DIY Spot Welder, Part 3, Timing and 240 Volts
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- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
- Don't Do this! It didn't work. Part 3 of making a DIY Spot Welder. I'm using viewers suggestions to make some improvements. First, we are tapping into 240 volts AC. Second we are adding a timer and SSR (Solid State Relay). Watch to the end, you won't believe what happens.
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I was happy for you, until the unfortunate ending. My opinion is that the transformer iron is saturating with the voltage being much too high in the primary side. Your transformer primary is designed for 120vac which keeps the flux level below saturation. By exceeding the volt rating with 240vac, the iron saturates. When this happens, the inductive reactance drops, and the current goes high on the primary side, without hardly any added current on the secondary side.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the saturation you are talking about only applies to some magnetic materials.
The voltage rating comes from the insulation of the wires-coils.
Exceeding the voltage rating by too much could lead to arcing and thus damage of te primary.
And the current rating comes from the amount of heat the transformer can disipate.
Exceed the current by too much (for long enough) and the temperature will rise too much.
@@iliazark1 The transformer core does indeed saturate at 240V turning the primary just into a resistor. When these are typically used on 120V, some extra wire is added in the primary. There is also a laminated steel bar magnetic shunt that must be removed from between the primary and secondary for the transformer to function properly.
Unless you _have_ to weld copper strip, you might do better with nickel strip and copper electrodes. That's because tungsten is much more resistive than copper and so the heat gets generated in the tungsten weld electrodes then has to make its way into your copper. The copper tends to melt from the outside in, which isn't ideal and much of the power is wasted heating up the tungsten. If you use copper electrodes and nickel strip then all the power gets dumped directly into the more resistive nickel, which will be hottest right in the centre, just where you need the weld to be.
This is old, but I was going to suggest the same thing. Spot welders use copper electrodes for a reason. Copper is one of the best conductors of electricity, so will not get as hot as tungsten.
You are on a half way David. Just like me when I was building my spot welder. You will achieve perfect result by increasing secondary voltage! As I said 5.5V and You are DONE. 😉
how many turns on the secondary to get 5.5V?
Two things,
First, there are a lot of fake Fotek SSRs out there..I had a "40 Amp" that had a 8 amp SSR in it - look out!
Also, there's a lot of inductive kickback from a spot welder, you might be wise to put an MOV across the SSR - switching side
Thank you.
I'm looking at the same kind of setup with the tungsten rod, but I was planning on using a timer relay to activate a starter solenoid off of a small lawnmower battery.
I was thinking about building one like yours and I am glad I watched till the end honestly that was the best part! Keep on trying you will get there. You need a heavy set of contactors to handle the heavy draw.
Thank you. I'll keep going.
Seems like capacitor welding would be easier and safer
Since the resistance of the primary coil stays a fixed value, when you double the input voltage it increases the power consumed to 400% of what it was at 120vac. 240vac through that type of transformer will fry it after only a couple seconds. This will likely take the form of burning off the insulating laquer coating on the primary windings. Once the insulation is burnt off you essentially have a dead short across the primary, and not the few ohms you would normally see.
You have to be very careful who you listen to, especially on social media for such advice.
Agreed - although in Australia, I was fixing a laser power supply that was supposedly 220V (close enough to our 230-240), but the transformer inside was 120V. Stinky smoke ensued. People even burn out these MOTS just using them for drawing arcs.
Made my day at 16:02. Lol The mishaps are half the fun of building things.
