Can anyone advise how best to weld .001" & .0014" SS wire to 22 ga copper stranded wire using an overlapping (perhaps twisted) joint? I am told that resistance welding is the method of choice but there seems a lot of "types" of resistance welders. I was also told there needs to be a special "moly" tip. Any advise will be greatly apprerciated.

-- Wally Reinhold (wally@cpsutures.com), January 08, 2004

Answers

This one is tough. Resistance welding is a process of passing current through metals until they are hot enough to melt. Conductive metals are much harder to heat than resistive metals (thus the assumption to use a moly electrode on copper is correct. If I only have .001 inch of stainless, and I a 22 ga copper, which is about .025", the amount heat required to melt the copper will generally blow away the stainless, and no weld will be achieved. The only way it may work is to wrap the stainless so it has an equal thermal mass to the copper. As for equipment, you would want a high frequency inverter with voltage feedback for the enourmous change in resistance you will see during the melt. You can submit samples to an applicatoins and development lab for evaluation if you would like to pursue further. Kurt Tolliver Unitek Miyachi Corp.

-- Kurt Tolliver (kurt@unitekmiyachi.com), January 08, 2004.