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Photos of my homemade TIG torch cooler

M

Mawdeeb

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus26745 said:
I made a homemade TIG torch cooler, from a used carbonator pump from
soda fountains. Pictures of the pump, solid state relay, etc, are
provided.

Also provided are pictures of the innards of my welder.

The story is here:

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Welding/09-Homemade-TIG-Torch-Cooler/
You may get a problem later on with using that solid state relay. They
are not designed for motor inductive loads. It will slowly deteriorate
then short to on condition. A 24v coil relay would be a better choice
for that particular application.

Just a heads up.

Jim Vrzal
Holiday,Fl.
 
I

Ignoramus12686

Jan 1, 1970
0
You may get a problem later on with using that solid state relay. They
are not designed for motor inductive loads. It will slowly deteriorate
then short to on condition. A 24v coil relay would be a better choice
for that particular application.

Jim, would you say that a 30A rated relay would deteriorate when
powering a 1/3 HP motor? If that is the case, I can replace it with a
coil relay, I have many of them.

i
 
I

Ignoramus12686

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus26745 wrote...

Hey, were you planning on cleaning that thing up a bit?
What a filthy mess. Sheesh!

I _did_ a very serious cleanup of this welder. :)

You should have seen it before I vacuumed it. It had solid layers of
compressed dust, dead insects, cobwebs, and who knows what else.

The dirt that remains is stuff that is resistant to vacuuming and
somewhat resistant to scraping. I do not want to use too much force
there.

i
 
W

Winfield Hill

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus12686 wrote...
The dirt that remains is stuff that is resistant to vacuuming
and somewhat resistant to scraping. I do not want to use too
much force there.

Nothing wrong soap, water and a brush in selected areas.
 
J

Jon Elson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus26745 said:
I made a homemade TIG torch cooler, from a used carbonator pump from
soda fountains. Pictures of the pump, solid state relay, etc, are
provided.

Also provided are pictures of the innards of my welder.

The story is here:

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Welding/09-Homemade-TIG-Torch-Cooler/
Hey, I thought you said a couple of weeks ago that it did NOT have HF.
Obviously, in the lower left corner of the pics of the welder's innards,
is the HF section. Maybe you meant it wasn't working, I don't know.
I have to say the inside of my Lincoln Square-Wave TIG 300 is a lot more
organized than the Hobart. There is VERY little wiring in the main
welder section other than the main power cables. All the circuit boards
and interconnect wiring is in an enclosed space behind the control panel.
I'm almost amazed the Hobart works at all with all the control wiring
hanging out near the main power circuitry. (I do notice a big shield
between the HF and the control boards. By the way, you may be
breaking the shielding with your new wires for the cooler. They go
right by the HF section, then up near the control boards. I would not
route them that way.)

Your cooler looks pretty good. I wonder, however, if you get into
serious TIGing, if the heat will build up. I was pretty surprised at how
hot the cooler got on my TIG system after some steel welding. (Actually,
it probably gets hotter on Aluminum with AC, but I am still learning the
techniques there, so I weld for a moment and then look at the part a lot.)
I have a Miller cooler with a big fan-cooled heat exchanger on it. The
exchanger gets hot, and the water in the tank eventually gets pretty warm,
too.

Jon
 
J

Jon Elson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Mawdeeb said:
You may get a problem later on with using that solid state relay. They
are not designed for motor inductive loads. It will slowly deteriorate
then short to on condition. A 24v coil relay would be a better choice
for that particular application.

Well, I've been using an SSR on my air compressor motor (2 Hp, 240 V)
for several
years now without any problem. I did select a 40 A SSR for a motor
drawing a
nominal 11 A to provide a good margin for the starting surge.

