Remove Spot weld

I use a small drill bit (just a tad larger than the spot weld) and drill them out. you will have a larger part of your tab left. also I bought some batterys and they gave me some new tabs that will solder back on the batterys. just a thought. ghl

Hi. Fit a knife edge between the tab and the cell body, hammering the knife the spotweld gives up leaving a neat full lenght tab that can be soldered to the new cell. Scrape the new cell and tin it before soldering it to the old tab.

Thanks all. For your answers. Glad to know that there are really no perfect answers. At least I know that. Certainly the drilling of the spot weld is the most creative. Not sure if that will work in my case as it may drill into the battery. Although I suppose if that particular battery is bad then It doesn't matter!

Thanks.

I had a similar situation once. I did manage to get them apart; seem to recall 'tearing' or cutting. Obviously need to retain as much of each tag as possible when cutting. Then I was able to place solder on the tags. Position solder spots so that you can fold up afterwards. Also place solder on opposite side on one tag, so that when (large) solder tip applied it will melt solder on other side of tag, against which you've pressed the next battery's tag. If there really is insufficient tag left after cutting to enable 're-folding', solder on some heavy wire or tin strip.

Easier to do than describe .

to

Cut them apart with a cut-off wheel, Dremel for example. Our local hardware store has a spot welding setup for building custom battery packs.

Hi, I used to recondition NiCad belts for a professional film rental company. I built a load tester that matched a typical camera. When the weakest cell would drop out the test rig would alarm and I'd mark the bad cell. In this way we'd test each belt and keep them near the rated output. I also recondition batteries for my 9.6 V Makita tools. I tend to cut the tabs as long as possible and resolder them together using a modified solder gun. It's just uses two bare copper 10 ga? solid wire filed to a flattened squared point with a ~ 1/4" seperation. I crimp the tabs together and use the gun to heat the joint. Cool sparks. Works a lot better than a regular gun. ( of course a spot welder would be the best solution). You also can as suggested above cut the tabs off with a knife or sharp chisel. This I have to do most often to deal with the thermal cut out or the end leads that form the contacts. I usually try to avoid this by scrounging good end batteries. I have found NiCads in recycling bins that were brand new but had cracked housings, broken contacts or had been run over. Be very careful not to short the battery out. This can be very exciting! I avoid this by repackaging the pack and connecting the two middle batteries through the open end as the last thing (The Makitas a stick battery 4X2 and the end is where it "turns the corner"). Richardd

Thanks again for all your suggestions. Im going to try this weekend to see what are the best options for me.