I looked at that same timer relay when I was thinking of trying to make one of these. Always enjoy your videos
Very insightful... by controlling the time heat is applied. You control the excess heat and damaging the leads.... REALLY COOL... I hope you consider these thoughts freindly advise.... Please consider not exceding 120 vac (the design voltage of the primary winding). If needed, more turns on secondary. Also you might look into 'zero crossing' techniques... that is the voltage of the sine wave applied to primary is near zero when starting.... and stopping the weld. Your SSR most likely blew because when the timer ran out... it was at or near the top of the sine wave .... leaving a lot of stored energy in the magnetic flux. When that flux colapsed, the voltage had only one place to go.... back through your SSR module. It is worth noting when building a 'zero cross' circuit...you can not drive the SSR module with a mechanical relay ... the hesitation of the moving contacts... as the relay ages... change... and instead of milleseconds ... your timing will be in integer 1/2 cycles... (120 of them a second). Another thought... might be... put a light bulb in parrel with the primary... so when the flux collapses it has somewhere to go. Sorry for the long post... loved the video... especially the smoke at the end!!!
To be sure you lived having your friend there is a good idea.
Yikes. Thank you for the unflinching honesty. Gave me a lot to think about.
The end of your video didn't surprise me, unconscious and lucky man! I really laughed out ...
It seems you have limited knowledges about Volts (would you simply try to connect your 120V hairdryer to 240V?), metal conduction, amps and milliseconds time for spotwelding , etc......but you try ! ....and you are, fortunately, careful , with good distance for your last "experience".
Your video is .....incredible! A child who plays with volts and Amps! Really a funny and pleasant moment!
By the way...incredible too...place a big nail between both electrodes of your transformer and it melts....But place your (dry) finger, switch on ... and nothing happens... No current sensation, no burning...nothing !!, despite the multitude of potential amps ...Because of the very low output/voltage .
After the test with the nail , I am almost sure you don't trust me...but try it , be fool enough..., and search why. ( OK , I gave you the answer).
...Exactly the same as tightening with your fingers both connections of a big diesel battery with 650 Amps...but only 12 Volts. ( Well, place a screwdriver on the connections - very conductive - and it melts like the nail!) Danger for us comes not from Amps but from voltage...110V (or 22OV in France) is not pleasant , 2000V with only some milli-Amps and you are dead......anyway it's written on your transformer.
Really friendly....Greetings from France!
Michel
great video. I was about to try myself. .. . now.. probably i won't
Yeah, I ended up buying a spot welder. O-well. It was fun to try.
The tungsten tips have three times more resistance than copper. That limits the current to much and the heat is generated IN the tips instead between them.
I can confirm those SSR modules are junk, I have used one once and I doubt it could have carried 25% of its rated 40 amps. I use a large contactor on mine currently, not precise on timing perhaps but it works. I use a microwave transformer at just 120V, I have a smaller secondary wire and it works ok, not perfect but enough. I hope to move to using super capacitors at some point with a bank of high power mosfets for switching.
The real ones are good but there are many fakes being sold online. Best to buy from a major electronics distributor. If you buy them on eBay, Amazon or AliExpress you're taking a big chance they will be fake.
Last try looked like it was from ElectroBOOM 😂👍
I am afraid that copper will not weld, I think it is better to soldering it with tin/lead, much more safer.
Actually I worked in a factory where we used to spot weld (resistance weld) copper all the time. We were making circuit breaker components which required welding copper wire to other copper components that went into the circuit breakers. Our transformers were much bigger though. Most were 25 KVA and we had a couple that were 35 KVA. On one of my favorite weld setups we were welding a copper wire of about 10 or 12 gauge to a tin plated copper part. The weld time was about 5 mS and the current was about 13 KA on the secondary side. With such a high current, the power was very high, but due to the short time, the energy was small which meant that the part could be handled immediately after welding without burning your hands.
Periodically we would do a destructive peel test of some of the weld to make sure they were strong. When peeling the parts from each other with pliers, we looked to see that a large portion of the wire was left embedded in the part. The weld had to be strong enough that trying to tear the pieces apart would actually destroy them.
holy cow that was one gnarly ending🤣🤣🤣
We used to call that process "smoke testing". Good job.
LOL I love it!
Do yourself a favor and buy an 18650 battery spot welder - with all of the experimentation with batteries that you are doing, you will get a lot of use out of it. I'm enjoying your trial and error to create a spot welder, but it's time. Especially when I see you "playing" with 220V. The pre-made spot welder will be much safer and it will work.
