So I've seen plenty of tig coolers here but a lot of them seem like they probably cost more to make than just buying one would.
So this was under $200 and came together pretty fast. This is framed out with just a 11 gauge sheet for the bottom, a few feet of of 1" angle iron and some 1" tube for a handle. Flow rate ends up as about 2 LPM which is plenty and operation is fairly quiet.
AWS D1.1 / ASME IX / CWB / API / EWI / RWMA / BSEE
Scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality." Nikola Tesla
Can you TIG weld at 200A+, AC with 65%EN and still have ambient temperature water exit the entire cooler after being cooled? All the compactness and savings don't mean squat until you do heavy AC TIG. other than that, good job.
Some of you guys must be serious Tig aluminum long liners to need a cooler. Most guys with consumer grade welders hit duty cycle long before they overheat a torch. Most fab shops have factory built coolers for those occasional long welds and unless you're welding filler rods together, a 3' filler rod doesn't go very far on thick aluminum and most , me included, non-pro tig welders, can't feed rod worth a damn. Nice cooler though.
But in defense, from what I have experienced, the torch itself isn't the one that gets cooked, it's the 2-in-1 power gas hose. The brass/copper torch body readily conducts heat into the fitting which conducts heat into rubber hose, deteriorating over time; sometimes too rapidly when attempting to do much AC welding even if relatively low-powered by consumer grade machines. 200A AC with 65%EN puts a lot of extra heat into the torch and everything else the torch is connected.
Oscar wrote:Can you TIG weld at 200A+, AC with 65%EN and still have ambient temperature water exit the entire cooler after being cooled? All the compactness and savings don't mean squat until you do heavy AC TIG. other than that, good job.
Can't say I've had many occasions to run my machine that hard but that sounded like a reasonable test so I gave it a run. I let it run for 10 minutes to equilibrate to 72.1F then did two one minute arcs back to back at AC 200A 33% DCEP no pulse. The first minute got the temp to 75.3F and the second minute got it up to 75.6F. Torch body wasn't noticeably warm by the time I got my glove off but the quartz cup was pretty hot and the gas flow from the torch was warm. After a minute, the water was reading at 73.2F.
My guess is that either the cup or the power line would slag before anything else now.
-Sandow
Last edited by Sandow on Sun Jun 05, 2016 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a babel of iron sounds.
-Charles Dickens
exnailpounder wrote:Some of you guys must be serious Tig aluminum long liners to need a cooler. Most guys with consumer grade welders hit duty cycle long before they overheat a torch. Most fab shops have factory built coolers for those occasional long welds and unless you're welding filler rods together, a 3' filler rod doesn't go very far on thick aluminum and most , me included, non-pro tig welders, can't feed rod worth a damn. Nice cooler though.
Not trying to pick on you, feeding rod is the first thing I taught my son when teaching him to tig aluminum.
Otherwise the feeding hand gets too close very quickly.
I put off getting a cooler for too long actually (ended up making one).
My AC tig welding was frequently 200-230 amps and I cooked several wp-26 torches.
Series 17 torches don't stand a chance.
I tend to batch items whenever possible - tack them all, then get in my groove welding them out.
Fortunately I have a welder that has no issues with duty cycle
Dave J.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw~
Syncro 350
Invertec v250-s
Thermal Arc 161 and 300
MM210
Dialarc
Tried being normal once, didn't take....I think it was a Tuesday.
LtBadd wrote:Interesting build, would not a computer power supply work as well? Also what diameter is the PVC pipe, looks like maybe 3"?
I actually tried a computer power supply first. Just bridge green to black for the motherboard power on signal and then the yellow wires are the 12V+ rail and black is ground. Mine was tripping off under load. Was a POS I'd pulled out of a junker at the office though. A real 12V psu was about the same price as a decent computer psu that I'd have to strip down.
Pipe is indeed 3" and 24" long. Total volume is a bit under a gallon.
-Sandow
Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a babel of iron sounds.
-Charles Dickens
Oscar wrote:is it maintaining 40-50psi on the return line?
No, it is 55 from the pump but after the restriction in the torch head it is much lower. Don't really have a way of putting a gauge on the return side. Why do you ask?
-Sandow
Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a babel of iron sounds.
-Charles Dickens
pressure is checked on feed side of a pump,return like a water cooler is unrestricted and is usually checked for volume.
the pressure restriction would be the torch head, in this case.
Everlast 250EX
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and more stuff than I deserve(Thanks Significant Other)
exnailpounder wrote:Some of you guys must be serious Tig aluminum long liners to need a cooler. Most guys with consumer grade welders hit duty cycle long before they overheat a torch. Most fab shops have factory built coolers for those occasional long welds and unless you're welding filler rods together, a 3' filler rod doesn't go very far on thick aluminum and most , me included, non-pro tig welders, can't feed rod worth a damn. Nice cooler though.
I bought my welder specifically so that I could learn how to weld aluminum and with the idea of being able to weld a minimum of 3/8" thickness (without helium). 1/2" to 5/8" aluminum was common in the old boss's shop (with the occasional engine block). So yeah, a cooler was mandatory for what I wanted to learn how to do.
Feeding rod is very easy as long as you find the technique that works for you (took me quite a while to figure out what worked for me). I use my index and middle fingers and can push about 1 1/2" into the puddle at a time if I really have to.
Oscar wrote:is it maintaining 40-50psi on the return line?
No, it is 55 from the pump but after the restriction in the torch head it is much lower. Don't really have a way of putting a gauge on the return side. Why do you ask?
-Sandow
My bad, I meant to say supply, not return line. That's good 55psi should take care of things quite nicely. I only ask because if the pressure is not high enough, the water may end up boiling in the torch head passages.
I was welding aluminum overhead from a creeper, when I pinched the supply line with a creeper wheel. In seconds, 300A did this to the return/power line.
Otto Nobedder wrote:And restricting the flow looks like this:
I was welding aluminum overhead from a creeper, when I pinched the supply line with a creeper wheel. In seconds, 300A did this to the return/power line.
Steve S
I think I've seen that before...hope you didn't get burned by the hot coolant
Otto Nobedder wrote:And restricting the flow looks like this:
I was welding aluminum overhead from a creeper, when I pinched the supply line with a creeper wheel. In seconds, 300A did this to the return/power line.
Steve S
I think I've seen that before...hope you didn't get burned by the hot coolant
Yeah, I've put that one up before. I was wearing PPE appropriate for "meteors" from overhead aluminum, so, no, I was not burned.
Otto Nobedder wrote:And restricting the flow looks like this:
I was welding aluminum overhead from a creeper, when I pinched the supply line with a creeper wheel. In seconds, 300A did this to the return/power line.
Steve S
I think I've seen that before...hope you didn't get burned by the hot coolant
Yeah, I've put that one up before. I was wearing PPE appropriate for "meteors" from overhead aluminum, so, no, I was not burned.
Steve S
That quote makes sense to everyone who welded overhead alum...damn that shits hot.
I weld stainless, stainless and more stainless...Food Industry, sanitary process piping, vessels, whatever is needed, I like to make stuff.
ASME IX, AWS 17.1, D1.1
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exnailpounder wrote:Some of you guys must be serious Tig aluminum long liners to need a cooler. Most guys with consumer grade welders hit duty cycle long before they overheat a torch. Most fab shops have factory built coolers for those occasional long welds and unless you're welding filler rods together, a 3' filler rod doesn't go very far on thick aluminum and most , me included, non-pro tig welders, can't feed rod worth a damn. Nice cooler though.
Not trying to pick on you, feeding rod is the first thing I taught my son when teaching him to tig aluminum.
Otherwise the feeding hand gets too close very quickly.
I put off getting a cooler for too long actually (ended up making one).
My AC tig welding was frequently 200-230 amps and I cooked several wp-26 torches.
Series 17 torches don't stand a chance.
I tend to batch items whenever possible - tack them all, then get in my groove welding them out.
Fortunately I have a welder that has no issues with duty cycle
No sweat bro. I wish I could feed rod well but when I do it's shaky. The point of my comment was that in most home welding environments, a cooler isn't necessary unless you are contract welding fuel cells or something like that for a supplier and then you want long beads but in the real world, most garage bandits aren't doing that kind of work. I really do admire the tinkerers that build this kind of stuff. I think tig welding is worse than owning guns sometimes...gotta pay for training you will never use and have all the latest toys and then one day you look at what you have spent and shake your head. If my wife only knew just what I have in holsters, she would shit a purple twinkie.
exnailpounder wrote:she would shit a purple twinkie.
Haha!
Yes, I'm gonna adopt that one, too.
Best one I've heard since I was speaking recently with a rather lovely but very direct Producer about an educational film project she'd been offered that she wasn't interested in taking on.
"I told them I'd rather shit in my hands and clap."
exnailpounder wrote:she would shit a purple twinkie.
Haha!
Yes, I'm gonna adopt that one, too.
Best one I've heard since I was speaking recently with a rather lovely but very direct Producer about an educational film project she'd been offered that she wasn't interested in taking on.
"I told them I'd rather shit in my hands and clap."
exnailpounder wrote:
No sweat bro. I wish I could feed rod well but when I do it's shaky. The point of my comment was that in most home welding environments, a cooler isn't necessary unless you are contract welding fuel cells or something like that for a supplier and then you want long beads but in the real world, most garage bandits aren't doing that kind of work. I really do admire the tinkerers that build this kind of stuff. I think tig welding is worse than owning guns sometimes...gotta pay for training you will never use and have all the latest toys and then one day you look at what you have spent and shake your head. If my wife only knew just what I have in holsters, she would shit a purple twinkie.
Repeat after me: "I didn't spend, I invested."
Hmmm....Two new holsters and 4 spare mags arrived this week and 1500 rounds of ammo two weeks ago.
Didn't hear a peep...
Well, I've been divorced for 11 years - could have something to do with the peace and quiet
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Dave J.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw~
Syncro 350
Invertec v250-s
Thermal Arc 161 and 300
MM210
Dialarc
Tried being normal once, didn't take....I think it was a Tuesday.
other than that, good job.
