PulseWeld

Weld pure copper straight to the cell.

PulseWeld is a new welding process, three years in development. It isn't laser welding and it isn't resistance spot welding. It uses pure arc energy to make each weld in milliseconds. Designed and assembled in the UK.

Self-build kits (expected to be less than £500) and assembled units, priced for makers, workshops and labs, are coming soon. Join the pre-order list, or apply to test PulseWeld before launch.

Sign up
The PulseWeld tool: a compact control box with a display and a dial, powered by a 6-cell battery pack, with its hand-held weld head beside a holder of cylindrical cells.
Three round PulseWeld welds joining 0.3 mm copper sheet directly to the top of a 21700 cell held in a pack frame.
Three PulseWeld welds joining 0.3mm copper directly to a 21700 cell.
Close-up of the PulseWeld weld head tip: a stepped metal nozzle with the electrode protruding from its end.
Copper direct to the cell
Welds 0.3mm and thicker copper straight onto cells, with no flux and no steel sandwich. It also welds nickel and steel. Each weld fuses an area of more than 2mm², so it's structurally strong. Three welds per cell handle even the most extreme current draw.
Ideal for tabless cells
Pure copper gives the lowest possible interconnect resistance when combined with the large surface area of each weld nugget produced with this process. It's the only way to realise the full discharge capability of the new tabless high-power cells.
Little or no cell heating
Each weld takes milliseconds and uses a fraction of the power of a spot welder, ensuring very little residual heating of the cell or the weld head occurs.
Precision control
The precision-actuated, high-speed weld head controls the electrode retraction with a resolution of 15µm, enabling a typical arc length of 1400µm to be ignited in 7ms. Together with the base unit, the system controls electrode pressure, position, retraction speed, arc length, current, voltage and energy delivery, microsecond by microsecond.
Every weld identical
Weld settings are stored in a profile on the welder, so every weld is delivered with absolute consistency. Store multiple profiles for different jobs, such as copper thickness or cell type.
Optional weld logging
Connect a PC over USB to log each weld microsecond by microsecond, for fine-tuning your process settings or feeding into your audit process for every pack build.
Runs from a battery
Powered by a 6-cell (22.2V) LiPo or Li-ion pack. You probably already have such a pack, or can make one up, or else any cheap LiPo capable of 10–20ms pulses at 300A will do (any 6S RC LiPo of ~5000mAh rated at 50C or more).
Low-cost argon
The process uses argon gas, but only a tiny puff per weld. A cheap disposable bottle (less than 20 GBP / EUR) from a DIY store should last for thousands of welds.

The machine controls the whole weld

Every weld is measured and controlled from ignition to completion.

A weld log chart on a dark background, showing current, voltages, arc length and energy traced through a single weld.

Optional logging: connect a PC to record current, voltages, arc length and energy through every weld.