Best Soldering 18650 Lithium Cell Tutorial - NO Welding, Just Solder! 

Dang. It is possible to make a superb how-to video that doesn't run 2 hours. Take a bow.

Very nice video - no annoying dub step music, no 14 min story about how his neighbor taught him to solder in a musty old garage in his youth, no shaky camera panning randomly all over the room. Should be used as course material for other RU-vidrs!

You win! Shortest, sharpest, clearest, most accurate vid on this topic. Most appreciated.

Best "HOW-TO" I've seen in a long time... BRAVO!

AGREED: Shortest, sharpest, clearest, most accurate vid on this topic. Most appreciated.

Sir, you are definitely a " **NO BS** artist", straight to the point, precise and concise....

When soldering the whole thing together you need to put something thin and heat resistant under tabs to prevent possibility of insulation melting and shortening positive contact with the body of the battery (negative)

Great job of shooting and editing. Thanks for *not* wasting everyone's time! I'd be tempted to sand, flux, and tin the underside of the tabbing too, but I've had a lot of trouble using "old" materials that have become oxidized over the years. 😁

There are a ton of vids on youtube about soldering cells. How nice to see someone get right. Pay attention this guy knows how to make a solid solder joint which will stand up in a high shock/vibration application and high current handling capability.

Great stuff, gave me the courage to salvage a wonderful B&D 20 Volt vacuum with modern cells with about 100X more run time. Pack works great, no short circuits.

Awesome! Quick and concise! Thanks. Love the beginning where you dont list the tools, but tell where the list is instead, and just get into it. A++ work sir!

I was doing this almost daily for customers in the mid-1980's (NiCad's were cutting edge then). Cells were a couple of bucks each but a replacement pack from the manufacturer was $$$. Hit each cell's ends against a medium grinding wheel for half a second instead of using sandpaper. Don't glue together until after final solder is cooled and tested -- if you overheat any +ve ends, you will melt things inside and short out that cell, and it would be hard to pull it out after it's glued in, so feel for any "warm" cells 5 minutes after soldering (bad sign, that cell's toast). Don't glue before that test (you can temporarily tape them together for easier soldering). Instead of tabs, flow a drop of rosin-core solder into the end of some braided copper desoldering wick, then touch that end of the wick to the solder drop previouly applied to the roughened -ve cell end and reheat just enough to ensure the "two become one." Now bridge the wick to the +ve end of the next cell, add a small drop and heat that just enough to melt into its existing drop. You're a pro now.

Good job. I just tried to watch a 14 min.+ video on this subject and you got it done in less than 3.

maximum info and compact! Thank you! I almost bought a spot welder until I saw this. I understand there is inherent risk in everything we do every day of our lives. The MAIN thing to keep in mid is enopto did not say, hint, or elude to this is the end all be all of the only way to join batteries together in series or parallel, but rather that "it is possible to solder 18650 batteries and possibly any other Li-Ion battery and he executed the task flawlessly! Even made it look easy. Take it for what it is. As we all saw there was no fire, no explosion, or death and destruction. I endorse this video and others like it that show alternatives to making something work. Keep up the great work and condensed instruction! I appreciate it.

This was really helpful, I've been searching for this

"a superb how-to video" Brilliant, short, sweet, right to the point! Kudos Thank you

Thanks for a to the point video with no messing around. Its nice to see quality soldering too.

This should be the Golden rule for all how to videos

As others have said...a tour de force in how to convey information quickly and efficiently. Nice job!

Everything I needed to know in less the 3 minutes! Perfect!

Excellent Chris. Straight to the point with no bull poo poo. 👍

Very good and fast job. I did this some years ago, but had no tabbing strips, so I just used regular electrical copper wire instead, but it worked and the battery pack is still good today.

