shout out for making something that so perfectly gives off that vibe of "i found this in my grandpas old shop and have no idea what it is but it seems scary"
What you want for your welder's cables is funnily enough called Welding Cable. It uses much finer strands then typical wire and EPDM or neoprene insulation for greatly improved flexibility. FYI it is also great for use in high power rv dc power systems because it's much easier to route and work with in confined spaces.
You can also use silicone cable from eBay etc (maybe 8GA?), car jumper cables, or the wire they use for high power audio amplifiers. The silicone cable from eBay will be the most flexible (by far).
@@johncoops6897 I agree. Probably much cheaper. The key is using oxygen free copper or ofc with silicone insulation. Stay away from copper clad aluminum or ccl, it will also usually be cheaper than the ofc
@@georgec1979 - Don't be so silly. This is very low frequency AC so _"Electron flow happens primarily on the surface of the wire strands"_ is just rubbish. Where do people pick up this idiotic ideas, Audiofool Forums? EDIT TO ADD: At 60 Hz in copper, the skin depth is about 8.5 mm. So, unless each *strand* in the cable is greater than 17mm (about 3/4") the skin effect is totally irrelevant.
@@Moonsauc3 - no need to worry about "Oxygen Free" or similar marketing rubbish. Plain old copper is what you need - oxygen is useful stuff in the air you breathe, but isn't significant in power cables. The conductivity of common C11000 Copper (ETP) and higher-cost C10200 oxygen-free (OF) Copper is identical. The extremely expensive C10100 grade OFC used in cryogenics is only 1% higher conductivity (insignificant)
@@johncoops6897 it's not the conductivity that I was concerned about, it's about the rigidity of the wire itself. The ccl is much more stiff than pure copper. Plus it doesn't break as easily over time.
"Transformers are electromancy" *Proceeds to build and program a solid state arduino controlled curcuit capable of handling a massive amount of current supplied by a basic single phase step-down transformer that works on the very first try*
@@Gcrilla It's not even controlling the primary. It's controlling the relay that is controlling the primary. Much like an ogre, electrowizardry has layers.
We are so here for this kind of fabricobbling content! It's always a joy to watch. Seeing you comment about security Torx fasteners gives many of us AvE vibes. 😁👍
It's funny who you'll meet in a youtube comment section. Watched your videos years ago and suddenly you show up on InRange and now here. It's indeed a small world or rather there's only little quality content.
Hey Robert, I have looked through your arduino code and I think it might be worth adding a safety feature to it. Currently, you're checking if the button is pressed on every loop of the program and activating the relay if that is the case. So if you hold the button pressed in all the time, the relay will activate again and again on every loop of the program. As a result, if you set the activation time low enough and/or don't release the button quickly enough, the relay will activate multiple times. You might want to add some code, to check if the button had been released and pressed in again, so it would only activate the relay once for every button press. Might save you from burning up the connections you want to spot weld and save you from a fire, in case the button gets stuck pressed in. Anyway, great project, you might have convinced me to try it myself. There have been times when I wished I had a battery spot welder, but not often enough to go out and actually buy one and I've been hesitant to make it myself.
if(isButtonPressed()) { activateRelay(300); //hard coded during development delay (500); //debounce delay while (isButtonPressed()) { //this while loop hangs until the button is released for the next activation // Do nothing } } }
Actually also tuning a 3D printer can be a pain in the ash. Filament and slicing settings can offset even more than the tolerances in normal substraction manufacturing
"Excessive Mahogany" - it's interesting to see the different region TH-camrs with their different locally available excessive species. In the vague hope that you'll see this - I just thought I should mention that your regular channel is not featured on this channel! I actually came for the woodworking content and now suddenly I'm watching a guy deconstruct a bus, but it took me months until the algorithm told me about the other channel!
Just FYI: if you can, it's better to remove the secondary without cutting the transformer open (you can for example cut the winding in half and punch it out) because if you break the core you'll never weld it together perfectly and it's gonna change both the inductance of the primary and in general increase the loss of the transformer. You can see this in the video when the transformer vibrates really loudly and draws a lot of current even with no load
The channel might be called Under Dunn, but I'd say that spot welder might be Over Dunn. Makes me want to make one now, even though I have no use for one.
you seem to have an endless supply of mahogany. When we get the next tour of the woodshop, I expect to see the only mahogany French cleat wall in existence.
The audio edit about 4 minutes in, with the sound of it being on only stopping when you touched the transformer, but you had it unplugged the entire time, is pure genius. Thank you for being you and trusting us enough sharing it.
You should have made the arduino play some short annoying tune every time it has produced a welding pulse. It helps in remembering that tune for the rest of your life when seeing a battery pack.
