Hey Greg, because of channels like you and Jody over at tips and tricks. I started working for my self , fabricating gates. Just wanna show my appreciation for the time and effort you put in to the videos. Your helping a regular guy make a buck for himself and his little girl. Thank you man. God bless America.
Thanks for the kind words. You have a great mindset, learn what you can, practice what you learn, and provide a skill to the world. There aren’t many people left that can legitly fix things, it’s a great time to be one of those people. Keep up the work 👍. By the way since I took a new job a few months back as a bridge mechanic/welder/fabricator, I have been saving a lot of pictures of my work. I will be rolling out videos soon on doing repairs on everything from excavator/front end loader buckets to light poles. Once you have a decent basis of knowledge you can take on more challenging jobs without issue. I want to see people having the skills to do the work and confidence in their skills 😀.
Sorry for the late response I’m making a new fab table today. I’ll try to keep this short.. About a year ago my buddy got me on his little wire fed Hobart. Helping him with the gates. After that it was a wrap. I fell in love. I taught my self how to run rod. Nonstop watching guys like you & Bob Moffet. Then putting the practice in on a champion 145 my uncle has. Now I’m part time fabricating for his Hot Shot company. Welding racks n such on 40-50’ goosenecks. Alongside my gigs. GREG , WE NEED those weld TEST/EVALUATIONS. You brought them up a couple videos back. I think on the one pertaining to knowing your skill level and to also push your self. If you read any of this , just know the viewers would benefit so much. Looking forward to the pics man. Low key always daydreaming about the real world scenarios/jobs where one would weld plate that thick.
First that I've seen of this. I've got to believe competition will bring the price down pretty quickly over the next couple of years. I'm a little surprised that it doesn't have a 120 outlet on it and then even a MIG version. It wouldn't take much circuitry and it obviously could do a good job of it. Thanks for the video!
The 120v outlet could be done with an inverter and a bigger case. The issue comes down to size and weight. It is very small and weighs less than 25lbs, and anything extra would make it less portable. Esab made the volt and it uses dewalt drill batteries, and has a bit higher capacity. That is slightly cheaper but still pretty expensive. I am really hoping someone comes out with atleast a portable flux core welder that runs on batteries like you said. Other than the drive motor for the rollers taking power, it should be highly efficient. I bet something will hit the market in a year or two.
I SWEAR there was a battery FCAW/MIG setup in the late 90s. If I'm recalling this right, it totally flopped due to size/weight/cost and the lack of actual ability to weld.
The spreadsheet view of the IGBTs is that they are used like other transistors, it's just that they have lower losses than a CMOS when used at higher voltage. In a CMOS, you "pay" your losses by a very small resistance in the output, in an IGBT, you "pay" your losses by a fix voltage cost. When designing a bunch of systems consisting of a 300V DC bus and an H-bridge of increasing output current (which describe basically all contenporaneous electronic), there is a point where your output current is high enough that you'd rather "pay your losses" in fixed voltage than in resistance, that's when you go for IGBT's. About your remark on transformers: For the same power passing through a transformer, the higher the frequency, the smaller the transformer (that's why airplanes use 400Hz). With semiconductors being very cheap, nowadays we don't put 50/60Hz through a transformer for power (we might do it for other reasons, like looking at the grid voltage without risk), we rectify the AC to a DC bus, and switch it in the kHz/MHz range and feed it through a very small transformer.
Thanks for the great information. The transformer frequency vs size is quite amazing. It’s crazy how older machines have giant transformers since they run at 60hz, and modern ones have stupidly small ones since the frequency is manipulated to 400+ hz. I am glad they figured that out since lugging around a 300lb stick welder isn’t much fun lol.
The oscilloscope reading shows 21 microseconds which is equivalent to 47.6 kilohertz. This means that it takes DC power from battery through oscillator (frequency = 47.6 kHz) to make it AC then through a transformer and finally rectifier. Great video! Thanks.
Very interesting. It’s far more complex than I would have thought. The fact it works well is the good part lol. Far better than two car batteries and jumper cables lol.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Something you may not know. Anything that turns DC to AC (at any frequency) using this method is called an inverter. So, this is by definition an Inverter Welder. The reason it has to go throught the transformer instead of just using PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to turn the battery on and off is the startup voltage. The battery is only at 50V nominal, and that voltage is dependent on state of charge. So, it has to boost the voltage up to 90V.
I will be testing the tig on video in the next few weeks. It works really good and has some really nice features. The big thing to me is at the end of a weld you can just increase the arc gap and it shuts off the arc. It allows you to not blow out weld ends and keep the gas shielding on the weld end (vs snapping out of it or hitting buttons).
