mAh LiPo battery give with this BIFRC board? Or in short how many cells do you spot weld in one charge with 5200mAh LiPo?

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

@@KetansaCreatesArt I can spot weld hundreds of batteries. We don't care about how long the battery lasts, we only care about how much peak battery power the battery can deliver.

@KetansaCreatesArt

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 , Very awesome. Thanks again bro

@KetansaCreatesArt

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 , Guess what I found! 😎 . I got this setup now, and guess what - If you long press the button for 3 seconds, the power setting will remain the same but you will get to cycle between different blinking colours. This is the setting of time delay for the shot after touching the two probes. You can cycle from Red 2 seconds - to IceBlue 8 seconds.

Can i use a 4s LiPo battery (14,8V)?

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

Technically that's airport a little high in voltage but I bet it works

Mine works too well. Even on the lowest setting, it throws a lot of sparks and blows holes in my nickel. I disconnected the capacitor, and it didn't help. Im using the exact same Zeee battery except mine is 50C. I also have the common 5 mosfet one from amazon, and I have no problems with that one.

@stevenc22

Жыл бұрын

Use larger needles to spread the weld

@E-BikingAdventures

Жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 . Yes. My needles are new and have very sharp edges on them. I'm going to make new ones specifically for that spot welder with duller points, since the ones I have work great with the other spot welder.

@ericklein5097

Жыл бұрын

@@E-BikingAdventures pure nickel? Have you tested it with the saltwater method for 24 hours?

Instead of lithium polymer battery hve u tried to do it with super capacitor

@stevenc22

3 жыл бұрын

I have not tried

Aight bought it with your link but got a knockoff version. no version number, diffrent board layout etc

@legobuildingsrewiew7538

2 жыл бұрын

Seems to be in working order but I have not welded with it yet. Im gonna wire it up with a diode and the cap supplied with it in a way that the board gets powered by the cap when the battery voltage drops

yes, is the best with 12v 1amp power source never blow mosfet

fuck me. I bought mine a week ago. it will come after christmas. I hope I get a high quality version from a good manufacturer. not some standard chinese garbage with factory binned components meant for the lowest of the lowest trash. I got 2 11.1V 5200maH 80C batteries (Lipo, 450A) to power it and I will connect them in parallel. Also have a capacitor in the package. What leads are you using? Kweld?

@legobuildingsrewiew7538

2 жыл бұрын

also you calculate the discharge rate diffrently. C rating is the time in which you can safely discharge the battery 20C would be 3minutes 60C one minute and 80C 40seconds

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

I make my own leads from from 10awg silicon wire and some solid copper thick gauge wire for the tips.

@legobuildingsrewiew7538

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 wow thanks for the quick reply man! Appreciate that. Ill try to build it myself too

@stevenc22

2 жыл бұрын

@@legobuildingsrewiew7538 Its the same calculation. C rating is the maximum amps the battery can deliver. That amp rating divided by the capacity also tells you the time the battery can run for.

what charger do you use for your Battery, I didn't see it listed and was curious.

@stevenc22

Жыл бұрын

ISDT amzn.to/3Y6I0G1

@ericklein5097

Жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 Are you happy with the ISDT? I have a ToolKitRC M8S and it has some quirks so I'm looking at some of the ISDT models from the Q6 and Q8 series along with the new SkyRC B6 neo. I really need something to just charge this one Lipo but mostly to balance my various lithium Ion 18650/21700 packs and A123 LiFePO4 packs. If it doubles as a voltage checker (plugging in the balance cable is enough to power it on) that would be awesome. Balancing current or the ability to balance without charging is not crucial. I have multiple active balancer boards meant to move around from pack to pack and they are a billion times better than any device IMO. The accuracy is often down to the millivolt and I can just leave it on a pack overnight and its almost guaranteed to be done after 8 hours.

@ericklein5097

Жыл бұрын

a charger that accepts 8S is much more beneficial than 6S due to LFP being 8S for 24V and LiIon being 7S....but I don't have a ton of 24V packs so it would be a bonus but if a 6S only charger has the edge....not a dealbreaker End of the day the iCharger S6 or X8 is the ultimate charger to get IMO. No clue why the X6 still exists when the S6 blows it out of the water. Of course the DX8 looks to be a another "last charger you'd ever need" since I think it has the synchronous charging features the bigger iChargers have

@stevenc22

Жыл бұрын

@@ericklein5097 I like my isdt but I end up using my Icharge x8 the most. The isdt are great for small batteries but the Icharge is the goat with 2amp balancing.

@ericklein5097

Жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 obviously the X8 has a huge advantage being able to handle 7S lithium ion and 8S LiFePO4 batteries but do you feel like you're missing out at all with the added power the S6 has? Did you choose the X8 for that particular reason? Its a tough decision for me....I can't imagine I'd likely NEED that extra bit of power but it is quite tempting. Honestly if they came out with and X16 I'd probably get one of those and an S6. It's a shame Revolectrix shut down, their Powerlab 6 and 8 were the only real options in that power category I'm aware of besides Junsi iCharger Duos. If I had the money to blow I'd probably find someone with a Powerlab 8 and offer them a good price for it and just keep going until I found someone that was willing to say yes and take the money and just buy a new iCharger 408 Duo or something

Is it also a good idea to do this with my BIFRC DH20 Pro+ spot welder, and what is the voltage and uF you use for the cap?

@stevenc22

Жыл бұрын

The capacitor is not necessary off you have a good battery hooked up. I don't use capacitors on any of my spot welders because I know my battery can handle it.

@AmigaWolf

Жыл бұрын

@@stevenc22 Ok, thanks for answering so fast.