Until 9:15 I was wondering where the mahogany in the title was going to be used. Awesome spot welder! Amazing how we now typically use Arduinos where we used to use a simple 555 timer or even a single transistor with an r-c circuit to time it. But then, it wouldn't have worked the first time.
@@sugarbooty I meant the scenario in which the uC would get blown up, both more expensive and time consuming to repair than just swapping socketed 555 or smtg.
With a program like VCarve or Aspire, you can easily CNC parts from 3D printer models. There is no reason your handle or button grip should not be a matching wood for your case.
Fusion 360 would do the same job, and Robert's clearly familiar with the software. I was also thinking that he (you, Robert) could've designed his circuit in Fusion 360 and had a PCB made especially for the spot welder, all within Fusion 360. Then it would've been COMPLETELY OTT.
@@tomconway6808 It's hard to cut square corners with a spinning router bit, so there would be a lot of hand-finishing to make the two sides of the boxjoint interface correctly (unless he also applied a corresponding convex 3d profile to the fingers of the boxjoint).
Well I think some of the better electric cars you have sitting around are going to get functional better battery upgrades soon and you have a cool new toy to do it with, a win win in my book. Wish I'd watched this sooner but glad I finally did, that was fun to watch and maybe you get a microwave upgrade 😉👍
I made one a year ago and used it to cobble a 18V 18650 bosch battery for dirt cheap. Almost the exact same setup as yours just it featured a foot switch which i also made from microwave relay from doors lol
Cool, I've used a wine bottle box and instead of cutting the core I've sawed off one end of high voltage coin and pushed it out. For the switch I've used a "wall mounted" 230V spring loaded light/doorbell switch bolted to a plank so that I can operate it with a foot.... Although I've never made a spot welder head, instead I've used it to heat wire to cut Styrofoam. And for melting stuff :)
@@nyetloki And what's a classic door bell if not an electromagnet pulling the bell hammer? But sure, these are drawing milliamps so wear of the contacts is minimal. On the other hand same switch design, lacking only a spring is used for light switches and some lights, e.g. linear fluorescent are inductive loads.
@@nyetloki That's a tricky question because the switch is rated for 10 A with no mention of type of load. That switch, in a regular light switch variant which only lacks a spring could be used to switch dozens of linear fluorescent tubes with magnetic ballasts which will be below 10 A, but would be definitely an inductive load. I think it would wear out prematurely.
Any time I hear microwave transformer, I get incredibly nervous! Looks like you did a great job, and didn't hurt yourself (at least that you've shown on video!)
We used to say that the most dangerous thing in the world is a programmer with a soldering iron… and that was before people started tearing apart microwave ovens. Nice job!
The joy of making useful tools, I also enjoy making tools by myself instead of buying them if I can make that happen, so thanks to you for that, I have all the necessary parts and going to start as soon.
I think that it's great that you show your mistakes, makes your videos more enjoyable to watch knowing you're human like most of us! Plus I learn best from making mistakes! Keep up the good work!
Safety note about solid state relays. They always pass voltage! Not an issue with 2v, but when I used one to control the heater on an electric hot tub I was introduced to 240vac several times. Mind you it's in the single digit milliamps but still not fun.
If the load is 240VAC (in North America) you would need 2 SSR's, 1 in each power lead to isolate the load as there would be a path through the load (presumably resistive heat elements) to the unswitched line. With 240VAC, (sometimes called 2 phase) there is 115VAC to ground on each line.
I forgot you mentioned this channel. I only found it on this video when watching videos on batteries. Now I get to hear you talk about more stuff. I don't know why but I enjoy your style of videos.
This is a masterpiece and I loved the humour involved in it's making, but I particularly liked the unintentional Teckno music effect when making the box joints.
Great content. I specially liked the notice at the end saying that the most important thing is the spot welder itself, and not the fancy box and all the tools needed to build it. People often do not make difference between a TH-cam channel and real life.
I built a much less fancy version of yours a few months ago. To anyone wanting to make a much worse but still functional version, I used 1/8 copper rod with points ground on it for the electrodes and used only an arduino and a push button switch. To adjust the timing, I make changes in the arduino code. It’s much worse but for my purposes the timing can pretty much be set and forgot. Another tip is if you don’t want to (or in my case couldn’t) disassemble the transformer, you have another option. I used a saws all to carefully cut each end of the secondary winding flush with the iron body of the transformer and then used a 3/8 drill bit to drill out as much as I could. With the majority of the material removed, it was easy to punch out the rest with a flathead screwdriver. Also if you mostly work on cars and small electronics, remember to switch your meter to ac before checking the transformer. That took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out.
If you put a dark piece of semi-transparent plastic in front of the display, it will show the numbers more clear. You can also use something like paper. The point is that you are blocking the ambient light from lighting up the unlit segments and letting the lit segments "blast" through the darkened "glass".