Very nicely done, good technique all around. Couple of tips.. I punch a 1/4” hole in wide Kapton tape and put it over the positive button end to further protect against shorts, solder doesn’t bother Kapton. You dont need so much solder in the first tinning, more mass dumps more heat, and it repeats again when the tab goes on only worse because there’s more dwell time.

yes, I always did that because I haven't a welding machine, but you give me another best technic, good job.

Thanks for this clear and concise video! I just made my first Lithium Ion battery using your soldering technique.

Good video. Right to the point without any annoying music. Thank you very much.

Short and sweet. Excellent video. Thank you.

Best video on here, very plain straight forward and simple

Thank you for this video now my project is completely work thank you very much 😊

Dude, great and strait forward instructions that are easy to under stand. Would give two thumbs up if I could.

finally - a good Video - nice BIG tip on the iron 800F / 420 C

thanks. it's worth spending time watching it from beginning to end.

Any one watching this never solder something not intended by the manufacture to be soldered. There's a couple of reasons no commercial packs are soldered direct to can. Look up any manufacture, say Panasonic for instance, Its clearly stated in many different papers "never solder directly to battery" lookup ACA4000pe2. Sure you can solder them and they'll still charge but with the volatility of li-on chemistry and the guaranteed shortened life, why. Good battery spot welders are the same cost as a good soldering station, and at 6 or 7 bucks a pop for a good 18650.

Very nicely done presentation. Concise and complete. Thank you.

Always great to see this kind of videos,thanks.

Nice. Very nice explanation sir. Clear concise and well illustrated. Short and to the point. Thank you.

Awesome how to video without crazy music in the background.My hat is off to you.

Short and sweet, well done!

Finally someone who just cut it to the point .. Thanks very much

Excellent video! Thank You, Sir!

Fast and hot. Use 63/37 solder like kester 84. Some cells are made with a difficult to solder steel. If so use a flat toothpick tip of plumbers tinning flux instead of a flux pen. A soldered joint will take a lot more current safely than a spot welded one.

Just Learned something new. Thanks!

I've just put new batteries in our cordless vacuum cleaner using your method. Many thanks for sharing

Thank you for posting this

best 18650 soldering video

Very nice video! straight up! thanks alot!

You absolutely deserve the compliments everybody below gives you since you show clearly what procedure to follow to obtain flawless connections. Although I have a spot welder I still prefer soldering since solder connections are more flexible. Many RU-vidrs show gluing the cells together with hot glue. You use quite expensive glue. Although I once tried hot glue I do not like that method since the glue often has low adherence. I glue the cells already for years with cheap crystal clear kit/glue (from a sealant tube). It hardens rubbery within a few hours and can be removed with a knife or thin wire (like cheese) without damaging the plastic envelope of the cells.

Thank you for video. In case of used cells consider usage of these with similar capacity.

Thanks for posting this video 🙏🏼👍🏾

god this is nice. he doesn't waste 3 minutes describing what he's going to do. He just does it.

Your video has effectively encouraged me to build the replacement batter pack for my RC Transmitter which was hard to find... Thanks!

nicely done! right to the point and great content. that's how to solder 18650s!

Very good video, thank you ! 👍

Very useful video, thank you men!

Thank you. Excellent video.

Dude ,this is amazing

Solid connections, ! Short duration. video , ....... Good , minimal commentry ! Like 👍🏽

Thank you! Finally the video I was looking for. Well done, Thumbs Up! Subscribed.

this is really a very nice video, sharp!

Thank you so much, super video 😊

That was really nice!

Its pretty scary process but pros knows to well when to solder because too much heat makes it all for nothing. Good job!

Great and thanks for sharing .

Awesome video.

Thanks. Great video 👍

Great video thanks for posting. I figured I’d watch a quick video on doing this myself but once I started looking at the comments like I normally do, they were so expensive that I couldn’t decide weather to do it or not. I have a few shit battery’s I may use to practice on. Thanks again for sharing

Dude, I had no idea there was such a thing as super glue accelerator. I’m glad I watched this just to learn that!

