Do we have nickel strips for making 18650 battery packs?

I need to spot weld nickel strips on six 18650 batteries for a bike headlamp battery. Do we have any of these, if not I will order some. I took a look at the battery spot welder today and skimmed the manual, made some test welds on my dead battery pack.
Do I need training on this device?
Do we have any insulating fish paper or kapton tape? I may end up making three replacement packs if my first attempt is successful.

And any tips on where to buy batteries. Existing pack has 2200mAh batteries. I’m seeing some 3500 and 3600 Panasonic and Samsung batteries that seem reasonable. I get about 1.5 hours out of existing Light and Motion batteries. Prefer to get a little bit longer runtime. They are kinda expensive to buy new so I want to try building a replacement. Getting the glued together case open was challenging without breaking it, Getting the battery pack out was even tougher, it was glued in. Had to sacrifice some old needle nose pliers and bend the tips so I could reach in and get a firm grip on the battery back and wiggle till it finally broke free.

I’m currently planning on reusing the battery protection board unless I can find one about the same size. The plug is proprietary so ideally I need to get everything back into the existing case, worst case I could use shrink tube to hold the red end with the receptacle to the new battery pack.

Thanks
Randy

These are pretty old batteries, I think the date code means 2009






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We do, we have a whole roll in the black cabinet. Try not to let it rats nest on you, and drop a little cash in the donation box in elab to cover the replacement cost.

I don’t think so? If you know what you’re doing don’t hurt yourself. If you don’t know what you’re doing ask for help.

One thing I would mention as a regular user of this device, don’t use the leads, they suck. The integrated copper poles have much better luck in my experience.

Not that I personally know of.

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I’ve had good luck with illumn.com, mtnelectronics.com; I also hear good things about liionwholesale.com but have never done business with them. I’d be wary of the 'zon and I believe that the 'bay has prohibited the sale of bare li-ion cells outright.

I’m going to guess that you want high-capacity cells (peak mAh) rather than high-power cells (peak A delivery). I suggest sticking to the good OEMs: Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic, Sanyo, Molicel - these companies have decades of experience in the field and produce a reliable product. The maximum real capacity you’ll find 18650s in is around 3500mAh; expect these cells to deliver <10A with ~6A being common. If for some reason you need high power, Molicel is the leader last I checked with a 2600 or 2800 mAh cell that can deliver 35A. In the middle is the Samsung 30Q which weighs in at 3000mAh and 15A maximum current.

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I’ve only made one purchase from them but I’ve had a good experience with Battery Hookup if you’re looking for the absolute cheapest cells.

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For both use code: 10% Discount Code “BATTERY”

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I just made a purchase from liionwholesale.com with no issues, picked up 3 DL brand? cells. Time will tell how long they last, but they’re the cheapest cells and are at least batch sorted into A and B grade cells.

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