Has anyone used a STITCH Welder?

[leo]

welder?

[Jim Berquist]

Thats the Idea!!! It's the AMPS that do the work... You need to run the coil parallel with the rod load. If you run the coil in series with the rod, you will not obtain the current required.

A dimmer contains a triac and you adjust at what voltage point it will gate. Your adjusting voltage not current. In effect that could help your duty cycle........ I think the voltage will be to low to produce the arc....

Leo: What we are talking about is essentialy the same thing, but using a 12 or 24 volt battery system to weld. That unit is a attachment for a regular welder that converts your AC welder to 1/2 wave rectified DC. I built one and used it years ago. We are tring to duplicate one and provide a alternative means for people to weld there projects....


Jim

[Zippiot]

Am I getting closer?

[Jim Berquist]

There you go!!!!

Electricaly it looks like it would not work You would think all current would go to the rod and not accuate the coil. There should be enough resistance between the rod and work to do the job .....Mine did......If yours will not kick the coil you could place a Capacitor in line with the rod side it ...will add some current when the rod end contacts the work . When it charges up it will stop current to the rod sending power to the coil..When the rod contacts the work it would discharge the capacitor. Current would flow the coil and pull it back..?.

What program did you use for that photo? Paint???? I need a CAD of some sorts.

I can not access Google Spell check. My spelling sucks...Is any one else having problems as well. Tells me progam not available at this time. Is it my machine or them???

Jim

I

Jim

[leo]

Maybe its best to rewind the coil with some thick wire, and put al the current thru it.
I don’t think you need much windings, maybe even make the solenoid yourself.
Zippiot I don’t think you get any action in the solenoid from your last drawing, almost all the current will go around the coil.

[Zippiot]

Thats what I thought...well its worth a test and is an easy fix right!

I want to wind my own solenoid, I have thin, medium and super thick magnet wire (just got the 3 pack at radio shack, I can look up what gauge wire it is...)
Where do you get the iron rod for the solenoid?

Maybe the capacitor would work, maybe adding some resistor or resistance wire before the welding rod...


How about (first picture) we bridge the negative to the welding rod using a resistor, and still have the welding rod attatched to the negative by the other wire coming out of the solenoid? This would give the solenoid enought o start but still charge the wire (or capacitor) a little more than just going off the solenoids second wire...If any of that made sense to you

Here I'll draw a pic (using paint of course!)

[pezman]

Jim,

There are a number of other spell-checking web services out there, for example http://www.spellcheck.net/. I ran a sample through spellcheck.net. It caught most of the problems and has a nice interface. It did have problems with "Thats" (found it to be an error but did not suggest "That's" as a possible fix) and "inelligence" (again, flagged it as incorrect, but did not offer "intelligence" as an alternative).

An alternative would be to get Open Office, which is free. You can write your stuff in OO, spell check it, then paste it in the message body.

Another alternative. Some web-mail services have spell checkers. Write an e-mail, spell check it, paste the result in the message body and then discard the e-mail (this reminds me of a humorous recipe for carp).

I generally like your posts and usually take the time to read them. I'm glad that you persevered through a lot of the initial criticism that you received for your spelling. Sometimes folks harbor prejudices about other people's capabilities (e.g. if you can't spell, you must not be too smart). I'm glad that you stuck around here and proved otherwise.

At any rate, spelling and multiple-intelligence stuff aside, I can generally understand your posts, even when the spelling is at its most creative -- and I almost always appreciate the content.

edited, ironically, for a typo[/i]

[Zippiot]

Or:

[Zippiot]

Forgot to edit this in, sorry...

I think the capacitor would be best, as it gives enough resistance at first to actuate the solenoid, then discharges into the arc...

Or mix the two ideas:

SO that the solenoid has way enough to actuate but the capacitor still discharges into the welding rod


But would the capacitor suck up all the energy? Unless it was very small so it could be charged and discharged a few times a second (or however often the thing acutates)

[Zippiot]

While searching through my box o toys I came accross an unused sprinkler solenoid. I think I'll play around with it for a while, mixing configurations of solenoid welding rod capacitor resistors and all.

The thing is made tor un off of 24v but low amps....might be tricky because my charger is high amps low volts...

[Jim Berquist]

Mine did not have the capcitor! and ran fine..... I think that if the capacitor was of the right uf.. it would do its job!!!!


Jim

[Zippiot]

Got any pics of your stitch welder?

What thickness rod did you use, also what voltage and amperage?

[tufty]

Right, here goes.

First off, I think it's a good idea.

Set up should be, if I'm reading this right, solenoid _retracts_ rod from workpiece. Thus, as you strike the workpiece, current flows through the solenoid, retracting it, at which point there is no current flowing, and the spring ensures that the solenoid returns to the workpiece, and we have an arc being struck (hopefully) twice per cycle.

We're talking low voltage and high amperage for the arc, the solenoid is likely to want an awful lot less current. Thus running the solenoid in parallel to the "main feed".

Consider the following crappy ascii craphics.

Code: Select all

            Solenoid
        +--\/\/\/\/\/\--+
+ve ----+               +----- arc
        +------/\/\-----+
            Shunt

The solenoid has a resistance of Rso and the Shunt (which might be a simple wire) has a resistance of Rsh, thus the whole unit has a resistance Ru of 1/Rso + 1/Rsh.

As Rsh increases, so does the proportion of current flowing through the solenoid. If I recall correctly (and it's been a while since I did any of this stuff), it's given by V(Rsh + Rsh^2/Rso).

To tune for a given solenoid, you'd want to do the following:

Resistor in series with the solenoid to adjust for solenoid voltage (for a solenoid with a voltage rating of 12v and a 24v supply, you'd want a resistance == Rso in series with the solenoid). Resistor in parallel with the solenoid to keep the current flowing through the solenoid down to the solenoid's rated value but high enough that the solenoid actuates reliably. The second of these is going to have to handle a lot of current.

I wouldn't go sticking capacitors into the mix. Not until your neighbours start complaining about not being able to watch TV due to the interference you're generating, anyway.

Simon

[Zippiot]

The solenoid itself messes with tv's

Anyone got a formula of how thick a rod to use comapred to volts/amps?

[leo]

Simon I think the Shunt will meltdown, if you have a voltage drop of 12 volts over it, then probably your generating about the same energy in it as in the Arc itself.
I still think that rewinding the coil is the easiest thing to do, probably no more than 10 times would do.