Oh man, this is giving me flashbacks. I used to work at Batteries Plus store, and we would rebuild battery packs for customers. Most of the time it was things like odd drill pack batteries which are just a bunch of Sub-C's spot welded together. Our machine had a foot lever lever that that would lower the probe and trigger it; I swear it had a bicycle pedal on it. I don't know why, but there was some finesse to it, if you pressed down too hard you would "pop" the weld. You're set up with the trigger looks much easier!
If you want to go Super Fancy with your power cords, you can get IEC power cord (think "computer power cord") receptacles off of a bunch of different things, and the hole shape is cad file is easy to find.
Awesome project! Tip: when I need heavy gage wire that is flexible, I use welding cable, it's available down to 6 awg from McMaster and can handle mass quantities of amps. Edit: What Robert built reminds me of the transformers plumbers use to thaw out frozen copper pipes, 120V in, 6 Volts out but high amps continuous. Not sure if the amperage would be high enough to spot weld though, but would be cool to try. The Arduino is neat too, but probably overkill for the application. I think a 555 r/c timer circuit would have done as well. But hey, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!
With the heavy gauge wire he's used for the new coil, it might have been very difficult to thread the new coils in without damaging the insulation. He might also have a use in mind for the finer wires of the old secondary.
My MOT spot welder gets _very_ hot. Mind you I weld light gauge sheet metal. But still, that's a lot of current in that wire, and once you start tacking a lot of batteries, give it time to cool down between batches.
A great build a s usual, and good fun. Just for information: hundreds of amps available on the secondary at just a couple of volts cannot kill. You could lick those points and only feel a tingle (I've done it with a couple of jump leads pn a car battery - to prove a point) and ...if you don't have a welder to weld the transformer laminations back together you can't really do it with epoxy - the magnetic flux/eddy currents won't be able to flow properly (but with a bit for fiddling you can cut out the old secondary and fit the new turns of the thick wire without cutting up the laminations). Will
I don't know if I've watched too much of these, but my first reaction when I saw the box-joint jig was a "did he mess this up". I know this is pure torture, but I'd like you to know that "twas was for naught" as some twisted person half-way around the got a hefty chuckle out of this and the first smile of the day :D I short, a humble thank you!
Cutting out the box joints reminded me of the song Doubt by Delphic Also, brushed vacuum headers for CNC machines don't last all that long and don't look nice for most of their life cycle. When they get all messed up just replace them with stiff enough silicone sheets spliced near the bottom - works perfectly and stays decent for years.
Super super nice episode !! Here you get different elements, such as electronics, some data coding, welding current, and wood work. Stop saying you're an idiot, because you are not. I look forward to more such episodes, it's fun and you are very skilled, and now I have to work on my own projects... .. and as before, fantastic video editing!
I'm sure one could have a very simple timer circuit run from a 555 or something similar with a potentiometer to control pulse time to avoid all the programming malarkey.
For people who are allergic to Arduinos, a 555 timer IC and a handful of penny parts can do the exact same thing. You won't get the fancy 7 segment LED display, but a trim pot and a dial works just as well.
Well, if you hadn't gone that fancy with the woodworking, then you couldn't have posted it to your woodworking channel! I love it, what a great device you made and you survived to upload the tale!
Maybe someone else has said this, but 2.2V and 600A is not enough to kill someone, at least not through electrocution. Human skin has pretty high resistance and 2.2V is far too low to overcome that resistance. Otherwise, people could be easily electrocuted by standard AA batteries (1.5V nominal). You could even put your hands directly on the terminals of a 12V car battery (which can also put out in excess of 1000A for short periods) and you won’t feel a thing. I know that the AC switching frequency can also have an effect on whether or not a shock is perceptible, but either way, 2V is too low to get shocked let alone be lethal. Love the overkill enclosure and the DIY nature of this channel. I hope to be able to do something similar in the future.
Idea you can use* for merch, in shirt form, for ease of explaining: top line: "The Main" line 2: "Component" picture of the rewired transformer line 3: "Of The" line 4: "Barbecue" line 5: "Taser"
If you don't want to use a digital controller but still want automatic pulse control, you could use a capacitor, a potentiometer, an op-amp, and a latch to control the relay. You wouldn't get a digital indicator but you could use printed/embossed/whatever numbers around the potentiometer knob.
This was an epic video because the first part is ripping apart appliances, then we learn about Transformers/magnetism/induction theory(sort of), then we learn programming/electronics and finally we get to do custom wood working 😂😂 You've basically described my garage in a nutshell. 😊😊👍👍
i built a microwave oven transformer power supply a few years ago. i went a little crazy with my wire and used some 0ga wire. got ~2.2v and dead short, measure out at 1360 amps. just used it a couple weeks ago to weld up some tabs on some 18650's to make a battery pack. best FREE.99 i ever spent.
