Stud Welder Studpro 3750xi
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Welcome to my latest project, a Capacitive Discharge (CD) welder. This is the technique often used for the welding of battery tabs. I have a plan to make an electric bike and the cost of the battery packs are about half the cost of the whole electrical installation (typically $500 for a mid sized 12AH battery). I believe I can make a reasonable pack from old cells removed from old laptops or similar devices which use the common 18650 cell size. Hopefully this source of 2nd hand batteries is free so the total costs are really only the tab material itself. On the issue of costs, the welder as built is not cheap. The capacitor I used were new and purchased from Digikey, as were the MOSFET's.
However I'm hoping the machine will give years of good service for about 10% of the cost of a commercial unit.PLEASE NOTE: this project is based largely on a design by Ian Hooper of Perth WA you can find the project on his website here:Take a look around Ian's site and marvel at the great projects he has completed and the products he has for sale! OK - electricity can be dangerous!This device has is designed to work at low voltages, typically 16Volts maximum. That means the likelihood of electrocution is low. However, on the other hand I estimate the amperage of the welding circuit is well over 1000amps albeit for a very short period of time!When the weld is performed I have experienced a certain amount of sparking at the weld site - I think this is a result of not having enough pressure on the weld electrodes - I advise the use of safety glasses and gloves when performing the welds.well that is a good question!It is possible to fix the battery tab to the battery using traditional soldering techniques.
It does have some very distinct drawbacks however:1) You are introducing a large amount of heat to the terminal of the battery. This could 'cook' the battery literally and when I have tried to do this with my desktop soldering iron it seems to take a while to get the joint up to temperature and the rest of the battery gets hot also. I guess if you have a higher wattage iron you may be able to create a solder in a second or two and.2) You will need to clean the solder joint of flux residue afterwards.So in summary it is quicker, cleaner and much less likely to damage the battery. Welding battery tabs is an industry standard technique used by all the major manufacturers. The idea being to pass a whole heap of amps into a small space in a short period of time to create a resistance weld. Machines are available 'off the shelf' specifically designed to do this. Of course they do a good job and of course they are expensive!My intention is to make a homemade version with some of the features of the units you can by commercially, but at less than 10% of the cost.Here is a link to good resource of information I have found dedicated to battery tab welding.and here is a link to a manufacturer who has a number of videos on their website showing battery tab welding.
Battery tab (or strip) can be purchased from various sources on the internet such as ebay, aliexpress or alibaba. The manufacturers of quality battery packs use either copper (with a nickel plate) or pure nickel. I make no comment on the copper, it is a very good conductor but you would need more power than this welder can provide to creats a good weld. The pure nickel is the material of choice but this can be tricky to obtain.Certiain suppliers clearly state the material the tab is made from but others pass off steel/nickel plated tab as pure nickel! While this might be acceptable for some battery packs you should realise the differences between the 2 alternative materials:1) The steel cored tab will suffer corrosion if the nickel plate is scratched.2) The resistance of the steel is about 2x (twice) that of its pure nickel counterpart.Watch the video but please take care if you try this test at home! You can perform a similar test overnight by just using salty water.
As I said in the introduction, this welder was based on one developed by Ian Hooper. I was keen to use the basic set-up that Ian has developed but I liked the idea of potentially refining it to include some features available on commercial machines. Over the past few years I've done a number of projects based around the Arduino microprocessor and thought that that platform was an ideal one to use for this application.My main aims were to:1) Create the ability to do a dual pulse by having the MOSFET gates controlled from the Arduino.2) Use a display to show the main process parameters.3) Have the ability to change the main process parameters with inputs from potentiometers4) Use a foot switch to initiate the weld5) Use a buzzer to audibly indicate that a weld is in process and to indicate when the welder is ready to weld. This driver chip is easily available as a SMD component. I used a mini SOIC pcb to make it easy to use in a hand build circuit!See the attahced PDF for detailed informationont he chip. I just copied the instructions on page 5 for the external connections and components.
