hotponyshoes
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An hour of constant welding is a lot, 30mins from a 12.5kg pack would be good.
That's an hour if you carry one pack in each hand across a field with the sub 10kg welder on a backpack.
- Thread starter pressbrake1
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An hour of constant welding is a lot, 30mins from a 12.5kg pack would be good.
That's an hour if you carry one pack in each hand across a field with the sub 10kg welder on a backpack.
Maker
Most folk just call me; Orange Joe
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Certainly possible as Eddie outlined but a BMS, charger, etc for say a 90S6P battery will take some doing, not to mention buying 540 "quality" 18650 cells, it's not gonna be a cheap project.
The BMS better be done right too, if you've seen the damage a vape does when their single 18650 cell explodes, you won't wanna be anywhere near this thing unless you know its perfect.hotponyshoes
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I would prefer the lorch as you could have extra packs for it as required, I could send the farmer back to the farmhouse to make a cup of tea and put one on charge while I keep welding.
For the sort of jobs I would use it for I would never be using 29 rods in one go, there would be a lot of cutting, grinding and messing about inbetween every rod or 2 so if a pack could be charged within a couple of hours 2 packs might be enough to keep ke going.
That said, with all the other kit I would drag around for anything other than a temporary repair job there is normally a 30ton trailer available!
What I would like is a battery pack & inverter combined with a 32a socket on it. 15mins run time would be fine if I could then plug additional packs into the back of it to give me 30mins each or so.
I currently use a diesel generator. Single phase 32a plug which will run any of the kit I own. I can actually only pull about 22a from it but that's fine unless somebody switches the tea urn on while I am welding.
I get 8hrs+ or so from a full tank but it takes at least 4 people to lift it With the remote start kit it was about £1500.
If I could get a stand alone pack that would give me 22a for short periods I could get a small suitcase genny that I could leave running all day to recharge it between uses.
The battery welder is great but not something I would spend that sort of money on as the battery is dedicated just to that welder.
If I have other kit that requires the generator I dont need the battery welder.
I am probably not the target market for this sort of machine but at the demonstration I went to none of the farmers were interested either. Partly the price I expect but also because most of them will own a pto generator and be used to moving heavy equipment into remote locations.
For the sort of jobs I would use it for I would never be using 29 rods in one go, there would be a lot of cutting, grinding and messing about inbetween every rod or 2 so if a pack could be charged within a couple of hours 2 packs might be enough to keep ke going.
That said, with all the other kit I would drag around for anything other than a temporary repair job there is normally a 30ton trailer available!
What I would like is a battery pack & inverter combined with a 32a socket on it. 15mins run time would be fine if I could then plug additional packs into the back of it to give me 30mins each or so.
I currently use a diesel generator. Single phase 32a plug which will run any of the kit I own. I can actually only pull about 22a from it but that's fine unless somebody switches the tea urn on while I am welding.
I get 8hrs+ or so from a full tank but it takes at least 4 people to lift it With the remote start kit it was about £1500.
If I could get a stand alone pack that would give me 22a for short periods I could get a small suitcase genny that I could leave running all day to recharge it between uses.
The battery welder is great but not something I would spend that sort of money on as the battery is dedicated just to that welder.
If I have other kit that requires the generator I dont need the battery welder.
I am probably not the target market for this sort of machine but at the demonstration I went to none of the farmers were interested either. Partly the price I expect but also because most of them will own a pto generator and be used to moving heavy equipment into remote locations.
Memmeddu
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Don't make me know those things because I could kill myself aptemting to make something like that .
But yes essentially it's true
It's fairly easy (with knowledge) to make a battery powered welder
IGBT based welder
A big switch
Some big capacitors
The big lithium cells
A BMS controller
A charger PCB
And it's done
About the power output , taking for good 25V load voltage at 100A we have 2.7kW (power factor must be considered)
Custom electric Quad bike ? 4 WD, 10 KWh Li-Ion battery, AC motor. The Controller/Inverter for the motor becomes a 200A arc welder when parked, and/or a 240v 32A AC genny.
matt1978
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Just to clear up a few things that have been mentioned here....
1) It isn't easy to weld from a Battery successfully and repeatedly. The demand onto the Li-Ion Cells is quite something as its comparable to putting a dead short across the battery terminals and rapidly discharging. Repeatedly. This requires special unloading and loading circuitry.
2) When our (Lorch) Battery is fully charged it puts out around 300v, when its almost depleted the output drops to around 140v, so you need an Inverter that can cope with a wide variance of input voltage.
3) In our opinion the Battery should be an add on optional extra for those that require it. Which is why our Battery is an independent stand alone item. Our latest Battery compatible range (MicorStick 180/MicorTig 200) are designed to work with 115v/230v mains and Generator first and foremost. The Battery is there only for the times when it is absolutely necessary. We always say, if you have access to the mains, then you should use it.
4) The Lorch MicorTIG is the first and only full function tig with HF ignition. There is simply nothing as we speak on the market to compare.
5) Fronius and Lorch both launched their MMA Battery welders in 2014.