This is so cool, unfortunately I always get hopelessly lost when electrical projects are intertwined with electronics because I do not understand or know anything about electronics, electronic parts and components, circuit boards, electronic wiring or how to make any of it work in conjunction with electrical hardware. It is a very nice knowledge to possess and it sure does turn your electrical tools into very safe, controllable and refined tools. Wish I understood any of it.
At least you welded it after you cut it, built a few of these and a cleaner way of removing the winding is to cut the copper flush with the body of the transformer, then use a punch and hammer and start going to town on it. Also there are parts for the timer that you can grab off the shelf if you don't want to mess with arduino. you can also ditch the timer, replace it with a light dimmer and electrodes for a stainless steel blade and you have a hot knife with temp control.
I love watching you build and make things, and especially happy for you having success early on. You've made a nice workshop and some great creations come out of it. Absolutely love your attitude and personality. Nice job on the spot welder and good luck for the next stage :)
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
shout out for making something that so perfectly gives off that vibe of "i found this in my grandpas old shop and have no idea what it is but it seems scary"
you mean like the arc welder i inherited from my grandfather that has cloth covered wires?
What you want for your welder's cables is funnily enough called Welding Cable. It uses much finer strands then typical wire and EPDM or neoprene insulation for greatly improved flexibility. FYI it is also great for use in high power rv dc power systems because it's much easier to route and work with in confined spaces.
You can also use silicone cable from eBay etc (maybe 8GA?), car jumper cables, or the wire they use for high power audio amplifiers. The silicone cable from eBay will be the most flexible (by far).
@@johncoops6897 I agree. Probably much cheaper. The key is using oxygen free copper or ofc with silicone insulation. Stay away from copper clad aluminum or ccl, it will also usually be cheaper than the ofc
@@georgec1979 - Don't be so silly. This is very low frequency AC so _"Electron flow happens primarily on the surface of the wire strands"_ is just rubbish. Where do people pick up this idiotic ideas, Audiofool Forums?
EDIT TO ADD: At 60 Hz in copper, the skin depth is about 8.5 mm. So, unless each *strand* in the cable is greater than 17mm (about 3/4") the skin effect is totally irrelevant.
@@Moonsauc3 - no need to worry about "Oxygen Free" or similar marketing rubbish. Plain old copper is what you need - oxygen is useful stuff in the air you breathe, but isn't significant in power cables.
The conductivity of common C11000 Copper (ETP) and higher-cost C10200 oxygen-free (OF) Copper is identical. The extremely expensive C10100 grade OFC used in cryogenics is only 1% higher conductivity (insignificant)
@@johncoops6897 it's not the conductivity that I was concerned about, it's about the rigidity of the wire itself. The ccl is much more stiff than pure copper. Plus it doesn't break as easily over time.
"Transformers are electromancy"
*Proceeds to build and program a solid state arduino controlled curcuit capable of handling a massive amount of current supplied by a basic single phase step-down transformer that works on the very first try*
That is technomancy. Technomancy is totally different from EElectromancy.
Technically, it's controlling the primary which isn't a massive amount of current.
But it is indeed wizardry
@@Gcrilla It's not even controlling the primary. It's controlling the relay that is controlling the primary. Much like an ogre, electrowizardry has layers.
The machine spirit wills it today -Random Adeptus Mechanicus
Black box theory my dude
We are so here for this kind of fabricobbling content! It's always a joy to watch.
Seeing you comment about security Torx fasteners gives many of us AvE vibes. 😁👍
It's funny who you'll meet in a youtube comment section. Watched your videos years ago and suddenly you show up on InRange and now here. It's indeed a small world or rather there's only little quality content.
@@Amarok41 hah, I broke into this comment section because it wasn't locked in a serious way 😉👍
He must not have his attack chicken out.
@@zendell37 indeed, nobody wants to mess with an angry chicken 🐔 😯
Hah, I wouldn't have even looked at the name if it hadn't been for that first reply. I just got roped in by the word "fabricobbling"
Hey Robert, I have looked through your arduino code and I think it might be worth adding a safety feature to it. Currently, you're checking if the button is pressed on every loop of the program and activating the relay if that is the case. So if you hold the button pressed in all the time, the relay will activate again and again on every loop of the program. As a result, if you set the activation time low enough and/or don't release the button quickly enough, the relay will activate multiple times.
You might want to add some code, to check if the button had been released and pressed in again, so it would only activate the relay once for every button press. Might save you from burning up the connections you want to spot weld and save you from a fire, in case the button gets stuck pressed in.