Also added is a resisitor from the Arduino Pin6 to limit the current that the Arduino can supply. Also a diode is place on the output. Possibly not necessary but it safgards the MIC 4452 chip just in case of a 'flyback' current. Here I show the connection to the capacitor bank from the benchtoppower supply.The benchtop supply is directly connected to the positive and negative bus bar.The blled circuit resistors are also both connected to the same rails.
They will constantly bleed power (and therefor lover the voltage) on the capcitors. Thisensure that they are not left in a charged state whrn you finishe using the welder. I just happened to have 4 x 48Ohm resistors on hand soIused them 2 in parallel and 2 in series. If you want to choose some other value or power rating just make sure you use V=IR and I2R calculations to ensure they will be ok.The Voltage divider simple divides the voltage into 1/3 of the input (the analog pin on an Arduino only goes up to 5v max). I could have put a zener diode in here to protect the A0 pin but my power supply is limited to less than 15 volts anyway. Start by adding the 4 small SMD resistors on each of the PCB's1) 2 x 100Ohm resistors.
These resistors limit the current used to turn on the gates on each of the 2 MOSFET's2) 2 x 10k Ohm resistors. These resistors are placed between the MOSFET gates and the GND and they ensure the gate on the MOSFET's are held 'low' when the gate signal is off.The chips are 1206 size and are large enough to be hand soldered. Having said that, working under an LED illuminated desk magnifying glass is a great help!NB: DO NOT add the capacitor on the PCB - In this design the gates are driven from the Arduino whereas in Ian's welder the gates are 'held' open by these capacitors until all their charge has been dissipated into the weld. I have added 5 flywheel diodes to stop any back emf circulating a reverse current when the MOSFET gate switches off.
Hopefully, there is not much inductance in the circuit so the need for this is not too great. I do not have the equipment necessary (a good oscilloscope) to look for the voltage spikes so I hope 5 diodes are enough! - there is a lot of 'hope' in this step! The failure mode is likely to be a blown MOSFET - it will be difficult to determine which one has blown if it has simply gone short circuit.Any advice from a better electronics person than me would be good!The diode I used is an available from Element 14. As I said earlier I just built this as I went along, making changes and modifications as necessary. I'm sure it can be done more neatly and most certainly on a smaller footprint if required. So, rather than detailing this part of the build I just offer a few photographs and a description of the main parts used.Parts Used:1) The Prototyping breadboard used was:1) DC-DC power supply (to turn down 12VDC to 5VDC)2) Arduino Pro Mini 5V 16MHz (clone)3) MIC4452YM MOSFET gate driver (mounted on a mini PCB - ).
A 10k resistor holds the digital output pin on the Arduino low.4) Buzzer (salvaged from a failed piece of equipment) - driven from a digital output pin and a small transistor.5) Power Resistors to bleed energy from the capacitors when you want to reduce the voltage (or from a safety point of view they will make the device safe when switched off). I used 4 47Ohm 5 Watt resistors.6) 2 resistors for the voltage divider, 1 @ XXX ohm and 1 at YYYohm.7) 2 Diodes on the 12V input to provide input polarity protection.8) A foot switch. A 1uF capacitor across the foot switch terminals ensures that the input to the Arduino is 'debounced'. I made my electrodes from aluminum bar - the diameter is about 10mm. In other designs I have seen the electrodes just rounded to a blunt point. This seems absolutely fine but I decided to make the tips replaceable just in case I want to experiment with different tip profiles.
To do this I bored a 3mm hole in the end of the electrode then used a short length of 3mm copper rod as a tip. The tip is held in place with a 3mm grub screwAt the other end of the electrode there is a slot to accommodate the crimp terminal on the end of the 8 gauge cable. A 4mm bolt and nut hold it in place - remember to use some conductive grease in this joint The whole assembly is then covered in heat shrink tubing.Electrode cablingI purchased 1 meter of red and black 8SWG cable.The ends are terminated with crimped lugs. I wanted to box up the parts to provide a reasonably robust and neat finished product.