Of course much of the details of How it Works, are proprietary, much like you don’t find many details on wiring diagrams or engineering docs available to the general public just like ESAB, Lincoln and Miller will only provide block diagrams etc. I’m sure repair facilities can access more detailed schematics, but like most service providers, they pay a lot of money for those documents, and it is their bread and butter, so you’re unlikely to find it out on the internet. That being said, I have done some investigative metering and O-scoping of my Miller 215, and I can tell you that there are multiple frequencies being used to Sense what the arc/welder is doing. Example the Miller has a very low OCV, but there is a high frequency circuit monitoring the electrode relative to the working ground and the moment the low voltage goes Low due to the electrode touching (shorting) to the work piece, almost instantaneously the machine goes to Full Power for the settings you have dialed in, and makes adjustments continuously based on feedback. Yet there is still a square wave in the DC current that at least my Miller varies around 15KHz and pulses the DC current. I think it also tells the welder aka Feedback, about things like Arc Gap or DIG or Hot Start features etc. and makes thousands of circuit adjustments per second to refine (adapt) to your arc characteristics i.e. Style so to speak. In addition, this maximizes battery life by not drawing a continuous current. The square wave is a form of PWM (pulse wave modulation) which extremely efficient (unlike a resistor that wastes energy in the form of heat like you said) is what makes IGBT welders so efficient. I’m no expert either, and I may be wrong, but I’m thinking there is an IGBT module(s) in that welder, like it’s Inverter Cousins, but without the usual AC input that gets rectified in to DC, or in other words, they have substituted the batteries for the output of and AC Bridge Rectifier. Obviously they have cutout as much extraneous equipment as possible to reduce the size and weight. IMHO, I think you “Nailed It” and like you said, the technology and concepts to make such a thing are getting better everyday, and more and more welders like it will start showing up on the market, therefore eventually driving the costs down. Personally I think the batteries and their support hardware aka Chargers, are what makes these portable battery powered welders so expensive. Depending on the battery chemistry, LiPO battery charging is hazardous and a high tech process of its own. The sad part is it won’t be long before the market is flooded with Cheap Knockoffs. Post comment, I learned these welders use the safer LiFePo4 batteries. However they are still a High Power Density power source, and to be treated with extreme caution as Greg demonstrates. Good job Greg. Note: still not getting emails.
Thank You for your comment, i made a bad assumption as to which battery chemistry Fronius used in this particular machine. I still fear cheap knockoffs would use standard LiPo technology. I was unaware they were using the safer LiFePo4 technology, and I edited my comment accordingly.
Interesting observation of your welder. Have you noticed anything strange on the output as far as frequency beyond what you mentioned? I have done a lot of welding with the same 215 you have and it has an odd sound to the arc when mig welding. It welds exceptionally well but the actual arc sound is almost crispy, closer to flux core. I was playing with settings and it consistently sounded different than I am used to. I still haven’t used the tig end of it, I will be tomorrow on a frame repair. I have setup a new email, the one my TH-cam account was linked to is dead. I sent a reply from making mistakes, however you apparently didn’t get it. I will respond from a different email as soon as I can. I have only been using my phone for over a month and needless to say I have had a lot of issues. Like for my tweezer giveaway, I only received a couple emails even though there were many more winners. I have reached out to others and haven’t received anything in return. There is definitely something going on.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Yes I have noticed that odd sound, and I have been wanting to ask if you think your 215 sounds odd too. I am so relieved to hear you say that, and it’s not just me noticing this oddity, because for a while, I was worried there was something wrong with my welder. Everyone talks about the usual MIG “frying bacon” sound, but mine never has, and after we talked about how frequency controls/determines the output of IGBT welder. I started doing some research, thinking why has nobody else noticed this odd sound (more hissing like FC or spray arc) the 215 makes while MIG welding on any of the various welding forums etc. So I decided to hook up my O-scope and see if there was something I could see. The short answer is YES, but it’s not easy to filter down to the underlying frequencies. The welder puts out a really fast square wave, and within that square wave there are other frequencies. I think the DC power is basically a PWM square wave, but on that same square wave there seems to be a much higher (I estimate 10 times higher) frequency that I think Miller is using as a Feedback Sensing frequency to help compensate for things like contact to work distance aka Stickout and I have seen it in its Stick welding too perhaps for Arc Gap compensation. Then there is a 3rd frequency of the short circuit aspect aka the frying bacon sound of the wire shorting at many hundreds of times per second. It’s a messy picture on the O-scope and it’s hard to filter out/ separate the 3. I made a simple filter for the O-scope to help filter that 3rd short circuit portion and look more at the PWM for the current, and also see the high frequency sensing portion. I would be happy to send you what I made, and in fact that was my original intent when I built the filter, was to send it to you. It’s basically 2 resistors and a capacitor to cheap a Low band Pass filter, and I put it in a project box with in/out BNC connectors for your oscope. I sent some emails with O-scope screenshots, but apparently they didn’t get thru. It’s very interesting what’s going on, and I can only guess why Miller does this, and I’m sure it’s proprietary technology that improves the welding characteristics, and compensates for the human side of the equation. Thank You for letting me know there is/was a problem with the email. I was getting worried.
Here in EU Fronius is a standard of industrial welding quality and reliability. Top machine plants (Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Liebherr) using Fronius welding power sources on their assembly lines. So, you paid a lot for excellent device, i'm sure you wouldn't regret.
ESAB is superior, and has been in manufacturing longer than Fronius has existed. One of these companies knows their core competency and sticks to it. The other is looking for solutions for their products.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option no it's not. Fronius on 3 head above esab. Ford also older than Ferrari and what does it mean? It's different standarts of quality for different customers with different price.
What an exciting review. You previously mentioned a follow-up episode about the TIG capability and remarked on its comparison with ESAB Renegade but preferred Fronius in the TIG setup. It would be interesting if you could share your thoughts. Cheers.
I will be doing a tig demonstration with it shortly. It is a very good tig welder. They were very smart in the design of it, it’s the most functional lift tig welder I have ever used.
Those Mosfets (for low voltage, so probably 80-100V from the battery, IGBT is useless) are directly embedded into the PCB under that heatsink structure to the left of the PCB. Low voltage power electronics are a particularly interesting field. Muss less fussy than high voltage stuff, you can do some really sleek engineering with low voltage high power. Why do i know this? Infineon designed this with Fronius and was showing the PCB off at the 2024 PCIM power electronics trade fair and conference in Germany :) Had a good long look at it.
Something like this would be great for the small service jobs out in the field . I have a callout tomorrow where I need to cut off a gate catch , space it and reweld . 5 min weld job but 10 min to get the power run.
