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Contract ultrasonic metal welding here in Australia
5 February, 2007 - 12:34 — fiedag
Hi
Can anyone recommend an Australian manufacturer willing and able to assist with some metal ultrasonic welding of aluminium strip to a semiconductor solar cell? It's a small contact, and the cell substrate is Germanium, which is fragile but not [i]that[/i] fragile.
Take a look at the product on [url=http://solarhome.com.au/?page_id=15]http://solarhome.com.au/?page_id=15[...
This is the solar cell I need to interface. The back contact is fine. I will be soldering that with a reflow process. The front contacts are 400um X 5mm and there is no way to hand-solder the connectors on. The manufacturer has suggested ultrasonic bonding. This is apparently routine in Germany, but I have not found anyone able to help me in Australia. The most suitable material is aluminium strip roughly 120um thick.
If anyone is interested please let me know. I'm willing to pay good money to avoid having to post these cells off-shore for finishing.
Alex Fiedler
South Australia
0404 827 013
Forums:
Re: Contract ultrasonic metal welding here in Australia
Hi Alex,
Apologies for not keeping the suppliers database updated, especially for Australia. There are agents here for at least two of the major metal welding equipment suppliers - [url=http://www.amtechultrasonic.com/World_Asia.asp#Australia]Consonic[/url] for AmTech (Branson) and [url=http://www.smcba.asn.au/docs/suba.html]Suba Engineering[/url] for Stapla.
I guess you're really looking for someone to do contract welding and these are equipment suppliers but if anyone knows about contractors in Australia they should.
Good luck with the search. If you get the chance to update me with your findings I'd appreciate it.
Chris
Re: Contract ultrasonic metal welding here in Australia
[quote="Chris "]
Hi Alex,
Apologies for not keeping the suppliers database updated, especially for Australia. There are agents here for at least two of the major metal welding equipment suppliers - [url=http://www.amtechultrasonic.com/World_Asia.asp#Australia]Consonic[/url] for AmTech (Branson) and [url=http://www.smcba.asn.au/docs/suba.html]Suba Engineering[/url] for Stapla.
I guess you're really looking for someone to do contract welding and these are equipment suppliers but if anyone knows about contractors in Australia they should.
Good luck with the search. If you get the chance to update me with your findings I'd appreciate it.
Chris
[/quote]
Thanks for the swift reply Chris. A fellow named Simon Doe put me onto Consonic. They didn't return my email and phone call but I will give them another try. Stapla want to send the cells back to Germany. I am sure they could be more helpful if it was in their commercial interest. I am extremely reluctant to send them off-shore. I totally refuse to believe we don't have that sort of capability locally. Some people I spoke to said that the automotive industry does a lot of ultrasonic welding. I tend to think they're right, but I don't know anyone in the industry that I might ask. We have Mitsubishi and GMH here in Adelaide, but I don't have a contact.
There is a Dukane machine here in Adelaide, but it is in a medical equipment cleanroom.
Looking on ebay these welders can be purchased for under $15k. That's not so prohibitive, and surely there must be several dozen here in the country...