Jon
 
C

Chris Jones

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jon said:
Hey, I thought you said a couple of weeks ago that it did NOT have HF.
Obviously, in the lower left corner of the pics of the welder's innards,
is the HF section. Maybe you meant it wasn't working, I don't know.
I have to say the inside of my Lincoln Square-Wave TIG 300 is a lot more
organized than the Hobart. There is VERY little wiring in the main
welder section other than the main power cables. All the circuit boards
and interconnect wiring is in an enclosed space behind the control panel.
I'm almost amazed the Hobart works at all with all the control wiring
hanging out near the main power circuitry. (I do notice a big shield
between the HF and the control boards. By the way, you may be
breaking the shielding with your new wires for the cooler. They go
right by the HF section, then up near the control boards. I would not
route them that way.)
I agree: I would not run any wires into that bottom box (with the HF) if at
all possible, and if I really did need to run wires into that box, I would
keep them clipped to the metal wall so as to be as far as possible from the
HF coils, and to minimise the flux flowing in the loop between the wire and
the metal wall. Certainly don't try putting any of your new circuitry into
that box with the HF. I think the top box looks more promising as a place
for the new circuitry. By the way, you could water-cool the IGBTs, that
works really well as long as you put a safety thermal switch to shut things
down if the water stops. The method I prefer is a slab of copper busbar
maybe 3 inches wide, quarter inch thick and as long as needed to bolt down
all the IGBTs. First drill and tap it for the IGBTs, mounting holes etc.
whilst it's still hard copper and easy to tap. Then use silver solder (not
soft solder but the sort that melts when it is almost red hot) to attach a
zig-zag of maybe quarter inch diameter copper pipe to the back of the
busbar, trying not to get solder into the holes you tapped before. Make
sure that the copper pipe fits well to the back of the busbar before
starting to solder it. I would also recommend making the ends of the
copper pipe long enough so that they protrude outside the welder and there
are no joints in the plumbing inside the welder casing. This way, if you
make the pipes slope downward, then if the joints in the pipework should
leak, the water will stay out of the wiring. You can get rid of several kW
with this sort of water cooling.

Chris
[...]
 
I

Ignoramus12686

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hey, I thought you said a couple of weeks ago that it did NOT have HF.

I probably said that it was not working (which was true). I fixed it
and it is working. I regapped the spark gap also and had to rewire HF
to make it work (the welder was wired for a remote HF device)
Obviously, in the lower left corner of the pics of the welder's innards,
is the HF section. Maybe you meant it wasn't working, I don't know.
I have to say the inside of my Lincoln Square-Wave TIG 300 is a lot more
organized than the Hobart. There is VERY little wiring in the main
welder section other than the main power cables. All the circuit boards
and interconnect wiring is in an enclosed space behind the control panel.
I'm almost amazed the Hobart works at all with all the control wiring
hanging out near the main power circuitry.

There is a big shield, it shields it.
(I do notice a big shield
between the HF and the control boards. By the way, you may be
breaking the shielding with your new wires for the cooler. They go
right by the HF section, then up near the control boards. I would not
route them that way.)

I am open to suggestions here. Maybe I should twist them?
Your cooler looks pretty good. I wonder, however, if you get into
serious TIGing, if the heat will build up.


People in sci.engr.joining.welding group say not to worry. They say
that under the worst of the worst imaginable garage welding, the water
would barely get warm.

Worst case, I have many "condenser coils" at home (12x10 inches or so)
that I could use with a fan, but I see no point now. More possible
points of failure.

I was pretty surprised at how
hot the cooler got on my TIG system after some steel welding. (Actually,
it probably gets hotter on Aluminum with AC, but I am still learning the
techniques there, so I weld for a moment and then look at the part a lot.)
I have a Miller cooler with a big fan-cooled heat exchanger on it. The
exchanger gets hot, and the water in the tank eventually gets pretty warm,
too.

I dunno, I do not have the experience to back up my opinions (but I
have plenty of opinions). As I said, it is a no brainer to add a
condenser coil with a fan, I have all the parts already.

i

--
 
I

Ignoramus12686

Jan 1, 1970
0
Well, I've been using an SSR on my air compressor motor (2 Hp, 240
V) for several years now without any problem. I did select a 40 A
SSR for a motor drawing a nominal 11 A to provide a good margin for
the starting surge.

