Dear Spotweld, I work in a solar industry making both solar cells and systems. As part of our assembly process we would like to use spotwelding to interconnect the solar cells. This would get rid of the necessity of flux and ensure a good bond. The parts we are trying to weld are both copper. One is of thickness 200 microns and the other of thickness 70 microns. Ideally we would like to weld the two together with a contact area of about 5mm sqaure to reduce our resistance losses. I have tried spot welding with a unit which exists in a factory nearby and while it worked there was a problem with the probe sticking to the material. I believe that this can be overcome by using different probe materials and I was wondering if you would be able to tell me what materials work and where i would be able to go to track these down. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers, James

-- James Cotsell (james.cotsell@anu.edu.au), December 16, 2002

Answers

James: Please visit www.unitekequipment.com enter "solar cell" into the search engine, and you will find a technical article related to the resistance welding process of solar cells. Kurt Tolliver, Unitek Miyachi Corp.

-- Kurt Tolliver (kurt@unitekmiyachi.com), December 17, 2002.