Anyway, great project, you might have convinced me to try it myself. There have been times when I wished I had a battery spot welder, but not often enough to go out and actually buy one and I've been hesitant to make it myself.
if(isButtonPressed()) {
activateRelay(300); //hard coded during development
delay (500); //debounce delay
while (isButtonPressed()) { //this while loop hangs until the button is released for the next activation
// Do nothing
}
}
}
5:30 - You learned tolerances! Hurray! The worst part about taking your beautiful CAD model and bringing it into the real world.
The real world is a jerk..
@@Entarra Meatspace is worst space.
Actually also tuning a 3D printer can be a pain in the ash. Filament and slicing settings can offset even more than the tolerances in normal substraction manufacturing
for the size of those copper chop sticks i would have just given each side a skim with the grinder rather than printing a new one.
''Honey where is our microwave?''
''Funny you mention that, actually...''
Hot in here, or is it just me...
Just swap out the welding tips for skewers and instant kabob cooker!
He put it back and waited for someone to use it and discover it don't work. Then he just went out and bought another one. They will never know.
Spot welder go BZZZZT
"I'm using it"
With how fancy of a box Robert made for his spot welder, I cant wait to see the box that he makes for his batteries!
That's gonna be Sandalwood with Yew Wood accents. 🤣🤣🤣
If he makes it out of wood maybe we can get to see some of the magic smoke. If there's tung/linseed oil it'll be extra coochy.
I am here from the future! He hated it, so he did the Robert thing and made an even more complicated one out of metal and acrylic! :D
"Excessive Mahogany" - it's interesting to see the different region TH-camrs with their different locally available excessive species.
In the vague hope that you'll see this - I just thought I should mention that your regular channel is not featured on this channel! I actually came for the woodworking content and now suddenly I'm watching a guy deconstruct a bus, but it took me months until the algorithm told me about the other channel!
I came for the bus and only found out about this channel because Robert mentioned his "other channel", ie this one.
Even then I had to search for it.
Just FYI: if you can, it's better to remove the secondary without cutting the transformer open (you can for example cut the winding in half and punch it out) because if you break the core you'll never weld it together perfectly and it's gonna change both the inductance of the primary and in general increase the loss of the transformer. You can see this in the video when the transformer vibrates really loudly and draws a lot of current even with no load
Would be cool if he could try this with a different transformer and see how much current it draws without load.
Microwave transformers are purposely lossy. Wasting power with no load was the cheapest way to current limit the magnetron tube.
@@anullhandle Yeah, but still, drawing 10A @120V is a lot of power loss. I don't think they're supposed to waste a kW just sitting there idling
@@gigigigiontis8 yeah that's a cubic butt load. I think they had magnetic shunt pcs in there making them lossy but kw idle is a BIT much :)
Yeah, there was a visible gap where he welded it back together.
"How do you get people to stop using your tools?"
Dude I almost spit out my coffee! Nicely done
The channel might be called Under Dunn, but I'd say that spot welder might be Over Dunn. Makes me want to make one now, even though I have no use for one.
I get the feeling we're going to see a ton more 3D printing in the future. "When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail"
you seem to have an endless supply of mahogany. When we get the next tour of the woodshop, I expect to see the only mahogany French cleat wall in existence.
The audio edit about 4 minutes in, with the sound of it being on only stopping when you touched the transformer, but you had it unplugged the entire time, is pure genius. Thank you for being you and trusting us enough sharing it.
You should have made the arduino play some short annoying tune every time it has produced a welding pulse. It helps in remembering that tune for the rest of your life when seeing a battery pack.
Until 9:15 I was wondering where the mahogany in the title was going to be used. Awesome spot welder! Amazing how we now typically use Arduinos where we used to use a simple 555 timer or even a single transistor with an r-c circuit to time it. But then, it wouldn't have worked the first time.
Having precise control of the timing is nice, although analog has a certain charm to it
Seems like wasteful overkill to me.....
@@sugarbooty u also don't have to spend day reprogramming shit if it blows up.
@@plainedgedsaw1694 it would take me 10 or 20 minutes to program something this simple, and if it blows up its probably not the microcontrollers fault
@@sugarbooty I meant the scenario in which the uC would get blown up, both more expensive and time consuming to repair than just swapping socketed 555 or smtg.
*Easy to assemble **Fastly.Cool*
Scammer
Building cool stuff while exercising self deprecation at the highest level. Awesomeness
I really love how over-under-over-engineered this project is!
With a program like VCarve or Aspire, you can easily CNC parts from 3D printer models. There is no reason your handle or button grip should not be a matching wood for your case.
I was thinking he could have cut his box parts and joints using the CNC as well.
Fusion 360 would do the same job, and Robert's clearly familiar with the software.
I was also thinking that he (you, Robert) could've designed his circuit in Fusion 360 and had a PCB made especially for the spot welder, all within Fusion 360. Then it would've been COMPLETELY OTT.