It my case, it is a 30A relay driving a 2A 1/3 HP motor.

i
 
G

Greg O

Jan 1, 1970
0
Mawdeeb said:
You may get a problem later on with using that solid state relay. They are
not designed for motor inductive loads. It will slowly deteriorate then
short to on condition. A 24v coil relay would be a better choice for that
particular application.

Just a heads up.

Jim Vrzal
Holiday,Fl.


I don't know about that. I used to service equipment that used solid start
relays for a 1 HP motor, thousands of cycles a month. Around twenty or so
machines. In five years I never replaced one. With the number of cycles Iggy
will run his tig, it will probably outlive him!
Greg
 
J

Jim Stewart

Jan 1, 1970
0
Greg said:
I don't know about that. I used to service equipment that used solid start
relays for a 1 HP motor, thousands of cycles a month. Around twenty or so
machines. In five years I never replaced one. With the number of cycles Iggy
will run his tig, it will probably outlive him!

Likewise, I designed a machine that fired a
huge 120vac solenoid with a SSR. We built
and shipped hundreds and I can't remember
ever hearing of one fail.
 
A

acrobat ants

Jan 1, 1970
0
Your cooler looks pretty good. I wonder, however, if you get into
serious TIGing, if the heat will build up. I was pretty surprised at how
hot the cooler got on my TIG system after some steel welding. (Actually,
it probably gets hotter on Aluminum with AC, but I am still learning the
techniques there, so I weld for a moment and then look at the part a lot.)
I have a Miller cooler with a big fan-cooled heat exchanger on it. The
exchanger gets hot, and the water in the tank eventually gets pretty warm,
too.

Jon

note on the cooler getting hot;
don't know how much coolant does the miller cooler holds and why it
gets hot, but one thing for sure the new miller 250 TIGs we used at
school the fan does not come on untill the coolant get hot enough.
it may even have some sort of flow control as well, because the sight
glass with the red star in it was barely spinning at 90-120amp welding

it has been said many times by guys here, a 5 gallon bucket or ever 4
gallon will never get hot enough (not even remotely) under normal
use.

I asked the same question back when I built mine and Ernie L. and the
other well known gurus confirmed it.
NO heat exchanger needed. unless you are blasting 300Amp continuosly.
 
G

Glen Walpert

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus12686 wrote...

Nothing wrong soap, water and a brush in selected areas.

Or wipe down with solvent dampened rags. Paint thinner is a suitable
solvent if used sparingly in a well-ventilated area and allowed to dry
thoroughly before lighting off the welder. Disconnect from power
first.

Way OT story about wiping down with solvent dampened rags (not for the
squeamish):

Some years ago I worked with an electrical estimator who had been an
electrician with a large contractor for 20 years or so, and I asked
him why he quit the field work for the office job. Instead of
answering he uncharacteristically went off into a story of a routine
job at some North Jersey factory with the usual loop-fed 3-section
medium voltage switchboard, where two utility feeds enter the end
sections, each of which will connect to half of the plant load and/or
to the center section, which can feed either half of the load. Either
feed is adequate for both loads so any one section can be de-energized
completely without losing power to either half of the load.

This switchboard was indoors but well ventilated with polluted plant
air, so it needed to have its buss bars wiped down with solvent
dampened rags once a year, or the dirt would cake on so thick that the
buss bars would overheat. The estimator's crew was sent out to do
this rather trivial job with several experienced electricians and a
brand new apprentice, first day on the job. Nice kid, everyone liked
him, and when lunch rolled around and the kid had brought his lunch
and didn't have money for the restaurant they all wanted to go to
since he hadn't been paid yet. They offered to buy, but he would not
accept and stayed behind while they went to lunch.

When they returned they could not find the apprentice at first, but
the last of the buss bar in the first section had been cleaned, and
the door to the next section was open. His on the job training had
not gotten to the section lockout procedure yet. They found him on
the floor, solvent dampened rag in hand, unconscious but breathing,
footprints running up the wall behind him nearly to the ceiling. They
rushed him to a hospital where some of the crew saw him the next day,
"swollen to 3 times normal size and skin turned black" was their
possibly exaggerated impression. He said he knew he was dying, and
they gave him the "hang in there you can make it" speech, but he died
three days later.
 