Yep exactly. I repaired some busted up fences and a gate last week with it. I would have had to drag 150’ of welding leads, fired up the air pack 500 diesel welder on my truck, and likely blown a hole through the fence post because I had to weld it at 38amps. Go back to the truck and screw with the amperage multiple times to get it right. Or just roll up with the welder and knock it out in minutes with zero frustration lol.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg I've been looking into generators lately. Here in South Africa we get power cuts due to lack of maintenance on the power grids and corruption in government 🤦 Lol , the joys of Africa 😂
skipped around, so i may have missed it. but you didn't talk much about that battery. what kind is it? voltage? also what does the sticker on the charger say about output voltage and amps?
So the battery is individual cells, I believe they are 26650s or bigger. The writing on them had nothing I could find to track what they are (I can only partially see them). The battery voltage is 52.8 and is 7.5 amp hour. The charger itself is rated at 1100watt input and output is rated at 58v 18amp.
It takes DC in then via an inverter makes it into High Frequency AC this goes through a transformer to increase the voltage then rectified back to DC - hence the HF coils and large poly capacitors
What I wonder is though, where is the transformer? The copper coil in the upper right of the machine is a single wire, and it’s on the output (likely used to smooth out the D/c. The coil in the upper left appears to be a single wire in/out too. I dont see anything that has a secondary winding. I will have to do some investigation.
@@mattsan70 To follow up on your comment, here's how those work. First the basics. Capacitors resist changes in voltage, and inductors resist changes in current. You have two modes a boost converter swaps between. One where there's current flowing from the battery, through the inductor, then back to the battery. This "charges" the inductor.* Then the inductor is hooked up to the welding leads, and it starts dumping that current setting whatever voltage is needed to do so. The capacitors are there to keep the voltage from rising and falling as much as the inductor is switched in and out. Commonly one side of the inductor, the battery, and a welding lead are always hooked together. Which is why you can't just rectify AC and use one of these. It would be an electrocution hazard. That's the lack of "isolation" being discussed. * The "charge" is stored in the inductor's magnetic field.
nice video man. i dont have the accupocket but ive got three other fronius welders and theyre great. not sure i could buy any other brand after using fronius the last couple years
This was my first fronius welder and won’t be my last. Just using it has made me rethink using miller for tig. I am pretty disappointed with my latest model dynasty, it’s in the repair shop for a 3rd time. It lacks polish in the software, it’s been unreliable, and I think swapping to fronius would be the way to go.
Does anyone have a fronius cu600 cooler? I'm building my own cooler for a magicwave 230i and I've already figured out how to turn on the pump and fan but I need a few pictures of the cooler harness to figure out how the flow and temperature sensor and coolant level are connected. Can anyone help me because there are no pictures or diagrams on the internet?
In video part one I talk more about it in depth, the link is in the description (I can’t link it from my phone for some reason it won’t copy it). Welding wise it can do 8 7018 1/8th rods and up to 18 3/32 7018s. I run 6010 on it for field repairs and have found it runs 16-17 3/32 6010s on a full charge, which is good because they take more voltage to run. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s more than enough for a lot of small jobs and you can run it off any outlet to charge while you weld. At 10-11a pulled I could literally weld all day on random repairs off any outlet.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg thank you, your must distinguished host, that machine is 5K that is about 1/2 years earnings hence wantingto lear weldding and watchingyourmus gracious videos
"If you're going to be dumb, at least be somewhat smart"... Dad, is that you? I'm fully expecting 30 years of milk and cigarettes now that I've found you again 😉😂
Haha. My father used to say that to me all the time. The last time I remember him saying that he was standing on a plastic bucket as a ladder. I told him that wasn’t a smart idea, and he told me “it might be dumb, but I am being smart about it”. Seconds later the bucket broke through the top and he was on the ground. I busted out laughing 😅
Interesting. At first I thought it capturing my long/short arcing of the rod but it was way to fast. Short circuit Migs output looks just like it, because the wire shorts out and the voltage drops many times a second.
No doubt they do. Hopefully as better cells drop in price the welders come down in price. I would like to see the same size unit be atleast 10ah (it’s 7.5) and cost under 1800$ (3-4.5k now).
So I did a bunch of welding with my Buddy while it was plugged into the wall. I must have ran 22-24 1/8th rods with a little bit of rest between them. When I was done it was almost fully charged and not on thermal shut down. Fronius rates duty cycle at 105 degrees, which at 65 it would be much better than rating. I know the rods I ran were over the specified duty cycle (granted it was far cooler out than their test.
I have not but I have been studying it. I had thoughts about buying a setup but the benefits to cost are pretty slim outside of production work. The biggest issue with it from my perspective (besides limited metal thickness for low end units) is the requirements for protection from the light source. To do it legally in a business and compliant with osha is no joke. It’s not as simple as putting a tarp up and calling it good lol.
He does have a sawzall of mine (he tore it apart in a video), has a similar “up north” accent, and is equally autistic. Brother from another mother I guess lol.
do you think it would be possible to modify a consumer grade welder (that uses AC) to run off a battery bank (DC)? i live off grid. it's very easy and affordable for me to create a large DC battery bank. and to charge it with solar. i can build a 14kWh 48vdc battery for $1400 or less. and that thing can deliver 14kW continuous. what's expensive for me, is turning that DC power source into AC with a huge inverter, just to have it turned back into DC again for welding! a 6000w split phase 240vac inverter is $1500. and is just barely big and rugged enough to run consumer grade welders. a 12,000w split phase 240vac inverter is closer to $4k. i don't want to weld with 2 or 3 car batteries in series and a makeshift inductor. i want to use my huge lithium battery bank + modern welding features! can you see a way to do this affordably?