1) It isn't easy to weld from a Battery successfully and repeatedly. The demand onto the Li-Ion Cells is quite something as its comparable to putting a dead short across the battery terminals and rapidly discharging. Repeatedly. This requires special unloading and loading circuitry.
2) When our (Lorch) Battery is fully charged it puts out around 300v, when its almost depleted the output drops to around 140v, so you need an Inverter that can cope with a wide variance of input voltage.
3) In our opinion the Battery should be an add on optional extra for those that require it. Which is why our Battery is an independent stand alone item. Our latest Battery compatible range (MicorStick 180/MicorTig 200) are designed to work with 115v/230v mains and Generator first and foremost. The Battery is there only for the times when it is absolutely necessary. We always say, if you have access to the mains, then you should use it.
4) The Lorch MicorTIG is the first and only full function tig with HF ignition. There is simply nothing as we speak on the market to compare.
5) Fronius and Lorch both launched their MMA Battery welders in 2014.
willie.macleod
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Talk of welding farm gates and the such like got me thinking - I have an old Rawlplug/Kelarc welders mate, hand wee thing you connect to a couple of car batteries and is surprisingly usable. Might be even better these days teamed up with a lithium ion jump starter pack compared to a random assortment of half dead car batteries! Certainly lower up front costs, less to go wrong and could be very portable.
There was one attachment that connected to a car alternator. You had to replace or add something to the alternator and it turned it into a sort of power take off. Way back in the 70s we fitted the prototypes to some Police Cars but I got moved so never knew the outcome. I suspect it wasnt good as Ive never heard of them since.
Looks like weve discussed it..https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/mobile-welding-using-car-alternator.29360/
Richard.
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Cheers Brad. Yeah unfortunately I thought there was more charge in it than there was and a good blast at 160 amps was enough to knock out the last bit of life.
Cracking demo of the 110v capability mind. I honestly thought it was gonna cut off when it was wound up to 180.
to those interested in the batteries life there is no hard figures on it because too many variables change the out come. Something as simple as a guy running a rod down to 1 inch stubs is going to make a considerable difference to the amount of rods he can burn if another guys chucks em at 2 or 3 inch.
From my own personal tests I can give you the rough figures I’ve achieved out of it.
Low High Electrodes
2.5@ 70-75 amps around 23-26 rods.
3.2@ 110amps 12-14 rods
4.0@ 150amps 4-5 rods.
tig @ 50amps around 45mins
Tig @ 90amps around 30-35 mins
Tig @ 180amps around 12 mins
so it’s not going to give you loads on the real high settings but at 90amps (3mm joints) you would be very surprised at how much welding you can do with 35mins of actual arc on time.
After this you go and have a brew and put the battery on charge
It takes about 1.5hours to charge from fully dead.
Absolutely Excellent tool to add to a MicorTig or micorstick
Brad93
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I mean if you was serious about welding on the go, no power available and no possibility of a generator and you was charging the right kind of money, two or three batteries on rotation at sensible amperage would see you through a good mornings work!
Memmeddu
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I had a try myself
Before to buy my engine driven welder I was thinking to build one using car alternators
Unfortunately I wasn't enough smart to figure out how to make the things perfectly working but it's quite easy , you just need a big car alternator, rectifier bridge ,a buck converter and a potentiometer .
Essentially you have to make spin the alternator and use some sort of Power source to magnetise the armature
You need 12V and roughly 4Amp to do that
Output voltage will depend on the current that you push in the armature , obviously also depends on the speed
Output current depends more on the speed and the Horsepower of the engine at the speed.
I did some attempts and something was good but I found a good engine driven for cheap so I put all in the trash bin
But I regret to did not concluded that project but I was going to spend to much money
Car alternator was for free
Rectifier bridge 20 euros
Buck converter 10 euros
Potentiometer 10 euros (I used a lamp bulb)
12V car battery 50 euros
18HP engine simply to much
All the dinse connector , cables and stuff
Was simply to much ,it wasn't a cheap solution anymore
Fortunately I bought my genset for 350 euros
and you start off thinking...ive already got that....as usual the extras soon add up
mtt.tr
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how long to charge, and thats pretty damn impressive
mtt.tr
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i did design an arduino control for alternators to allow cc and cv seemed to work on the bench never made it as far as hooking up some alternators. I will likely resume the idea when i get my land rover back as it has enough engine compartment for another alternator of the front PTO
Memmeddu
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Not totally sure but thinking about making a battery powered welder (not going to build one because I don't need one) I think that it's possible to make a battery pack that feeds a power inverter 24VDC to 230VAC and just connect the welder plug to that apparatus
I'm pretty sure that I've seen something like that on YouTube
Memmeddu
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That's interesting,we might design the first engine driven plasma cutter in the world (I'm afraid to didn't try that before to throw away all the stuff I had around when I was trying to build the WELDERNATOR
pressbrake1
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Whatever the make battery welder bought you need some high value work to pay for it.
If the snap on man sold them on the weekly drip im sure they would end up in the van but a outright purchase with a fair chunk of money for a just incase tool would be hard to justify.
Right job right money Id have one
If the snap on man sold them on the weekly drip im sure they would end up in the van but a outright purchase with a fair chunk of money for a just incase tool would be hard to justify.
Right job right money Id have one