I

Ignoramus12686

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't know about that. I used to service equipment that used solid start
relays for a 1 HP motor, thousands of cycles a month. Around twenty or so
machines. In five years I never replaced one. With the number of cycles Iggy
will run his tig, it will probably outlive him!

I would like to clarify this issue. Perhaps dI/dt spikes that result
in high voltage for an inductive motor, could have some bearing
here. I suppose that the issue is less in a zero crossing relay.

i
 
I

Ignoramus12686

Jan 1, 1970
0
Or wipe down with solvent dampened rags. Paint thinner is a suitable
solvent if used sparingly in a well-ventilated area and allowed to dry
thoroughly before lighting off the welder. Disconnect from power
first.

I may try to clean it just a little bit, but I would rather leave it a
little dirty inside than break circuits etc.
Way OT story about wiping down with solvent dampened rags (not for the
squeamish):

Some years ago I worked with an electrical estimator who had been an
electrician with a large contractor for 20 years or so, and I asked
him why he quit the field work for the office job. Instead of
answering he uncharacteristically went off into a story of a routine
job at some North Jersey factory with the usual loop-fed 3-section
medium voltage switchboard, where two utility feeds enter the end
sections, each of which will connect to half of the plant load and/or
to the center section, which can feed either half of the load. Either
feed is adequate for both loads so any one section can be de-energized
completely without losing power to either half of the load.

This switchboard was indoors but well ventilated with polluted plant
air, so it needed to have its buss bars wiped down with solvent
dampened rags once a year, or the dirt would cake on so thick that the
buss bars would overheat. The estimator's crew was sent out to do
this rather trivial job with several experienced electricians and a
brand new apprentice, first day on the job. Nice kid, everyone liked
him, and when lunch rolled around and the kid had brought his lunch
and didn't have money for the restaurant they all wanted to go to
since he hadn't been paid yet. They offered to buy, but he would not
accept and stayed behind while they went to lunch.

When they returned they could not find the apprentice at first, but
the last of the buss bar in the first section had been cleaned, and
the door to the next section was open. His on the job training had
not gotten to the section lockout procedure yet. They found him on
the floor, solvent dampened rag in hand, unconscious but breathing,
footprints running up the wall behind him nearly to the ceiling. They
rushed him to a hospital where some of the crew saw him the next day,
"swollen to 3 times normal size and skin turned black" was their
possibly exaggerated impression. He said he knew he was dying, and
they gave him the "hang in there you can make it" speech, but he died
three days later.

scary stuff... I once had a collision of my car with a moving train...

i
 
M

Mawdeeb

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus12686 said:
Jim, would you say that a 30A rated relay would deteriorate when
powering a 1/3 HP motor? If that is the case, I can replace it with a
coil relay, I have many of them.

i
The driving part is not the problem. The problem starts when you turn
off the the motor and the electromagnet field collapses. It sends a
voltage spike back thru the SSR and slowly eats away at the electronics.
At my work place we went through a learning curve on this when we used
SSR's to control several large contactors for 3 phase power.

Your particular application maybe so over engineered that you may not
see problems. But if things get out of control that would be the first
place I would look.

Jim Vrzal
Holiday,Fl.
 
B

billh

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ignoramus12686 said:
I would like to clarify this issue. Perhaps dI/dt spikes that result
in high voltage for an inductive motor, could have some bearing
here. I suppose that the issue is less in a zero crossing relay.

i

A SSR should have a series R-C snubber across it to reduce the voltage
spikes. Some of the SSRs have this built into them I believe. The
application note for the device will probably have recommended values.
Usually they are in the region of roughly 50-100ohms and a 0.1uf capacitor.
Snubbers across mechanical relay contacts aren't a bad idea either if they
are switching significant current.
Zero-crossing SSRs are best suited to resistive loads. IIRC, if the voltage
and current are out of phase such that enough current is flowing when the
voltage across the triac is zero they won't turn off.

billh
 
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