I've arranged for a custom shaped strip of pure nickel that I intend to solder to ENIG pads on a PCB using reflow/paste.
Will we have problems getting the solder to adhere to the nickel? Is there a trick to it?
Other (potentially relevant) details:
- The solder paste is probably lead-free, or at least it will be in production.
- The nickel strip is 16x6x0.3 mm. This may still change but not by much.
- The purpose of the nickel strip is to allow us to cold/spot weld LiPo cell tabs to the BMS PCB, which would otherwise be difficult if we were to attempt welding directly to the ENIG pads. The nickel strip will provide a barrier layer.
- The cell tabs are too big for soldering.
- One tab is nickel, and the other is nickel plated.
- I know the ENIG surface finish already involves adding nickel to the copper foil. But then gold is added to help solder adhere. That implies that nickel is not easy to solder to, but in this case, our nickel strip is pure nickel and we've never attempted this before.