I had an old broken mini UPS in the garage and when I'd stripped out all the inner parts seemed to be an ideal fit.1) I first fitted the LCD screen to the front. This required me to enlarge the aperture and provide 4 fixings, one for each corner of the LCD.2) I then fitted 2 XXmm conduit bulkhead fittings for the 2 electrode wires.3)Finally, I fitted an on/off push button switch. This switch isolates the battery supply for the control PCB. The Arduino software is included here. Great DIY Buid project, perfect thanks!
I see some improvments to be made on circuitry though. A linear regulator after dc/dc aux supply for 5v arduino. Pins 6 and 7 on that gate driver should be tied together as close as possible to pins. The 15,000 pF polycarbonate capcitor tied between gate driver output and griound is in 'test circuits' in datasheet, so i think this is to simulate a mosfets gate when doing test with the IC. SO I dont think you need and it may hinder output current drive of the driver as it has to charge that cap in addition to all other mosfet gates. The 0.1uF should be connected as close to pins 1 and 4 as possible and another 0.1uf should be conected the same way over pins 5 and 8.
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Thanks, i was going to build a hybrid, your control circuit and another power section. Just to make cost low. In 1960, my uncle designed and built a spot welder for fine electronics that had a variable charge voltage (100 to 400 vdc) applied to large caps of the day (1650 mfd) these were discharged to the primary of the special welding transformer. Through feedback it had adjustable pulse timing and it also sensed the material resistance, not pressure, and would not fire until resistance was at a preset level. Sadly he had to abandon the project when his wife got cancer, but several sold and it was featured in a magazine of the time. Hello,Thanks for posting this, nice project.
I'll be building one of these based off this design for making thermocouples. It would be very helpful to see a schematic of your system, or even a block diagram. The actual capacitor bank part of it is well documented, but the digital control is lacking. For example, the MOSFET Gate driver.Is that connected to the gates of all the capacitor boards? The 12v-5v buck regulator, is that JUST for powering the arduino?
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Or is it powering the MOSFET driver as well? Is the MOSFET driver powered with 5 or 12v? If 5v, why use a 12v battery to power the arduino at all? Also, how are your snubbers wired? (flyback diodes) And a schematic would improve the text description of wiring hookups to the Arduino.
Hello,Thanks for posting this, nice project. I'll be building one of these based off this design for making thermocouples. It would be very helpful to see a schematic of your system, or even a block diagram. The actual capacitor bank part of it is well documented, but the digital control is lacking.
For example, the MOSFET Gate driver.Is that connected to the gates of all the capacitor boards? The 12v-5v buck regulator, is that JUST for powering the arduino?
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Or is it powering the MOSFET driver as well? Is the MOSFET driver powered with 5 or 12v? If 5v, why use a 12v battery to power the arduino at all? Also, how are your snubbers wired?
(flyback diodes) And a schematic would improve the text description of wiring hookups to the Arduino. Hi KinasmithI tried to do a circuit diagram but got frustrated with the software, however i'll try answer your questions:The MOSFET driver board is driven from digital pin 6 on the Arduino. I added a 1k ohm resistor in series with the output to limit the current to the driver chip. I also added some capacitors around the driver - I'll try add another photo of a close up of the MOSFET driver at the appropriate step. The output goes to the capacitor PCB at one end and then the 3 links carry the signal 'down the chain'.The buck regulator is for the Arduino. I was concerned to try isolate the various voltages and 5v also suits the requirements for the 3 potentiometers and the associated Arduino analogue inputs without any further voltage dividers.FYI I run the MOSFET driver with the 12V directly and the buck regulator is protected with 2 diodes - again I've taken another close up of this and the back of the perf board which might help you.The flyback diodes are all in parallel.
They have 3 legs. The 2 outer legs are -ve and the centre one is +ve.
The -ve and +ve are directly connected to the capacitor -ve and +ve.Hope this helps!! Let me know how you go.
I'm interested in doing some more fine welding similar to the construction of thermocouples (actually doing TESLA style fuses on battery packs actually).