This is an interesting question and right up my alley. Here are my thoughts: the practicality of what you’re talking about is going to be tough. All modern inverter welders that run on a/c more or less convert the a/c into D/c and then convert the d/c to a high frequency a/c to feed a transformer, which then gets turned back into d/c. Despite all that being done it’s actually fairly efficient. The problem is you would basically need to directly power the igbt that feeds the transformer with battery dc for it to work. Since the welders are manipulating the ac fed into the transformer (in frequency, wave form, and voltage) to produce different outputs you can’t bypass the transformer or the driver of it. If you were to reverse engineer initial a/c to d/c stage, determine what voltage it outputs, and what (if any) dc waveform it has, you might be able to replicate it via batteries. I don’t believe this would be nearly as efficient as what fronius or esab does with their battery powered welders but it could work. This is something I might consider experimenting with, I would have to find the right welder to try this with. The battery powered welders are all over 3k (esab, fronius, and now Lincoln has one on the way) so even that’s an expensive option. I need to spend a bunch of time looking at what schematics I can find and I am sure I can find a way to make something work. I can tell you that you would likely find more success with a wire process than stick. Google “ready welder” to see dc powered welders. They work pretty good. The reason they are able to function well is due to how wire processes work. Stick and tig are constant current and require high amperage that’s regulated. Wire processes amperage is regulated by how fast you feed wire. It’s far easier to limit voltage to 20-24 volts and not worry about amperage than trying to regulate amperage to say 120.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg i'd be very keen to know what you find! if the grid AC is rectified to a single steady DC voltage (maybe around 90V?), i can definitely make a high voltage DC battery way cheaper than buying a 12kw split phase inverter. from what i can tell, readywelders ($800+) are too expensive vs the path i'm already on, of just sucking it up and buying the $1500 inverter (the $1500 inverter has other uses beyond just welding). also MIG welding is already possible for me to do with a cheaper $400-$500 off-grid inverter. stick is where the big expensive inverter is needed. if i find a cheap used readywelder though i'll definitely buy one!
It’s a battery powered unit I picked up on Amazon, search for FNIRSI-1013D-Plus-Oscilloscope and it should come up. I find it works pretty well for random jobs I need it for.
So the esab volt runs on dewalt drill batteries with that type of setup. I like the idea, but the limitation of it is the batteries have to be pulled out to charge. If you had a whole extra set of 4 dewalt batteries you could swap them out and continue welding, but that’s a huge expense. Once the batteries are dead you can’t weld. With the fronius you can charge while welding which is far more convenient I think. I actually burned 30 1/8th rods on the fronius on a job last week and never dipped below half charge because it was charging off a socket while I welded. If someone could implement a charge while welding feature on drill battery powered setup that would be great.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg The thing with the Ego / Greenworks, Ryobi 40V is that it's only one or two batteries instead of 4. It does suck to have to swap them out, but those of us with a battery powered lawnmower, chainsaw, and other tools are going to have at least one extra. I can see the appeal of the Dewalt ones for corporate customers especially. Which is likely why ESAB went that direction. Think about how many construction, plumbing, etc... companies use Dewalt. The hand tools, run on Dewalt, the table saw could be running on Dewalt, and now the welder as well. Sucks for portability, but it can be carried on a truck/van.
Those battery packs use Lithium polymer batteries, size 18650. They have typically 3.7V discharge and 4.2V maximum charging voltage. If i understood, The battery pack in the Fronius uses the more robust LiFePo4 batteries, 3.3V nominal running/discharge voltage and maybe 3.7V maximum charging voltage. The common physical sizes are comparable to AA for the Lithium Polymer and extended length type “C” for the LiFePo4 batteries. The biggest difference, though is that the latter ones don’t present the same fire hazard as the polymer ones do. Additionally, they have more”industrial level” charge/discharge ratings, i.e. longer life.
@@InssiAjaton Individual cell size and chemistry is sort of off topic though. Especially since not all tool batteries use 18650 Li-ions. It's more on the pros and cons of tool batteries to run a welder.
I made new aluminum hinges on my lathe and welded them on with my Python push-pull today for the local Massey dealer's trailer.They left a little POS diesel with a loader and forks to 'help' in case I need it.The fuel tank was full,so now my neighbor down the road is cutting his grass with it,because why not-lol
Lithium batteries need to have intelligent charging *AND* battery-managing systems. As for the charger, it probably can handle anywhere between 100 volts (Japan) to 240 (England, some other European countries.). All they need to customize then is the cord, much like a Grin Tech “Satiator” charger…
Thanks for the info. Thats pretty smart on their behalf to make it that adaptable. It will be interesting to see how long the unit lasts. Considering it seems to use a standard cell type and not a proprietary sealed pouch it should be fairly economical to replace it when the time comes. I just wish the whole setup was cheaper so more people could take advantage of it.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg You'd think so, but the big cost to battery replacement isn't pouch vs cells, it's the labor, and how the cells are fixed in place. The newer Tesla's also use cells instead of pouches, but they're epoxied in to the point it's cheaper to buy a whole new pack than try and replace any of the cells.
Hey Greg, because of channels like you and Jody over at tips and tricks.
I started working for my self , fabricating gates.
Just wanna show my appreciation for the time and effort you put in to the videos.
Your helping a regular guy make a buck for himself and his little girl. Thank you man.
God bless America.
Thanks for the kind words. You have a great mindset, learn what you can, practice what you learn, and provide a skill to the world. There aren’t many people left that can legitly fix things, it’s a great time to be one of those people. Keep up the work 👍.
By the way since I took a new job a few months back as a bridge mechanic/welder/fabricator, I have been saving a lot of pictures of my work. I will be rolling out videos soon on doing repairs on everything from excavator/front end loader buckets to light poles. Once you have a decent basis of knowledge you can take on more challenging jobs without issue. I want to see people having the skills to do the work and confidence in their skills 😀.
Sorry for the late response I’m making a new fab table today.