Much impressive,well done

Thanks for video

This is how I always do it pre tin everything just makes life easier.

Good video and to the point

maybe if you dont have a spot welder and building some small pack but for larger packs spot welding is cleaner, safer, simpler, easier - better on every level

طريقة رائعة، فعالة، سهلة و سريعة.

Excellent video! I have been soldering cells for decades and never had any problems. The damage done is not measurable if using good techniques like You do. Regarding uninformed discussions on spot welding vs soldering Nickel has a resistivity much depending on alloy of 1*10E-7 ohm meter, very near 40/60 solder 1,5*10E-7 ohm-m. Copper is around 2*10E-8 ohm-m. The contact area is much better with solder than spot welding. I have measured similar joints with good micro ohm meters, and the soldered joints are always better than the spot welded ones. Thin copper strip is easier to solder than nickel and is what I prefer. Solder wick is another solution I have seen, but not tried. Cu is however not as strong and is not suitable for spot welding. Make sure the strips have some bend/slack, solder creeps under load... I have tried to spot weld nickel wires to copper , it does not work well. For low cost mass production spot welding is the only viable alternative. Also if You use a thermal imager You will quickly find that good cell contacts spot welded or soldered are a very small part of the problem. 50A squared * 25 uohms figures around = 50mW/ joint .... hardly a concern. The resistance of the strips and the quality of the cells are much more important. Also, acid flux is no good, it causes corrosion over time. Active rosin flux works just fine.

Really good tutorial!!!

Short sharp and to the point. Poetic. Worth saying, well said.

thabk you sir, really helpful

I melted the plastic sheath soldering the tab to the positive pole, the tab shorted the battery to the negative outer casing where it melted through the plastic sheath, I now place some folded paper under the tab on the positive so the plastic does not melt.

Excellent video. New subscriber here. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Nice work, good video.

for those who can't do the temp control soldering iron, take one of those dumb soldering irons (no temp control) and let it heat until temp is reached, use when temp is on the high end, stop when temp is on the low end; I measure the temperature with a laser thermometer.

nice,,, supporting your videos

Good job, congratulations

NICE! To the point unlike most of the other videos other post..

Simple and straightforward. Thanks!

Excellent video

Thanks the best video

i hav this batery in my bluetooth speaker. why is both positive n negative conected on one side? or should i say the top? because thers nothing i can see thats conected on the other side/botom?

Outstanding!

good and clear video tks

you are creative

To minimize the risk of damaging the internals of the cells, you can cool the battery immediately after soldering, using eg brake cleaner or a damp cloth. This becomes more important when you build a high current battery with thick copper wires that need a lot more heat for the solder to properly flow. Use the biggest soldering iron you can find for fastest soldering. Works like a charm!

I have a practically new e-bike battery that has one bad cell. It was replaced under warranty and the company didn't want the old battery back. I've been wondering how to utilize the cells. This might work for me, but I'm not sure my soldering iron is big enough for the task. It's really for delicate electronic work. I also have an old Weller soldering "gun" (because it is shaped like a gun). It's rated 100 watts, but of course has no temperature indicator. Do you think that would work? I'd like to make a couple of 12V batteries from some of these cells.

I have soldered lifepo4 cells with great success this way for rc planes etc. I am getting into ebikes now and they need a LOT more cells so undecided whether to solder or get a pot welder.

What are the tabbing strips made out of? TIA

Thanks for you

I'm actually surprised, this video is in fact correct. Good job 👍

Great video! now i can stop looking for button top batteries for my new high powered led flashlight, and just solder top the molicel's i already have. other videos on youtube make this process seem much more difficult and unreliable (solder vs tack weld). I just need a better solder iron, any suggestions?

nice video :D short and sweet, guys u have to leave 1 positive from a corner and one negative from the otherside because if u soldering them all u will short the batteries. hope u understand what i wanna say

Smooth af