@@tomconway6808 It's hard to cut square corners with a spinning router bit, so there would be a lot of hand-finishing to make the two sides of the boxjoint interface correctly (unless he also applied a corresponding convex 3d profile to the fingers of the boxjoint).
@@EmyrDerfel Oh duh right.
Well I think some of the better electric cars you have sitting around are going to get functional better battery upgrades soon and you have a cool new toy to do it with, a win win in my book. Wish I'd watched this sooner but glad I finally did, that was fun to watch and maybe you get a microwave upgrade 😉👍
Another Channel where TH-cam recommendations algorithm was eerily spot-on. Enjoyed the info and delivery.
Best "how to" on these DIY welders I've seen.
Make that switch button into a foot switch! You'll really like having a free hand. 13:37 - You will desire!
he could make a handle with the button on it and literally weld with it lol
@@yurmofuggndad - yes, he did not protect in the code against re-triggering, so actually possible! 🤓😁
I made one a year ago and used it to cobble a 18V 18650 bosch battery for dirt cheap. Almost the exact same setup as yours just it featured a foot switch which i also made from microwave relay from doors lol
Hi Robert, I found your channel through the Hackaday blog, super happy they linked it! Having a blast going through your videos, love 'em!
Your edit on cutting the box joints is my favourite part.
Cool, I've used a wine bottle box and instead of cutting the core I've sawed off one end of high voltage coin and pushed it out. For the switch I've used a "wall mounted" 230V spring loaded light/doorbell switch bolted to a plank so that I can operate it with a foot.... Although I've never made a spot welder head, instead I've used it to heat wire to cut Styrofoam. And for melting stuff :)
FYI those switches are not designed for inductive loads AFAIK.
@@nyetloki And what's a classic door bell if not an electromagnet pulling the bell hammer? But sure, these are drawing milliamps so wear of the contacts is minimal. On the other hand same switch design, lacking only a spring is used for light switches and some lights, e.g. linear fluorescent are inductive loads.
@@mibars you think a common doorbell switch is made to handle 1400W inductive loads?
@@nyetloki That's a tricky question because the switch is rated for 10 A with no mention of type of load. That switch, in a regular light switch variant which only lacks a spring could be used to switch dozens of linear fluorescent tubes with magnetic ballasts which will be below 10 A, but would be definitely an inductive load. I think it would wear out prematurely.
I see you're flaunting your TH-camr wealth with all that copper!
As others have mentioned, we're here for the fabricobbling!
"Have you seen the microwave Robert?" **Zap** 'No'
Any time I hear microwave transformer, I get incredibly nervous! Looks like you did a great job, and didn't hurt yourself (at least that you've shown on video!)
Microwave transformers rock. Lichtenberg burning!
Love the way you approach things and your sense of humour!!
The best part of your videos is just how fearless you are! Thanks for sharing.
We used to say that the most dangerous thing in the world is a programmer with a soldering iron… and that was before people started tearing apart microwave ovens.
Nice job!
The joy of making useful tools, I also enjoy making tools by myself instead of buying them if I can make that happen, so thanks to you for that, I have all the necessary parts and going to start as soon.
I think that it's great that you show your mistakes, makes your videos more enjoyable to watch knowing you're human like most of us! Plus I learn best from making mistakes! Keep up the good work!
Safety note about solid state relays. They always pass voltage! Not an issue with 2v, but when I used one to control the heater on an electric hot tub I was introduced to 240vac several times. Mind you it's in the single digit milliamps but still not fun.
If the load is 240VAC (in North America) you would need 2 SSR's, 1 in each power lead to isolate the load as there would be a path through the load (presumably resistive heat elements) to the unswitched line. With 240VAC, (sometimes called 2 phase) there is 115VAC to ground on each line.
I forgot you mentioned this channel. I only found it on this video when watching videos on batteries. Now I get to hear you talk about more stuff. I don't know why but I enjoy your style of videos.
This is a masterpiece and I loved the humour involved in it's making, but I particularly liked the unintentional Teckno music effect when making the box joints.
That was totally intentional. It's way too good.His editing is amazing.
Great content. I specially liked the notice at the end saying that the most important thing is the spot welder itself, and not the fancy box and all the tools needed to build it.
People often do not make difference between a TH-cam channel and real life.
Great craftsmanship there, thank you!
Man, Can you believe his patience and attention to detail. Incredible. truly Incredible.
If you had half as much fun doing it as we had viewing it, you had a lot of fun indeed!
I built a much less fancy version of yours a few months ago. To anyone wanting to make a much worse but still functional version, I used 1/8 copper rod with points ground on it for the electrodes and used only an arduino and a push button switch. To adjust the timing, I make changes in the arduino code. It’s much worse but for my purposes the timing can pretty much be set and forgot. Another tip is if you don’t want to (or in my case couldn’t) disassemble the transformer, you have another option. I used a saws all to carefully cut each end of the secondary winding flush with the iron body of the transformer and then used a 3/8 drill bit to drill out as much as I could. With the majority of the material removed, it was easy to punch out the rest with a flathead screwdriver. Also if you mostly work on cars and small electronics, remember to switch your meter to ac before checking the transformer. That took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out.