I’ll try to keep this short..
About a year ago my buddy got me on his little wire fed Hobart. Helping him with the gates. After that it was a wrap. I fell in love.
I taught my self how to run rod. Nonstop watching guys like you & Bob Moffet. Then putting the practice in on a champion 145 my uncle has.
Now I’m part time fabricating for his Hot Shot company. Welding racks n such on 40-50’ goosenecks. Alongside my gigs.
GREG , WE NEED those weld TEST/EVALUATIONS. You brought them up a couple videos back. I think on the one pertaining to knowing your skill level and to also push your self.
If you read any of this , just know the viewers would benefit so much.
Looking forward to the pics man. Low key always daydreaming about the real world scenarios/jobs where one would weld plate that thick.
First that I've seen of this. I've got to believe competition will bring the price down pretty quickly over the next couple of years. I'm a little surprised that it doesn't have a 120 outlet on it and then even a MIG version. It wouldn't take much circuitry and it obviously could do a good job of it. Thanks for the video!
The 120v outlet could be done with an inverter and a bigger case. The issue comes down to size and weight. It is very small and weighs less than 25lbs, and anything extra would make it less portable. Esab made the volt and it uses dewalt drill batteries, and has a bit higher capacity. That is slightly cheaper but still pretty expensive. I am really hoping someone comes out with atleast a portable flux core welder that runs on batteries like you said. Other than the drive motor for the rollers taking power, it should be highly efficient. I bet something will hit the market in a year or two.
I SWEAR there was a battery FCAW/MIG setup in the late 90s. If I'm recalling this right, it totally flopped due to size/weight/cost and the lack of actual ability to weld.
There's a flux core unit that's popular with the offroad crowd called the Karnage welder.
The spreadsheet view of the IGBTs is that they are used like other transistors, it's just that they have lower losses than a CMOS when used at higher voltage. In a CMOS, you "pay" your losses by a very small resistance in the output, in an IGBT, you "pay" your losses by a fix voltage cost. When designing a bunch of systems consisting of a 300V DC bus and an H-bridge of increasing output current (which describe basically all contenporaneous electronic), there is a point where your output current is high enough that you'd rather "pay your losses" in fixed voltage than in resistance, that's when you go for IGBT's.
About your remark on transformers: For the same power passing through a transformer, the higher the frequency, the smaller the transformer (that's why airplanes use 400Hz). With semiconductors being very cheap, nowadays we don't put 50/60Hz through a transformer for power (we might do it for other reasons, like looking at the grid voltage without risk), we rectify the AC to a DC bus, and switch it in the kHz/MHz range and feed it through a very small transformer.
Thanks for the great information. The transformer frequency vs size is quite amazing. It’s crazy how older machines have giant transformers since they run at 60hz, and modern ones have stupidly small ones since the frequency is manipulated to 400+ hz. I am glad they figured that out since lugging around a 300lb stick welder isn’t much fun lol.
The oscilloscope reading shows 21 microseconds which is equivalent to 47.6 kilohertz. This means that it takes DC power from battery through oscillator (frequency = 47.6 kHz) to make it AC then through a transformer and finally rectifier. Great video! Thanks.
Very interesting. It’s far more complex than I would have thought. The fact it works well is the good part lol. Far better than two car batteries and jumper cables lol.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Something you may not know. Anything that turns DC to AC (at any frequency) using this method is called an inverter. So, this is by definition an Inverter Welder.
The reason it has to go throught the transformer instead of just using PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to turn the battery on and off is the startup voltage. The battery is only at 50V nominal, and that voltage is dependent on state of charge. So, it has to boost the voltage up to 90V.
Thank you for the video.
It would be interesting to see a TIG welding on this device.
I will be testing the tig on video in the next few weeks. It works really good and has some really nice features. The big thing to me is at the end of a weld you can just increase the arc gap and it shuts off the arc. It allows you to not blow out weld ends and keep the gas shielding on the weld end (vs snapping out of it or hitting buttons).
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Great! Also intresting how it can couple with thin/thick stainless steel.
Of course much of the details of How it Works, are proprietary, much like you don’t find many details on wiring diagrams or engineering docs available to the general public just like ESAB, Lincoln and Miller will only provide block diagrams etc. I’m sure repair facilities can access more detailed schematics, but like most service providers, they pay a lot of money for those documents, and it is their bread and butter, so you’re unlikely to find it out on the internet.
That being said, I have done some investigative metering and O-scoping of my Miller 215, and I can tell you that there are multiple frequencies being used to Sense what the arc/welder is doing. Example the Miller has a very low OCV, but there is a high frequency circuit monitoring the electrode relative to the working ground and the moment the low voltage goes Low due to the electrode touching (shorting) to the work piece, almost instantaneously the machine goes to Full Power for the settings you have dialed in, and makes adjustments continuously based on feedback.
Yet there is still a square wave in the DC current that at least my Miller varies around 15KHz and pulses the DC current. I think it also tells the welder aka Feedback, about things like Arc Gap or DIG or Hot Start features etc. and makes thousands of circuit adjustments per second to refine (adapt) to your arc characteristics i.e. Style so to speak.
In addition, this maximizes battery life by not drawing a continuous current. The square wave is a form of PWM (pulse wave modulation) which extremely efficient (unlike a resistor that wastes energy in the form of heat like you said) is what makes IGBT welders so efficient.
I’m no expert either, and I may be wrong, but I’m thinking there is an IGBT module(s) in that welder, like it’s Inverter Cousins, but without the usual AC input that gets rectified in to DC, or in other words, they have substituted the batteries for the output of and AC Bridge Rectifier. Obviously they have cutout as much extraneous equipment as possible to reduce the size and weight.
IMHO, I think you “Nailed It” and like you said, the technology and concepts to make such a thing are getting better everyday, and more and more welders like it will start showing up on the market, therefore eventually driving the costs down.
Personally I think the batteries and their support hardware aka Chargers, are what makes these portable battery powered welders so expensive. Depending on the battery chemistry, LiPO battery charging is hazardous and a high tech process of its own.
The sad part is it won’t be long before the market is flooded with Cheap Knockoffs.
Post comment, I learned these welders use the safer LiFePo4 batteries. However they are still a High Power Density power source, and to be treated with extreme caution as Greg demonstrates.
Good job Greg.
Note: still not getting emails.
LiFePo4 batteries are much safer than regular lithium ion batteries.
Thank You for your comment, i made a bad assumption as to which battery chemistry Fronius used in this particular machine. I still fear cheap knockoffs would use standard LiPo technology. I was unaware they were using the safer LiFePo4 technology, and I edited my comment accordingly.
Interesting observation of your welder. Have you noticed anything strange on the output as far as frequency beyond what you mentioned? I have done a lot of welding with the same 215 you have and it has an odd sound to the arc when mig welding. It welds exceptionally well but the actual arc sound is almost crispy, closer to flux core. I was playing with settings and it consistently sounded different than I am used to. I still haven’t used the tig end of it, I will be tomorrow on a frame repair.
I have setup a new email, the one my TH-cam account was linked to is dead. I sent a reply from making mistakes, however you apparently didn’t get it. I will respond from a different email as soon as I can. I have only been using my phone for over a month and needless to say I have had a lot of issues. Like for my tweezer giveaway, I only received a couple emails even though there were many more winners. I have reached out to others and haven’t received anything in return. There is definitely something going on.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Yes I have noticed that odd sound, and I have been wanting to ask if you think your 215 sounds odd too. I am so relieved to hear you say that, and it’s not just me noticing this oddity, because for a while, I was worried there was something wrong with my welder.
Everyone talks about the usual MIG “frying bacon” sound, but mine never has, and after we talked about how frequency controls/determines the output of IGBT welder. I started doing some research, thinking why has nobody else noticed this odd sound (more hissing like FC or spray arc) the 215 makes while MIG welding on any of the various welding forums etc. So I decided to hook up my O-scope and see if there was something I could see. The short answer is YES, but it’s not easy to filter down to the underlying frequencies. The welder puts out a really fast square wave, and within that square wave there are other frequencies. I think the DC power is basically a PWM square wave, but on that same square wave there seems to be a much higher (I estimate 10 times higher) frequency that I think Miller is using as a Feedback Sensing frequency to help compensate for things like contact to work distance aka Stickout and I have seen it in its Stick welding too perhaps for Arc Gap compensation. Then there is a 3rd frequency of the short circuit aspect aka the frying bacon sound of the wire shorting at many hundreds of times per second. It’s a messy picture on the O-scope and it’s hard to filter out/ separate the 3. I made a simple filter for the O-scope to help filter that 3rd short circuit portion and look more at the PWM for the current, and also see the high frequency sensing portion. I would be happy to send you what I made, and in fact that was my original intent when I built the filter, was to send it to you. It’s basically 2 resistors and a capacitor to cheap a Low band Pass filter, and I put it in a project box with in/out BNC connectors for your oscope.
I sent some emails with O-scope screenshots, but apparently they didn’t get thru. It’s very interesting what’s going on, and I can only guess why Miller does this, and I’m sure it’s proprietary technology that improves the welding characteristics, and compensates for the human side of the equation.
Thank You for letting me know there is/was a problem with the email. I was getting worried.
Here in EU Fronius is a standard of industrial welding quality and reliability. Top machine plants (Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Liebherr) using Fronius welding power sources on their assembly lines.
So, you paid a lot for excellent device, i'm sure you wouldn't regret.
ESAB is superior, and has been in manufacturing longer than Fronius has existed. One of these companies knows their core competency and sticks to it. The other is looking for solutions for their products.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option no it's not. Fronius on 3 head above esab. Ford also older than Ferrari and what does it mean? It's different standarts of quality for different customers with different price.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option ESAB makes their welders straight from china. Keep those ignorant opinions to yourself
What an exciting review. You previously mentioned a follow-up episode about the TIG capability and remarked on its comparison with ESAB Renegade but preferred Fronius in the TIG setup. It would be interesting if you could share your thoughts. Cheers.
I will be doing a tig demonstration with it shortly. It is a very good tig welder. They were very smart in the design of it, it’s the most functional lift tig welder I have ever used.
The blue blocks do appear to be caps. I didn’t stop the video to look closely, but I did briefly see what I believe to be 4 microfarads.
Those Mosfets (for low voltage, so probably 80-100V from the battery, IGBT is useless) are directly embedded into the PCB under that heatsink structure to the left of the PCB. Low voltage power electronics are a particularly interesting field. Muss less fussy than high voltage stuff, you can do some really sleek engineering with low voltage high power. Why do i know this? Infineon designed this with Fronius and was showing the PCB off at the 2024 PCIM power electronics trade fair and conference in Germany :) Had a good long look at it.
Awesome Info 😀. I will now be looking up more info on that. It’s nice to know how stuff works.
Something like this would be great for the small service jobs out in the field .
I have a callout tomorrow where I need to cut off a gate catch , space it and reweld . 5 min weld job but 10 min to get the power run.
Yep exactly. I repaired some busted up fences and a gate last week with it. I would have had to drag 150’ of welding leads, fired up the air pack 500 diesel welder on my truck, and likely blown a hole through the fence post because I had to weld it at 38amps. Go back to the truck and screw with the amperage multiple times to get it right. Or just roll up with the welder and knock it out in minutes with zero frustration lol.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg
I've been looking into generators lately. Here in South Africa we get power cuts due to lack of maintenance on the power grids and corruption in government 🤦
Lol , the joys of Africa 😂
skipped around, so i may have missed it. but you didn't talk much about that battery. what kind is it? voltage? also what does the sticker on the charger say about output voltage and amps?
So the battery is individual cells, I believe they are 26650s or bigger. The writing on them had nothing I could find to track what they are (I can only partially see them). The battery voltage is 52.8 and is 7.5 amp hour. The charger itself is rated at 1100watt input and output is rated at 58v 18amp.
It takes DC in then via an inverter makes it into High Frequency AC this goes through a transformer to increase the voltage then rectified back to DC - hence the HF coils and large poly capacitors
What I wonder is though, where is the transformer? The copper coil in the upper right of the machine is a single wire, and it’s on the output (likely used to smooth out the D/c. The coil in the upper left appears to be a single wire in/out too. I dont see anything that has a secondary winding. I will have to do some investigation.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Because no isolation is needed, probably using a boost converter instead of a transformer. These just use coils and diodes.
@@mattsan70 To follow up on your comment, here's how those work.
First the basics. Capacitors resist changes in voltage, and inductors resist changes in current.
You have two modes a boost converter swaps between. One where there's current flowing from the battery, through the inductor, then back to the battery. This "charges" the inductor.* Then the inductor is hooked up to the welding leads, and it starts dumping that current setting whatever voltage is needed to do so.
The capacitors are there to keep the voltage from rising and falling as much as the inductor is switched in and out.
Commonly one side of the inductor, the battery, and a welding lead are always hooked together. Which is why you can't just rectify AC and use one of these. It would be an electrocution hazard. That's the lack of "isolation" being discussed.
* The "charge" is stored in the inductor's magnetic field.
nice video man. i dont have the accupocket but ive got three other fronius welders and theyre great. not sure i could buy any other brand after using fronius the last couple years
This was my first fronius welder and won’t be my last. Just using it has made me rethink using miller for tig. I am pretty disappointed with my latest model dynasty, it’s in the repair shop for a 3rd time. It lacks polish in the software, it’s been unreliable, and I think swapping to fronius would be the way to go.
have u registered the machine on fronius site yet ? the included paper work should say how to do it if i recall
Nice Video GreGie
Does anyone have a fronius cu600 cooler? I'm building my own cooler for a magicwave 230i and I've already figured out how to turn on the pump and fan but I need a few pictures of the cooler harness to figure out how the flow and temperature sensor and coolant level are connected. Can anyone help me because there are no pictures or diagrams on the internet?
Could you share how it works, how much welding can be done on 1
Charge?
In video part one I talk more about it in depth, the link is in the description (I can’t link it from my phone for some reason it won’t copy it). Welding wise it can do 8 7018 1/8th rods and up to 18 3/32 7018s. I run 6010 on it for field repairs and have found it runs 16-17 3/32 6010s on a full charge, which is good because they take more voltage to run. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s more than enough for a lot of small jobs and you can run it off any outlet to charge while you weld. At 10-11a pulled I could literally weld all day on random repairs off any outlet.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg thank you, your must distinguished host, that machine is 5K that is about 1/2 years earnings hence wantingto lear weldding and watchingyourmus gracious videos
"If you're going to be dumb, at least be somewhat smart"... Dad, is that you? I'm fully expecting 30 years of milk and cigarettes now that I've found you again 😉😂
Haha. My father used to say that to me all the time. The last time I remember him saying that he was standing on a plastic bucket as a ladder. I told him that wasn’t a smart idea, and he told me “it might be dumb, but I am being smart about it”. Seconds later the bucket broke through the top and he was on the ground. I busted out laughing 😅
That waveform looks similar to that of an ignition coil in a car.
Interesting. At first I thought it capturing my long/short arcing of the rod but it was way to fast. Short circuit Migs output looks just like it, because the wire shorts out and the voltage drops many times a second.
The charger looks like a small welding machine in terms of DC power delivery.
Those high current Li ion cells are rather expensive , adding to the overall price-tag.
No doubt they do. Hopefully as better cells drop in price the welders come down in price. I would like to see the same size unit be atleast 10ah (it’s 7.5) and cost under 1800$ (3-4.5k now).
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Just curious - How well does it TIG?
I would love to see if you can hit duty cycle running 120a.
So I did a bunch of welding with my
Buddy while it was plugged into the wall. I must have ran 22-24 1/8th rods with a little bit of rest between them. When I was done it was almost fully charged and not on thermal shut down. Fronius rates duty cycle at 105 degrees, which at 65 it would be much better than rating. I know the rods I ran were over the specified duty cycle (granted it was far cooler out than their test.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg awesome! I got a killer deal on ebay for one and I am super excited to get it, I was just a little worried about duty cycle..
Greg, have you ever tried laser welding?
I have not but I have been studying it. I had thoughts about buying a setup but the benefits to cost are pretty slim outside of production work. The biggest issue with it from my perspective (besides limited metal thickness for low end units) is the requirements for protection from the light source. To do it legally in a business and compliant with osha is no joke. It’s not as simple as putting a tarp up and calling it good lol.
Any relation between you and AvE?
He does have a sawzall of mine (he tore it apart in a video), has a similar “up north” accent, and is equally autistic. Brother from another mother I guess lol.
do you think it would be possible to modify a consumer grade welder (that uses AC) to run off a battery bank (DC)?
i live off grid. it's very easy and affordable for me to create a large DC battery bank. and to charge it with solar. i can build a 14kWh 48vdc battery for $1400 or less. and that thing can deliver 14kW continuous.
what's expensive for me, is turning that DC power source into AC with a huge inverter, just to have it turned back into DC again for welding! a 6000w split phase 240vac inverter is $1500. and is just barely big and rugged enough to run consumer grade welders. a 12,000w split phase 240vac inverter is closer to $4k.
i don't want to weld with 2 or 3 car batteries in series and a makeshift inductor. i want to use my huge lithium battery bank + modern welding features! can you see a way to do this affordably?