You may want to clean the copper, it oxidizes fast, clean copper will weld alot better!
What a maroon! :)
But, worth watching just to see you toast that relay. :)
LOL. Did you mean to type "maroon"? Yeah, It's fun to see things go wrong. Some of my videos are just what NOT to do.
Man that was entertaining. I done nearly the same thing but with an 18650 fully charged and it blew through the cell and ignited at the time I was sitting on a seat I fell backwards and grazed my legs lol
Ssr is probably a MOSFET. Excess energy after the weld is shot back to the SSR causing it to fail. Maybe some high voltage Schottky and TVS diodes might help?
To increase the welding current, why not use higher number of turns on the secondary? Those wires are way overkill for the short duration of high amperage..
More turns = less current
Very good try... take the amps in primary coil and get a contactor, relays aren’t good for it. Secundary coil will rise up amps about 400 or more... also for the spot electrodes you can construct something similar to a gigant pinch or clip for clothes that you can hold in your hands without any trouble or burning, you got it!! Just fine tuning!! 😎👍🏼🇵🇷
Thanks.
I think more turns on the secondary will increase the voltage. What is the voltage output?
each house here in the Netherlands has 3 phases, depending on your contract you either have 1 phases or 3, if you have 3 phases, you got 380 Volts, taping between phases 1 and 2, 1 and 3 or 2 and 3.
your electrodes need to be copper and your secondary wire needs to be smaller with more loops to increase the voltage output then leave your primary voltage at 120v . Remember that aluminium electrodes have a low melting point and will melt and oxidize immediately then that raises the resistance of the weld connection.
just go a buy one already and save your life already. please stop doing what you are doing. PLEASE!
I'm a little late on this, yes we do have 220-240 as you mentioned, but by switching that switch on the strip, your causing that connection to be the weakest and so that is where the spark was happening, you would be better having the circuit live and touch to electrodes to the battery, and as someone said, you will never weld copper strips without a much better system. the copper such a great heat conductor that it dissipates the heat to fast for your setup, and the s=ame guy mentioned the copper tungsten, i bought these an much better welds and tips dont corrode as quickly. The ssr is good, alot of people use auto relays but that is the sme as switching the strip, and these type of contacts dont last when your sending 400a through them.
I was going to say you urgently need a fuse on the primary side because the solid state relay will probably fail "on" but I guess you know that now. I am no welder but I would have thought cleanliness of the surfaces to be welded would be vital and you don't want any weight on the point being welded or the whole assembly can start moving when the metal becomes briefly molten.
Schéma électrique et tous les composants que vous aviez utilisé
Merci.
I will loan you my battery tab welder if you want. It may keep you alive!
Wow, Thanks. Are you in New England? We can connect on Facebook for messaging. Link in description.
David, I enjoyed your video, but clearly not as much as your friend. LOL!
If the primary coil could not handle 240V it would just short and not work again.
However if it is rated for 120V, it's for a reason.
The reason it is getting hot is becouse of the curent.
SSRs have a big voltage drop witch makes them not good for high current aplications.
You can try contactors(they are just heavy duty relays).
I would really like to see you try this with capacitors :)
AC does not seem like the way for me.
I have an AC contactor. It was a spare for a whole-house air conditioner, rated 40 amps, AC (Alternating Current). It uses a 24 volt AC coil, meant to be run off a thermostat. Pretty standard part. What do you think of trying that?
@@DavidPozEnergy I dont have a hood guess for the current that tranformer is drawing so I cant really tell if 40 amps is enough... For the moment though that seems like your best bet... Maybe if you have one of those clamp meters you can measure the current on the primary side so that you have a rough idea of what you are working with... Just have in mind that the contactor could weld itself and stay conductive even without any current on its coil
I should have also mentioned that a dead man style foot switch is a nice thing to have. Also if you want more power, two transformers can be used. I would only do this if they were either identical transformers or at least both rated for the same power input and output. So your two transformers after being rewound will each have two output wires. One wire from each transformer needs to be linked with the other, then you’re left with your positive and negative wires, one being from each transformer(note if this doesn’t seem to be working we’ll switch one of the wires that’s tied together between the two transformers). This setup does require a wall outlet that is 220v, it needs to be a 20amp double pole breaker. Which gives you two hot wires at the correct voltage, one for each transformer, the neutrals would be tied together from each transformer going back to the wall outlet.
