Photos of my homemade TIG torch cooler

[Steve Taylor]

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.

And they need to be chunky devices too, if the load is anything other
than trivial.

Steve

 

[Ignoramus1740]

Good point. I can get such resistor and the cap from my pile of old stuff.

And they need to be chunky devices too, if the load is anything other
than trivial.

the load is trivial, it is a 30A SSR driving a 1/3 HP motor.

i

 

[Ignoramus1740]

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.

I spent about 40 minutes welding scrap last night. 130 A or so. About
as much welding minutes per hour as I could expect. Maybe 25% of time
was actually spent welding. The water in the cooler got barely warmer
(maybe by 5 degrees C or so).

On a related note, I replaced water with pink (purple?) RV antifreeze
last night. That way, the coolant will not freeze in my garage in winter.

i

 

[Jon Elson]

note on the cooler getting hot;
don't know how much coolant does the miller cooler holds

My Miller cooler holds just short of a full gallon, including what is in
the torch
hoses. I'm using Miller coolant straight, it is supposed to help the
pump and
prevent corrosion in the torch, etc.

On mine, the fan is mounted on the pump motor's shaft, so it runs all
the time,
too.

Jon

 

[Martin H. Eastburn]

These snubbers will prevent the high voltage spikes of the RF edge ability
that punches through the semiconductor.

Many years ago I fixed a base ball thrower that used two powerful DC motors.

Once I installed the snubbers - don't forget some wattage values -
the 'JUGS' (Trademark) (it was in those days of anything goes) - never blew up.

The High School coach pleaded with me - expensive to ship to Washington state -
and then pay bill - ugh - fixed it once without thinking - then I fixed it forever.

The students used to freeze stop the wheels (instant HV) so they could haul it in.
I used 25 Watt resistors IIRC partly over kill - and who knows the duty cycle hit!

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

 

[B.B.]

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

Why don't you show us some pictures of your work?

Dave
www.davewilson.cc[/QUOTE]

Click the Up arrow at the top of the page and he has a bunch of pages
of photos of his welds.

 

[Ignoramus13880]

Why don't you show us some pictures of your work?

Dave
www.davewilson.cc

Click the Up arrow at the top of the page and he has a bunch of pages
of photos of his welds.
[/QUOTE]

I think that the question "Why don't you show us some pictures of your
work?" was addressed to someone else and not me. Attributions became a
little bit messed up.

i

 

[Martin H. Eastburn]

Sounds like a heat exchanger is needed - as one loop from the stinger brings
in hot water and pumps back warm water - another loop is placed to chill the
warming water (water to say a term only) and dump the heat elsewhere. A nice
portable air conditioner that is a heat pump or not - could be implemented
when local power was available. When in the field, a Icebox from a camper
that runs on 12 v or propane might be a nice chiller.

Naturally some kit bashing and creative mind work would have to take place.

Solar cells dumping high current into a pair of wires that in turn run through
a solid state heat sink (ever see the 12 volt camping ice/beer chests ?) easy to bash.
Almost done for you - cooling tank and drain and 12volt plug.

Plug it in and pump 'water' through 3/8" copper tubing - (or other) to a small radiator
that might have been a motorcycle add on kit - back to the 12 volt chiller.
The box always closed and in the shade - and the bottom (where the heat is - on
a larger sheet of metal to conduct ? - truck bed ?

Martin - just had dinner and under boosted blood stream!

Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder