Welding Tips and Tricks

MinnesotaDave wrote:

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

nice.gif

Ohhh man...you almost had me believing you were a righteous dude until you mentioned the divorce! It was all your fault wasn't it?

exnailpounder wrote:

MinnesotaDave wrote:

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

nice.gif

Ohhh man...you almost had me believing you were a righteous dude until you mentioned the divorce! It was all your fault wasn't it?

Depends who you ask LOL

Cement truck drivers are a really inconsiderate bunch by the way.
They never seem to hit the car I point out to them...

LOL...I made up a new saying...marriage is sacred but divorces are priceless. Some of the cement truck drivers I used to know told me some stories about a driver filling his wifes car up to the door locks

exnailpounder wrote:LOL...I made up a new saying...marriage is sacred but divorces are priceless. Some of the cement truck drivers I used to know told me some stories about a driver filling his wifes car up to the door locks

Awesome - not nice, but awesome!

Very very nice build!!!

I built one out of an old 1/2 ton window unit air conditioner. A $30 ag pump is 40psi @1.2 gal/min. Stripped out the compressor (Freon was already loooong gone) connected the front coil to the back coil with tubing and hose clamps. Connected the output of the ag pump to the cold torch input. connected the input of the pump to a home brew 1gal or so tank, bottom draw. Connected the hot Side of the torch (return) to the other side of the front coil, sent the output of the back coil to the top of the tank. I used refrig 15% solder to sweat my fittings and splices. Cut a hole in the side and made a boss plate for the torch connections. Oh the power for the 12v ag pump, I used an old 9 amp 18vdc laptop power supply and connected the AC to the air conditioner power switch. So far I spent around $50, I just installed a 125F temp switch in series with the fan. So far the coil temp (measured on the line between the coils) has not tripped the fan, even with about 10 min of 150 amp weave pattern for decorative blending. I'm sure this summer, the shop will be 100F plus. My WP-20 runs cool to the touch, gas lens cup gets smoking hot!

Pro
Really the best advantage a cooler gives you, is being able to run a smaller, lighter, and more agile torch body that will not overheat.

Con
The ag pump goes put, put, put, put. Noisy, It has a pressure switch that cuts the power at 40 lbs. so the motor goes on off about once a second. Could create a longevity problem with the motor.

I may change the laptop power supply for a transformer, full wave bridge, capacitor with a pulse width modulator on the input to slow the pump speed (pressure) to equal the coolant volume of the torch head. The PWM will allow adjustments for different torch heads.

BTW I have a background in industrial electronics so rig 'ur up at your own risk!

Cheers, Mike

I disabled the pressure switch on the front of the pump to keep it from rapid cycling. There are usually leads from the back to the front that are the pressure switch. Just power the motor directly and it won't cycle on off like that.

-Sandow

Mderamo wrote: BTW I have a background in industrial electronics so rig 'ur up at your own risk!

I'm glad you put that in there because i was wondering how in the heck you learned how to do something like that. It's not Average Joe stuff for sure.

Hi to all
In my contemplating making a collet it seems that people either go for a Procon pump or a Shurflo pump.
I don't want to end up making a cooler that is noisier than my Miller DX200 welder. Potentially you can get away from fan noise by having no fans but a pump is unavoidable.
Is there anyone out there that has first hand experience of how noisy the Procon and Shurflo are compared to one another assuming the same specifications since the pump mechanism is fundamentally different in each.

Kym, have I recall that one of the other Oz members managed to find you a Procon pump. Have you made any progress on that project along with the other projects that you have on the go.

Thanks
Ralph

Metal_pig2001 wrote:Hi to all
In my contemplating making a collet it seems that people either go for a Procon pump or a Shurflo pump.
I don't want to end up making a cooler that is noisier than my Miller DX200 welder. Potentially you can get away from fan noise by having no fans but a pump is unavoidable.
Is there anyone out there that has first hand experience of how noisy the Procon and Shurflo are compared to one another assuming the same specifications since the pump mechanism is fundamentally different in each.

Kym, have I recall that one of the other Oz members managed to find you a Procon pump. Have you made any progress on that project along with the other projects that you have on the go.

Thanks
Ralph

I zapped you a PM by way of a reply, MP - take a look.

Cheers,



Kym

Thanks Kym
I will check it out once it arrives. Not there yet.
Thanks
Ralph

Metal_pig2001 wrote:Potentially you can get away from fan noise by having no fans but a pump is unavoidable.
Is there anyone out there that has first hand experience of how noisy the Procon and Shurflo are compared to one another assuming the same specifications since the pump mechanism is fundamentally different in each.

You can buy cpu cooling fans that are under 20db. Never going to hear that. I'll post video of the cooler in operation tonight and you can get a feel for the noise level.

-Sandow

Thanks Sandow
I look forward to seeing that.
I actually have enough large heatsink extrusion to make a tank, also have 120mm fans as well but it I expect, the pump that is the bulk of the noise of a cooler.
Regards
Ralph