I had no idea you were a professional level wood worker. Fantastic work!
If you put a dark piece of semi-transparent plastic in front of the display, it will show the numbers more clear. You can also use something like paper. The point is that you are blocking the ambient light from lighting up the unlit segments and letting the lit segments "blast" through the darkened "glass".
You are absolutely correct having it work the first time is an amazing feeling. Nicely done!
Nice. I didn’t see a fuse in there. Hope ya got one! I’d feel bad if I didn’t say anything
Oh man, this is giving me flashbacks. I used to work at Batteries Plus store, and we would rebuild battery packs for customers. Most of the time it was things like odd drill pack batteries which are just a bunch of Sub-C's spot welded together. Our machine had a foot lever lever that that would lower the probe and trigger it; I swear it had a bicycle pedal on it. I don't know why, but there was some finesse to it, if you pressed down too hard you would "pop" the weld. You're set up with the trigger looks much easier!
If you want to go Super Fancy with your power cords, you can get IEC power cord (think "computer power cord") receptacles off of a bunch of different things, and the hole shape is cad file is easy to find.
Transformers are created by electromancy.
You could also use a mechanical relay timer instead of the Arduino and still get fairly finite control.
But sub second timing with a timer relay is harder and probably more expensive
Awesome project! Tip: when I need heavy gage wire that is flexible, I use welding cable, it's available down to 6 awg from McMaster and can handle mass quantities of amps. Edit: What Robert built reminds me of the transformers plumbers use to thaw out frozen copper pipes, 120V in, 6 Volts out but high amps continuous. Not sure if the amperage would be high enough to spot weld though, but would be cool to try. The Arduino is neat too, but probably overkill for the application. I think a 555 r/c timer circuit would have done as well. But hey, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!
as a welder i can confirm lol
@@yurmofuggndad Beats THHN wire all day long!
The 555 wouldn't have given the pretty display and micro adjustments are often difficult. You are right on a fundamental level, though.
Much easier to just BUY a proper *spot welding controller* from Ebay, Amazon or similar marketplace.
@@johncoops6897 yeah, but where's the fun in that, exactly?
You don't need to cut the transformer apart at all, you can just cut the old secondary coil out.
That's what I've done since falling at my first one!
With the heavy gauge wire he's used for the new coil, it might have been very difficult to thread the new coils in without damaging the insulation. He might also have a use in mind for the finer wires of the old secondary.
You are fun to watch and clear to understand. Congratulations 👍
I like how it's called the 'Zip-Zap' yet looks like a professional modern but tasteful well made box haha.
I understood about 1% of this project but i loved the video all the same! Keep it up man!
I like you, you're hilarious. This video was brilliant, thank you. I more-than-half expected the finger-joint cutting montage to turn into a song.
First “safe” one of these I’ve seen. Nice job
Combination of electrical interest and woodworking. Man after my own heart. Subscribed!
Nice methods and solutions on the box. I can see I am going to have to watch more of your videos.
I hope you still have the remains of that microwave. There are a couple of pretty good magnets in there that you can salvage.
Turntables can be fun for photography or other projects too.
Plus some microswitches that would work well for a foot pedal.
This guy's the best. Best sense of humor too.
Making things that make things are my favourite things to make.
thx for talking about the simplification of it like not needing arduino and stuff
My MOT spot welder gets _very_ hot. Mind you I weld light gauge sheet metal. But still, that's a lot of current in that wire, and once you start tacking a lot of batteries, give it time to cool down between batches.
A great build a s usual, and good fun. Just for information: hundreds of amps available on the secondary at just a couple of volts cannot kill. You could lick those points and only feel a tingle (I've done it with a couple of jump leads pn a car battery - to prove a point) and ...if you don't have a welder to weld the transformer laminations back together you can't really do it with epoxy - the magnetic flux/eddy currents won't be able to flow properly (but with a bit for fiddling you can cut out the old secondary and fit the new turns of the thick wire without cutting up the laminations). Will
I don't know if I've watched too much of these, but my first reaction when I saw the box-joint jig was a "did he mess this up".
I know this is pure torture, but I'd like you to know that "twas was for naught" as some twisted person half-way around the got a hefty chuckle out of this and the first smile of the day :D
I short, a humble thank you!
Can't wait to hear you merge CNC router, the router table, drill, and brad nailer into a rhythmic symphony. Great job!
No comment. Just a +1. But a real, a heartfelt +1 .... lovely.