*[Disclaimer. This is dangerous. Don’t do it. If you do do it don’t die. If you do do it don’t get hurt either.
Also be responsible, have your pets spayed or neutered.
Getting closer...;-) Good electrical safety precautions...
The next test would be trying to weld the 2 pieces without the Solder on the 2 pieces. Just copper to copper. Since the pieces keep coming apart when forcing them I believe the heat of the arc just solders that small (tungsten probes) area together rather than actually spot welding them.
With the solder only Spot connection... the connection could come unsoldered if high currents are drawn from the the battery bank.
My first thought would be to use a big car stereo capacitor low voltage and charge it from a power supply that you could adjust the voltage. You need a big relay like a car starter solenoid. This way you don't have to worry about a timing circuit you just charge the capacitor go to a voltage that works for you. DC might well better also. Click on my profile picture to see my projects
Buy a rivet gun. Use a backing for the aluminum strip and and pop rivet to connect to the buss bar.
for the controller go on ebay search for “100A/40A Double Pulse Encoder Spot Welding Machine Time Current Controller” buy the 100Amp , this controller make a double impulse one to clean one to weld all parameter are ajustable
Please don't go Edison's route, 10,000 ways, build or buy or borrow a proper spot welder before you hurt yourself or your home.
You have no current limiting in your 220 volt circuit, and your short timing is not tripping your circuit breaker, you could be reaching dangerous amperage levels, 100 amps or more.
If you must go this route, and not capacitative discharge, please use a thermistor or other inrush current limiting device.
There are plenty of spot welding kits on the market, maybe even one that will allow you to use the setup that you already have, please BE SAFE.
Neat! It's still just single phase power, so there are no "phases". It is "120/240 volts, single phase" One of the problems with attempting to use a 120 volt transformer on 240 volts without also at least doubling the frequency is that the core is heavily saturated (magnetically). This means that it will take a LOT of reactive power. The resulting high current in the winding also means that it will take a lot of resistive power (watts). All of this, just to the primary. NONE of this power gets to contribute to the output on the secondary. This VERY high current is why your relay blew up. Which was rather spectacular, BTW ;) In order to get a higher voltage from that transformer you would need to increase the number of turns on the secondary. In this case, that would mean using smaller wire (so more turns could fit), which will of course have the opposite effect, due to it's greater resistance. You could use a somewhat smaller wire just within the transformer core, then immediately splice to your larger wire. You need very good splices. Keeping the leads as short as practical will also help. Getting there!
Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. It's so interesting this concept of saturating the core. I'll be up all night reading about that. I love this stuff. Thanks.
The SSR your using is a knock off. Got to be careful many fakes sold online. Best to buy SSR's from a major electronics distributor rather than from eBay, Amazon or AliExpress.
Good advice.
Oh, wow. Glad nothing big happened! I was actually wondering if the SSR can handle the load. Despite being rated at 40A it uses a triac that can only handle 16A (unless Chinese used something different in this one than BTA16-600, 16A/170A peak for an extremely short period) which is about 3.5kW +~25% at 220V, so probably up to 5kW for short work. Which should do the trick unless it's a short circuit. I believe if you gonna drop in a 20-40A circuit breaker in between of the SSR and transformer you should be fine next time. Still risky stuff, so good luck with the project!
You guessed it right. This SSR was rated at 40 amps. The circuit breaker on this outlet is 30 amps. I did not think of trying another circuit breaker in between.
when I saw the solid state relay I was wondering if it was good enough for those amps, then 3/4 through the video I was like hmm I guess it was good enough cool. then that funny end was great! :D
Yes Sir!
