Weldernator project
- Thread starter Ian
- Start date
Ian
Notorious member
Got the alternator sorted out and back together last night, and tonight I got the ac compressor pulled off and the weldernator mounted...er...cobbled.....in its place tonight. The serpentine belt was even the correct length to make the tensioner happy. I'll have to do some minor fuel system work, wire up the field circuit and rheostat to control the output amps, and put together some welding cables so I can start doing test runs.
The weldernator pulley and crankshaft pulley ended up being a 4:1 ratio, so this thing might actually work at just above idle if it will sustain enough voltage while welding. If not, 2000 engine rpm ain't terrible and that will run the alternator right in the middle between the start of its near full-power range and redline. From what I've read, the 12SI car alternators need to turn 8-9000 rpm to make 40 volts under load, but this is a much heavier unit and has about an ohm less resistance through the field as well as a larger diameter field rotor.
The weldernator pulley and crankshaft pulley ended up being a 4:1 ratio, so this thing might actually work at just above idle if it will sustain enough voltage while welding. If not, 2000 engine rpm ain't terrible and that will run the alternator right in the middle between the start of its near full-power range and redline. From what I've read, the 12SI car alternators need to turn 8-9000 rpm to make 40 volts under load, but this is a much heavier unit and has about an ohm less resistance through the field as well as a larger diameter field rotor.
Ian
Notorious member
Ho-kay, li'l update. Finally got the fuel pump connection fixed and fresh gas in the truck, a fused field connection for the weldernator made, the welding cables hooked up, and a sort of arc reactor made with about 20 turns of 2-gauge THHN wire wrapped around a 2" Mack king pin. Fired it up at idle and it stalled the fuel-injected 350. Tried again at a out 1200 rpm and that just about knocked it back to idle. Tried at 1600 and it held 1100, so I started trying to weld. Just little orange sparks, wouldn't even begin to make a real arc. About that time I smelled melting plastic and found the weldernator starting to smoke so I cut loose the field. After it cooled off for a bit I gave it another whirl with the volt meter hooked up and found out it was only producing 21 open-circuit volts, which actually should be plenty to drive a 6010 1/8"rod, but no dice. After trying to weld a bit and checking voltage a few more times it kept falling off until all I could get was about 5 volts DC and about 1.8 across each of the phase inputs. Also, the load on the engine diminished considerably after all this so either I fried the field or the stator windings in just a couple of minutes. None of the wiring or external diode bridge got even the slightest bit warm, but the stator got pretty hot.
I guess tomorrow I'll take the weldernator off and dissect it to see what cooked, maybe something with the way I bypassed the regulator didn't totally isolate it.
I guess tomorrow I'll take the weldernator off and dissect it to see what cooked, maybe something with the way I bypassed the regulator didn't totally isolate it.
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Ian
Notorious member
No, my DC amprobe quit a while back and I haven't replaced it.
I went ahead and tore it down and found the stator windings cooked real bad in one spot, I'm guessing they shorted together due to bad lacquer and cooked down under heavy load. I went ahead and gutted the regulator so the studs used for mounting the brush holder have no chance of connecting to anything electrically, and that enabled me to restore the field polarity to the normal direction. It shouldn't make any difference, but due to mechanical connections it was much easier to bond the hot brush to ground and isolate the ground brush to a wire run outside the case to the battery. Anyway, I replaced the stator with another used one and put it all back together and back on the truck and will give it another go tomorrow.
I went ahead and tore it down and found the stator windings cooked real bad in one spot, I'm guessing they shorted together due to bad lacquer and cooked down under heavy load. I went ahead and gutted the regulator so the studs used for mounting the brush holder have no chance of connecting to anything electrically, and that enabled me to restore the field polarity to the normal direction. It shouldn't make any difference, but due to mechanical connections it was much easier to bond the hot brush to ground and isolate the ground brush to a wire run outside the case to the battery. Anyway, I replaced the stator with another used one and put it all back together and back on the truck and will give it another go tomorrow.
Ian
Notorious member
Well, it works but needs some tweaking. Burned up a full gallon of fuel getting through two rods, without much wasted run time.
Here's the whole scketchy set up now that for the first time I'm able to fool with it during daylight hours.
The test: Butt weld of rusty sawn end to rusty torch cut end, typical of actual conditions where nothing is cleaned up before use. The 6010 5p+ rods really work well for this.
Here's the result, the arc length is really short and very difficult to strike, though it has plenty of heat. That means low voltage to me, and probably too many amps for the voltage. When I got a good run going and kept the rod shoved hard into the puddle, I could keep an inch of the pipe glowing dull red in the sunlight. If the least bit too much flux built up, it would snuff the arc just like welding deep with 7018 rods and using too little amperage.
After cleaning the flux. In some places if I could keep the arc lit it had no trouble getting full penetration into the joint of 5/16"-wall pipe, other places when I was fighting the short arc and not able to put steady heat into the puddle the penetration was more like 1/3.
So it looks like I need to maintain higher engine rpm (had it going over 2500 engine rpm to get the best welds and only getting 46 open-circuit volts when things got hot, thats 10K weldernator rpm) in order to get the welding voltage needed, and then install a rhreostat to turn down the field voltage a bit and get the amps down a little. Also, the diode bridge will definitely need a heat sink as it gets blistering hot after only one rod. The reactor seems to be doing ok (ark is a clean hiss when going good, the amps seems stable, and the startup voltage isn't blowing the tip off of the rod) but is probably half the millihenries that I need.
Here in a bit I'm going to give it another go and get my wife to watch the voltmeter while I'm welding to see how bad the voltage is dropping off. If it won't stay up around 24-28 volts under load I might have to re-think this whole thing.