This is an interesting question and right up my alley. Here are my thoughts: the practicality of what you’re talking about is going to be tough. All modern inverter welders that run on a/c more or less convert the a/c into D/c and then convert the d/c to a high frequency a/c to feed a transformer, which then gets turned back into d/c. Despite all that being done it’s actually fairly efficient. The problem is you would basically need to directly power the igbt that feeds the transformer with battery dc for it to work. Since the welders are manipulating the ac fed into the transformer (in frequency, wave form, and voltage) to produce different outputs you can’t bypass the transformer or the driver of it. If you were to reverse engineer initial a/c to d/c stage, determine what voltage it outputs, and what (if any) dc waveform it has, you might be able to replicate it via batteries. I don’t believe this would be nearly as efficient as what fronius or esab does with their battery powered welders but it could work.
This is something I might consider experimenting with, I would have to find the right welder to try this with. The battery powered welders are all over 3k (esab, fronius, and now Lincoln has one on the way) so even that’s an expensive option. I need to spend a bunch of time looking at what schematics I can find and I am sure I can find a way to make something work. I can tell you that you would likely find more success with a wire process than stick. Google “ready welder” to see dc powered welders. They work pretty good. The reason they are able to function well is due to how wire processes work. Stick and tig are constant current and require high amperage that’s regulated. Wire processes amperage is regulated by how fast you feed wire. It’s far easier to limit voltage to 20-24 volts and not worry about amperage than trying to regulate amperage to say 120.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg i'd be very keen to know what you find! if the grid AC is rectified to a single steady DC voltage (maybe around 90V?), i can definitely make a high voltage DC battery way cheaper than buying a 12kw split phase inverter.
from what i can tell, readywelders ($800+) are too expensive vs the path i'm already on, of just sucking it up and buying the $1500 inverter (the $1500 inverter has other uses beyond just welding). also MIG welding is already possible for me to do with a cheaper $400-$500 off-grid inverter. stick is where the big expensive inverter is needed. if i find a cheap used readywelder though i'll definitely buy one!
Can I get a link or info on your oscilloscope please.
It’s a battery powered unit I picked up on Amazon, search for FNIRSI-1013D-Plus-Oscilloscope and it should come up. I find it works pretty well for random jobs I need it for.
Treat Especialle 😁
Too bad they didnt use Ego 56v or Greenworks 80v batteries so you could just swap them when they ran low.
So the esab volt runs on dewalt drill batteries with that type of setup. I like the idea, but the limitation of it is the batteries have to be pulled out to charge. If you had a whole extra set of 4 dewalt batteries you could swap them out and continue welding, but that’s a huge expense. Once the batteries are dead you can’t weld. With the fronius you can charge while welding which is far more convenient I think. I actually burned 30 1/8th rods on the fronius on a job last week and never dipped below half charge because it was charging off a socket while I welded. If someone could implement a charge while welding feature on drill battery powered setup that would be great.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg The thing with the Ego / Greenworks, Ryobi 40V is that it's only one or two batteries instead of 4. It does suck to have to swap them out, but those of us with a battery powered lawnmower, chainsaw, and other tools are going to have at least one extra.
I can see the appeal of the Dewalt ones for corporate customers especially. Which is likely why ESAB went that direction. Think about how many construction, plumbing, etc... companies use Dewalt. The hand tools, run on Dewalt, the table saw could be running on Dewalt, and now the welder as well.
Sucks for portability, but it can be carried on a truck/van.
Those battery packs use Lithium polymer batteries, size 18650. They have typically 3.7V discharge and 4.2V maximum charging voltage. If i understood, The battery pack in the Fronius uses the more robust LiFePo4 batteries, 3.3V nominal running/discharge voltage and maybe 3.7V maximum charging voltage. The common physical sizes are comparable to AA for the Lithium Polymer and extended length type “C” for the LiFePo4 batteries. The biggest difference, though is that the latter ones don’t present the same fire hazard as the polymer ones do. Additionally, they have more”industrial level” charge/discharge ratings, i.e. longer life.
@@InssiAjaton Individual cell size and chemistry is sort of off topic though. Especially since not all tool batteries use 18650 Li-ions.
It's more on the pros and cons of tool batteries to run a welder.
I made new aluminum hinges on my lathe and welded them on with my Python push-pull today for the local Massey dealer's trailer.They left a little POS diesel with a loader and forks to 'help' in case I need it.The fuel tank was full,so now my neighbor down the road is cutting his grass with it,because why not-lol
Lithium batteries need to have intelligent charging *AND* battery-managing systems.
As for the charger, it probably can handle anywhere between 100 volts (Japan) to 240 (England, some other European countries.). All they need to customize then is the cord, much like a Grin Tech “Satiator” charger…
Thanks for the info. Thats pretty smart on their behalf to make it that adaptable. It will be interesting to see how long the unit lasts. Considering it seems to use a standard cell type and not a proprietary sealed pouch it should be fairly economical to replace it when the time comes. I just wish the whole setup was cheaper so more people could take advantage of it.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg You'd think so, but the big cost to battery replacement isn't pouch vs cells, it's the labor, and how the cells are fixed in place.
The newer Tesla's also use cells instead of pouches, but they're epoxied in to the point it's cheaper to buy a whole new pack than try and replace any of the cells.
If you're gonna be dumb, be somewhat smart about it 🤣🤣
Yep, that’s the motto I live by 😅😅