How this transformer works? Welding machine? Not! It's a small machine just steel plate adjust Frist joined. Right? Thank you for this amazing video.
The ending is extraordinary :)
Try 110V with new SSR
At least there was fire! I don't know, but intuition tells me you haven't got enough current density at the welding tips. The more you spread the current over a larger contact area, the less effective the weld and the more heat you transfer to the metal?
Those tungsten tips have very small contact area. I don't know how much smaller I can make it.
@@DavidPozEnergy Hmmm, it's a curly one. Perhaps the resistance in the tungsten is too high? I came across this article that seems to imply some alloy of copperwww.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/faq-what-electrode-material-should-i-use-for-resistance-spot-welding
I don't know if this is helpful, I hope so!
David, I love your stuff and have been a subsriber for a while Kudos for showing your failures (AKA Learning experiences) as well as your successes. I've made a spot welder for batteries from a microwave, and I have a couple of hopefully useful comments on your efforts here.
(1) as you already knowm, that transformer is not for 220V which is very dangerous. It will overheat and short out the mains and blow a house breaker.
That is also likely why your 40 amp SSR blew. In normal use, your 1000 Watt microwave would draw no more than 10 amps from your 110 Volt supply.
(2) 1000 watts is plenty to spot weld battery tabs, so doubling the input power is not the answer, even if it was safe.
(3) Did you remove the shunts from the microwave? These are small blocks of metal laminate inserted into the transformer core to avoid over-saturation. I found I could not get any welding action until I removed mine.
I made a video on this, but I don't want to spam up youir channel - if you'd like the link please let me know.
Good luck!
Chris
I'd love to check out your video. It's not spam if it's helpful. Thank you for the tips. Yes, I removed the metal strips between the primary and secondary.
@@DavidPozEnergy Hmmm. What AC voltage are you getting at the output wires? (Be sure to select AC on your meter)/ I get around 2 volts. Ohm's law still applies so I= V/R. The current is what we want, so if the current is too small to weld, then the voltage is too low for the resistance of the things you're welding. So I would try finding some slightly thinner wire (preferably thinner insulation but trhe same width of conductor) and wrap more turns to raise the voltage. Of course this is a balancing act - thinner secondary windings wil also have higher resistance - but that's the way I would go. Here's my video: ruclips.net/video/6sMxc0NHNQA/видео.html
1.5 volts AC when I have the primary attached to 120 volts. I didn't get a chance to record the voltage when it was connected to 240 volts. My meter is slow and it was getting hot.
@@DavidPozEnergy OK so it's a low, so trying more turns is something to try. You coulad aslso measure the resistance of the secondary circuit - from electrode to electrode. That should be very low.
Hay David,
I don't think it's possible to successfully spot weld aluminum to copper.
... just punch a hole in both lashes to connect and rivet it through a metal clip/washer .. done
That solid state relay, is the cheapest crap you can get from China. It has way to high internal resistance. You properly also need pointier probe contacts.
You could try a Kweld spot welder kit. Cobber is very hard to spot weld, but maybe this kit can do it, whit the right power source.
You will have to keep your cables short though.
Thanks.
You don't need to release the moment switch so quickly. It's the job of timer circuit.
This timer (or at least the program) will run the length of time I set, regardless of how fast or slow I release the switch. Thanks for watching.
@@DavidPozEnergy you released quickly. It didn't matter even if you hold it.
When using 240 v split phase although 90 degrees out of phase you are increasing the input frequency and doubling the voltage so your primary kickback is way more than that ssr can handle. if you want to switch 240 volts in the US you need Two SSRs to safely contact both phases . That's why your breakers have two poles for 240 volts.
It's a single phase with a center tap common (•••). A Dual breaker is used because both wires are hot with respect to the common and ground. To turn it off and be safe you need a double pole breaker or switch.