Thank you for the code. Love the clever wit.
I appreciate you making videos like this mr Dunn. I love watching them.
wow, that enclosure is seriously professional looking, except more stylish! i love it!
I'm getting some real Mattias Wandel vibes from the woodworking, I love it.
Cutting out the box joints reminded me of the song Doubt by Delphic
Also, brushed vacuum headers for CNC machines don't last all that long and don't look nice for most of their life cycle.
When they get all messed up just replace them with stiff enough silicone sheets spliced near the bottom - works perfectly and stays decent for years.
CNC, 3D printing. This is getting fancy! Have fun with the welder!
Super super nice episode !! Here you get different elements, such as electronics, some data coding, welding current, and wood work. Stop saying you're an idiot, because you are not. I look forward to more such episodes, it's fun and you are very skilled, and now I have to work on my own projects... .. and as before, fantastic video editing!
A footpedal would be great to have to actuate it instead of the hand button
OR Grip mounted trigger :-)
I'm sure one could have a very simple timer circuit run from a 555 or something similar with a potentiometer to control pulse time to avoid all the programming malarkey.
Exactly, but honestly, arduino makes it even easier than using a 555 for people that have never used either. More support for arduino, I think.
For people who are allergic to Arduinos, a 555 timer IC and a handful of penny parts can do the exact same thing. You won't get the fancy 7 segment LED display, but a trim pot and a dial works just as well.
Segfaults... That is one seriously nerdy shirt. Respect.
Well, if you hadn't gone that fancy with the woodworking, then you couldn't have posted it to your woodworking channel! I love it, what a great device you made and you survived to upload the tale!
Fabulous. You are a creative genius and so much fun to watch. My mood has been duly lifted. 😊✔
Maybe someone else has said this, but 2.2V and 600A is not enough to kill someone, at least not through electrocution. Human skin has pretty high resistance and 2.2V is far too low to overcome that resistance. Otherwise, people could be easily electrocuted by standard AA batteries (1.5V nominal). You could even put your hands directly on the terminals of a 12V car battery (which can also put out in excess of 1000A for short periods) and you won’t feel a thing. I know that the AC switching frequency can also have an effect on whether or not a shock is perceptible, but either way, 2V is too low to get shocked let alone be lethal.
Love the overkill enclosure and the DIY nature of this channel. I hope to be able to do something similar in the future.
I like how the box jig saw sped up ends up sounding like an 80s synthesizer.
Idea you can use* for merch, in shirt form, for ease of explaining:
top line: "The Main"
line 2: "Component"
picture of the rewired transformer
line 3: "Of The"
line 4: "Barbecue"
line 5: "Taser"
If you don't want to use a digital controller but still want automatic pulse control, you could use a capacitor, a potentiometer, an op-amp, and a latch to control the relay. You wouldn't get a digital indicator but you could use printed/embossed/whatever numbers around the potentiometer knob.
An awesome spot welder project, LOVE IT Rob!
This was an epic video because the first part is ripping apart appliances, then we learn about Transformers/magnetism/induction theory(sort of), then we learn programming/electronics and finally we get to do custom wood working 😂😂 You've basically described my garage in a nutshell. 😊😊👍👍
*I'M GLAD I FOUND THIS CHANNEL!!*
i built a microwave oven transformer power supply a few years ago. i went a little crazy with my wire and used some 0ga wire. got ~2.2v and dead short, measure out at 1360 amps. just used it a couple weeks ago to weld up some tabs on some 18650's to make a battery pack. best FREE.99 i ever spent.
This is so cool, unfortunately I always get hopelessly lost when electrical projects are intertwined with electronics because I do not understand or know anything about electronics, electronic parts and components, circuit boards, electronic wiring or how to make any of it work in conjunction with electrical hardware. It is a very nice knowledge to possess and it sure does turn your electrical tools into very safe, controllable and refined tools. Wish I understood any of it.
Very neat project, Highly desirable. Thanks for sharing.
You’ve really gotten better as a presenter. Great job!
Your Dad has an awesome garage.
For your leads use ofc silicone wire. Really good at high amperage and super flexible!
Magnificent. The first test energized me.
At least you welded it after you cut it, built a few of these and a cleaner way of removing the winding is to cut the copper flush with the body of the transformer, then use a punch and hammer and start going to town on it.
Also there are parts for the timer that you can grab off the shelf if you don't want to mess with arduino.
you can also ditch the timer, replace it with a light dimmer and electrodes for a stainless steel blade and you have a hot knife with temp control.
Mad scientist woodworking!
"and this other box"
*proceeds to lay down a sick beat*
I love watching you build and make things, and especially happy for you having success early on. You've made a nice workshop and some great creations come out of it. Absolutely love your attitude and personality. Nice job on the spot welder and good luck for the next stage :)