Spot-Welding Copper

I'm no expert but I'm guessing that you won't be able to do it with standard copper tips if at all. But if you can it would seem like you would need some kind of tips that could withstand very high temperatures and you would have to hit it with a great deal of power to compensate for the rate at which heat will leave the contact point due to the thermal conductivity of the copper sheet.

This might be an application where you could use explosive welding.

The right electrodes are key, and duration of current. Maybe these links can help ?

Check out http://www.spotweldingconsultants.com/copper.html

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003Xo0

Hi,

If you switch to nonsticking electrodes or coating of nonsticking material on copper electrodes you can.

Electrode cross section shall be considerably bigger than weld-spot-size.

This is more welding with very hot electrodes and will deform the parts.

Or you can select an intermediate layer of bad electrical conductivity that heats up much more reapidly than the copper. Maybe not allowed in your application.

This will be more like brazing. And you will need considerable experimenting.

RHABE

I suspect that it will take a lot of power but before you go too far, what "copper" are you trying to spot weld? There are about a hundred alloys of copper. I'd check the weldability of the alloy you are interested in welding. The Copper Development Association has a series of books that give all the alloys, their composition, specification and other technical information.

Good Luck.

Yes. We have successfully spot welded thinner sheets together using a copper clad carbon electrode. The application involved spot welding sheets together that covered a floor.

Yes this can be done, pre-heat thicker to match the coefiecent of the smaller.

Aaron

Thanks everyone for the positive input. I'll give it a go in the morning.

Dave