David, thank you for all 3 series. Please do not misconstrue my comments. My heart beat rate is normally
58~60 BPM. It shot up to 80~86 BPM; watching the adventure! I love you Sweet Baby. No further comments.
I know exactly what the problem is. I know this because I made the same mistake myself.
First off I don’t recommend ever hooking up a transformer to power it wasn’t designed to take. Your transformer was designed for 120v and that’s what it needs to be run on.
Quick disclaimer: I take no responsibility for what anyone else does. Electricity is dangerous.
That being said this will worked with the transformer hooked up to 120v. The problem was that you grounded the transformer frame. If you run it ungrounded you will get the results you are looking for. It seems like such a small thing but it makes a drastic difference.
I absolutely love doing projects like this too. Just please be careful. I personally prefer to add a switch(just a normal light switch in an electrical box). But when handling anything from where the wires connect to the transformer and after, I always pull the plug from the outlet. A switch can fail. It’s rare but it can happen. It’s also very easy to after going back and forth trying something turning it on and off to end up forgetting. A mistake that most likely would only happen once.
I have personally made 5 different devices from microwave transformers. They are a great transformer to get because of the accessibility and the power capabilities.
Best of luck to you. Stay safe.
Well done that man
Add a ballast resistor in series with your transformer (or SSR). An electric heat element or two 120v light bulbs would keep you from cooking the transformer primary.
Try a solenoid switch and make sure your surfaces are clean
opto 22 makes good SSRs. I like your videos btw!
Hello. Try copper instead of aluminum on your electros.
Brilliant. ..haven't stopped laughing.
Yep, not everything works out.
Hi David. I have been silently watching as I am no expert on spot wellding, I do wonder if the solder is not having an influence on those joints, I have done quit a few nickle welds and even then I wipe off ALL my nickle strips and cell tops with isopropyle as skin oil inhibits a good weld. So, 2 points, try clean copper to copper, 2 maybe get a peice of nickle and see if it welds properly. I know for dead certain that spot welding nickle and copper is not the same, nickle is way easier, I have tried copper on my malectrics and it does not work, some people say that the current is not enough others say that the contact area on the copper plays a big roll, all I know is that copper is a different aproach to nickle and have not succeded either with copper. Regards. P. S. Ssr's can't take that current, you have to get a heavy duty contactor as far as I understand the contacts have to be able to not weld together as "happend" to the ssr.....
Thanks.
Copper has much lower electrical resistance so it doesn't generate as much heat as nickle will. Also the high thermal conductivity of copper will pull the heat away from the weld making it even harder to get up to welding temperatures.
Try making Sharper Contact needles, so that the spot of welding is tighter therefor Easier to melt
I wouldn't use the solid state get a heavy duty relay or contactor. Maybe one out of a comercial ac unit may work.
WOw how cool. Was fun sorry about the end there. I do not know if you see my videos but I did give you a few shout outs. Hope it helps some. God Bless Brother..
And know matter how hard you try you can’t put that smoke back in there. 😂
Great attempt and experimentation, but... ouch! The end was painful to watch :-(
Spot welding ain't easy. I think if you really want to do this properly then get the kweld kit. I know it's not cheap and would take time to arrive - but it'll be useful for making more batteries in the future, or you could sell it on to a subscriber. Perhaps Average Joe could loan you his if you cover the p&p?
I think best bet is using a ark welder on its lowest amp setting and pulse it through a relay for 1 second I doubt spot welders are dc I am sure they use ac at least the ones I have used
Get a contactor used for starters. they can handle a lot of current.
may have a NTC in the power strip or some sort of current limiter for inrush.
what a buzzy sparky end ! LOL ...you should try copper electrodes, their low resistance provide a superior spotweld.... tungsten's higher hardness and resistance makes them unsuitable for (medium/lightweight) spotwelding as they suffer localised heating at the tip contact...... my plain/crude unpulsed MOT spotwelder with copper busbar electrodes welds stainless steel with a flick of the switch and only with force(pliers/vise) the joint will rather tear/shear right next to the weld than break loose at the weld, a split second too long ON and perfectly round holed welds are the undesired result....
