Bob, Since no one else has had the opportunity to chime in, how about a modified approach - if you have the room on the board. Take short lengths of the nickel battery terminal strips and pre-wet approx 1/2 the length, using whatever aggressive [WS] flux you desire, in your solder alloy/pot of choice. Toss them into a beaker and clean. Solder the pre-tinned end to your board. Either have the contact strips lay flat on the board surface, or have them formed at a 90 degree angle, whichever best suits the application. Not sure if your welder will work in a 'pinching' type application, or it is only set up for a parallel 'spot' config. Wouldn't ENIG work out okay for soldering the wires and contact strips to the PWB? If you soldered the pre-wetted contact strips couldn't you just go back to 'normal' 1 oz foil - assuming you have negligible currents involved. Alternatively, can the wires be welded to the battery strips directly, without the PWB? Can you do the inverse - take the pre-wetted contact strips and spot weld them to the battery strips, leaving the solder surface exposed, and then solder the wires to them? Possibly make the pre-tinned end of the battery terminal strip part of the 'normal' battery interconnect assembly instead of a separate piece, such that after all the battery interconnects are done, you have a 'tinned' piece/area left over for wire attachment? I will crawl back under my rock now :-) Best wishes Steve Creswick Sr Associate - Balanced Enterprise Solutions http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevencreswick 616 834 1883 -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Kondner Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 3:14 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Suggested Finish for Welding Nickel to PCB Hi, I make some battery packs where the cells are connected by spot welding 3mil nickel strips to the cells. I also have some wiring that needs connecting and I was considering the use of a small PCB. The idea is to spot weld nickel strips from the required battery terminals to the PCB. I could solder but the nickel strips can be difficult to solder and spot welded connections are easy, fast and reliable. My question is: What is the best finish for the PCB to support the spot welding of the nickel strips AND for attaching soldered wires? I would guess a Nickel finish though I don't know how thick. I am using a Sun Stone Dual Pulse spot welder and I know it can, and will, blast away a spot of copper foil if the current is set too high. I will probably need a minimum of 2oz copper to support the spot welding. Any ideas or suggestion on thickness or materials? Thanks, Bob K. ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 16.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives For additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 16.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives For additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------