"lets plug in to 220volts"
me: this gonna be interesting
"for 1 second"
me:disappointing😂
In the next video I got 2 seconds out of it, then POP! I now use the spot welder on 120v. LOL
😁
why you use Solid State relay
While 10 amp relay are inbuilt in timer module ??? tell me reason
I was using more than 10 amp. But none of my attempts worked well. I ended up buying a spot welder. Take this video more as entertainment, or what NOT to do. Don't copy it.
Man .. I even flinch from my monitor when that !!. ;) you need to stick with 120v.
A word of advice: if you hear a banjo in the video/channel intro, you might not want to replicate _anything_ shown in said video...
BTW, These _FAKE_ Fotek SSRs range anywhere b/w 1/2...5 the rated current. Take the module apart and see what is inscribed on the (fake) ST triac. The 40A -marked units usually have a 25A 'BTA24-1000B' triac, which should be good for 16 amps.
This is probably the reason my 1st attempt failed. After the one usage under load, the SSR went from NO to NC. Results were less than optimal. . .
I am now waiting for a solenoid and some relays in the mail for further testing. I may try again with a better SSR.
Success!! Well done! 👍😎
Well kinda, still needs some fine-tuning. Did you see the last part?
@@DavidPozEnergy just now...😂 I thought it was over!
@@DavidPozEnergy small fires are the best way to learn!
LOL. I was planning on ending it there, but was just having fun with my friend. But it was too good not to use the footage in the video.
Hahaha.. that didn't end well.
"nice" relays, just ordered 2 items from aliexpress, but before i saw you video :)
Are you.... using a microwave transformer... the normal way around...? (Stepping up the voltage?) Because that would explain a lot of problems...
Welding is low voltage... not high.
I'm stepping down the voltage, and up the amps. Thanks for watching.
Dude..you putting 240v into a 120 volt coil...your way way way over loading it.
You should try the kWeld.
Sharpen the tungsten tips and they will work with less energy
Yes, that will give a higher current density leading to higher temperature.
Double the input voltage == Double the output. Wouldn't use it on 2 phase 240v while designed for 120v.
Spot welders won't make that kind of noise. A light hum without sparks. I'm used to handling those.
That it exploded is due the inrush current. Maybe an PTC thermistor and an ZC (zero cross) detection.
Double the voltage, 4x the power.
solar is correct. transformer came out of a microwave which ran on 110-120v. I can almost guarantee you that the primary has at a minimum of 120 turns. this isn't coincidence.
Tried to go back to you 110 and for maybe half a second I think you'll be getting close and also you might like to try copper tips
I'm trying to spot weld copper bus bars. If I try copper tips, then I will weld the tips to the work piece. If there is a trick I'm missing about the process, then please let me know.
more turns of secondary with timer board and use relay no ssr
You need capacitor Bank so you can release all that energy in a real quick instead of a slow build up
all the videos i have seen using those transformers use 3 turns on secondary
One turn is not enough voltage... you are correct. I believe two to four turns on the secondary is very common and works. Also.. he should have never used 220.
That's pretty cool...have you tried some solid copper electrodes? They've always worked best for me...what kind of tungsten is that your using?
One of my early experiments I did, but because I'm welding copper, the copper tips weld themselves to it. I need to use something different. The tungsten is from my local welding shop ($4) it's used in the TIG welders. Thanks for watching.
Idk if I’m right or anything I haven’t looked it up either....but tig tungsten I don’t think is going to work....when your using tungsten in tig welding it is shielded with argon the entire time protecting it from the atmosphere....so I think soon as you fire them as spot welding tips, the tungsten prolly immediately contaminated and every time after it just degrades further....so maybe if you could shield them when trying to spot weld somehow...I don’t think it work...I could be wrong tho...I know it don’t take much to contaminate the tungsten tho...
But I don’t know a whole lot about tig welding...I’m just learning and practicing and figuring it all out
Hello, I ordered a time relay just like you mentioned. I would be interested if you know a similarly cheap differential thermostat? One that uses two sesnsors and opens / closes at a difference of setted temperature. Thx
Sorry, I don't know of one for temperature. Thanks for watching.
Just use timer circuit without sold state relay .. Or use snapper circuit in sold state relay
is there polarity in the transformer, sir?
search for motor contactor instead of relay. Also try giving it a double tap in the same spot, I recall that fancy spot welders will hit a shorter cleaning pulse and then a longer welding pulse. Also try to make sure your electrodes are really stable / secure, it looks like those heavy wires jumping might move the electrodes, which might encourage a break. And when you had it on for a long manual pulse, I see that your (tungsten?) electrodes appear to get hotter than the metal you're trying to spot weld. it looks like the workpiece is more conductive than the electrodes, maybe get some nickel strips like used on 18650s in building packs and see how well that will weld. or even some thin steel like tin cans, i bet that will weld easier than the copper based alloy (is it just copper, or is it berylium copper, or what?) It looks like tungsten is suitable for copper, only other electrode I would suggest trying would be molybdenum. And the more the better on clamping force during welding.
Where would you put a nickle strip in the assembly?
@@DavidPozEnergy i would use 2 pieces of it instead of the copper, to see if that would weld better than the mystery copper alloy. The reason I bring up nickel is caus the guys with the little 100A boards from ebay make it look easy to get good welds. Hopefully you have a junk battery pack you can salvage some from to try.
One other thought I had. Maybe try lightly sanding the surfaces of the copper test pieces, to get good clean smooth bare metal, then use a solvent to remove any oils, because like all welding processes dirt and contaminents can affect the weld quality.
@@DavidPozEnergy Sorry I keep popping up with more thoughts and directions to persue, but I'm still stuck on your spot welder lol. Have you measured your open circuit voltage on the transformer? As in leave your welding electrodes open, with just the multimeter leads completing the secondary circuit. I believe MOTs are usually around 1 volt per turn, so I'll guess you'll have around 2 volts open circuit. I'm wondering if you might have better results with a smaller wire and more turns. When I was playing with a large transformer, I was using 2 awg as a secondary and I could max my 400A clamp ammeter on it without an issue, it just warmed up rather quickly. The wire in the video looks like it's bigger than 1/0 to me, which will have a 53mm^2 cross sectional area.
What I'm getting at is that you might actually get more current by using a smaller wire for the secondary, because you'll have more turns on the secondary and more voltage to put across your given resistance. The added voltage is what the idea behind putting 220v to the primary is for. But I'm sure at 220v the transformer's core is saturated, and the majority of the power increase is going to heating the primary coil. I would bet that you see better results with 110v to the primary and a 4 turn secondary, than you do putting 220v to the primary with a 2 turn secondary.
Thank you Jim. I'll try more turns and see what happens. Thanks.
Sometimes too much clamping force can be a problem as it lowers the resistance of the connection which leads to less heat at the weld junction. Also spring clamps might be better than screw clamps since as the junction starts to melt, the parts will move closer together and the springs will follow that movement.
what was the voltage across the secondary/output leads ?
O, boy. I am trying to remember.. I think 2 volts. Not quite sure.
@@DavidPozEnergy was trying to make one earlier didn't quiet do anything. i was using amplifier cable. maybe too much insulation, will try it again. i think you need 2 transformers to make 240 v welder.
In the end I went back to 120v and left it on for longer. Several people have written me and said they had better success with two wraps on the secondary wire instead of one. You may want to give that a try.
Relais statique chinois "40A" avec des triacs 8A, cela ne marche pas longtemps.
Would a starter relay from a car do it? They can handle a huge amount of current.
nope, since they dont handle 230v on the bridging end. But will work if you use a 12v battery setup for welding
the two direct sides must be copper, it helps adhesion more than iron .