Here's the whole scketchy set up now that for the first time I'm able to fool with it during daylight hours.
The test: Butt weld of rusty sawn end to rusty torch cut end, typical of actual conditions where nothing is cleaned up before use. The 6010 5p+ rods really work well for this.
Here's the result, the arc length is really short and very difficult to strike, though it has plenty of heat. That means low voltage to me, and probably too many amps for the voltage. When I got a good run going and kept the rod shoved hard into the puddle, I could keep an inch of the pipe glowing dull red in the sunlight. If the least bit too much flux built up, it would snuff the arc just like welding deep with 7018 rods and using too little amperage.
After cleaning the flux. In some places if I could keep the arc lit it had no trouble getting full penetration into the joint of 5/16"-wall pipe, other places when I was fighting the short arc and not able to put steady heat into the puddle the penetration was more like 1/3.
So it looks like I need to maintain higher engine rpm (had it going over 2500 engine rpm to get the best welds and only getting 46 open-circuit volts when things got hot, thats 10K weldernator rpm) in order to get the welding voltage needed, and then install a rhreostat to turn down the field voltage a bit and get the amps down a little. Also, the diode bridge will definitely need a heat sink as it gets blistering hot after only one rod. The reactor seems to be doing ok (ark is a clean hiss when going good, the amps seems stable, and the startup voltage isn't blowing the tip off of the rod) but is probably half the millihenries that I need.
Here in a bit I'm going to give it another go and get my wife to watch the voltmeter while I'm welding to see how bad the voltage is dropping off. If it won't stay up around 24-28 volts under load I might have to re-think this whole thing.
Ian
Notorious member
Well, it might still work. Wifey reported voltage between 23 and 20 when I got a good bead going. The engine rpm was fluctuating a little, 2000 to 2200. I was using baling wire to hold the throttle open. At 2500 it welded a lot better and had an open circuit voltage of 89, only got one little bead going before I ran out of gas and she noted 25 volts. So this definitely is dependent on very high weldernator rpm to keep the voltage up enough to maintain a good arc. Amps does not seem to be a problem, but heat in the rectifier sure is. Will definitely have to get a good heat sink and might even have to water-cool it.
So I need a rectifier heat sink, field voltage control rheostat with remote on/off switch....and that on/off switch needs to also be connected to a throttle solenoid so I can run high enough engine rpms to weld but return to idle and save gas when not actually burning rods and also give the weldernator as much off/cooling time as possible.
So I need a rectifier heat sink, field voltage control rheostat with remote on/off switch....and that on/off switch needs to also be connected to a throttle solenoid so I can run high enough engine rpms to weld but return to idle and save gas when not actually burning rods and also give the weldernator as much off/cooling time as possible.
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freebullet
Guest
Pretty wild, Ian, pretty wild.
Next up...nuclear reactor for self sufficient power, should cover your place for the next 25 years or so. I'd be no help there either, my brother was on several nuclear subs though, he'd know more about that.
Next up...nuclear reactor for self sufficient power, should cover your place for the next 25 years or so. I'd be no help there either, my brother was on several nuclear subs though, he'd know more about that.
Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Would it help to drop a 32nd (or 2) on rod diameter? I know that means more messing around, but going from 5/32 to 1/8 can make a big diff on small welders. This is DC, right? There are supposed to be practical limits to haow fast you can spin an alt and the larger the alt, the more it matters. A jackshaft and pulley setup could easily get you up into the 12-15K rpm area, but the alt might also grenade.
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Ian
Notorious member
The red-line is 12K on these 22SI units and it doesn't start to work reasonably well until 10k. The amperage at 14 volts is up around 90% 4K but it doesn't make enough welding voltage under load until more than double that. From reading other's attempts at this I think this is the norm with 12v alternators.
The system is rectified 3-phase AC to output DC with a high-frequency ripple of several thousand Hz. I was running the system DCEP as the 6010 5P+ rods require that and also generally require far fewer amps than most ither rods of the same size. I bet going to 3/32" would help some, but the issue seems to be more one of low voltage than low amps. With this system rpm=voltage and above 5K rpm, field voltage from 0 to 14 is going to control amps from 0 to the max it will output.
I'm not sure what the amperage capability of this unit is since I had to change the rotor and stator both and the donor units didn't have placards. The original parts were out of a 150-amp unit but 105s are far more common, and to be honest I don't have a clue what the difference in windings is, if any. My suspicion is the stator is the difference because the stator is what you buy aftermarket to upgrade a 10SI for loud stereos, but I have no way to test this stator except measuring what it will actually do.
The good news is 90 amps DCEP is more than enough to burn deep with 6010 rods, IF the voltage is high enough under load.
The system is rectified 3-phase AC to output DC with a high-frequency ripple of several thousand Hz. I was running the system DCEP as the 6010 5P+ rods require that and also generally require far fewer amps than most ither rods of the same size. I bet going to 3/32" would help some, but the issue seems to be more one of low voltage than low amps. With this system rpm=voltage and above 5K rpm, field voltage from 0 to 14 is going to control amps from 0 to the max it will output.
I'm not sure what the amperage capability of this unit is since I had to change the rotor and stator both and the donor units didn't have placards. The original parts were out of a 150-amp unit but 105s are far more common, and to be honest I don't have a clue what the difference in windings is, if any. My suspicion is the stator is the difference because the stator is what you buy aftermarket to upgrade a 10SI for loud stereos, but I have no way to test this stator except measuring what it will actually do.
The good news is 90 amps DCEP is more than enough to burn deep with 6010 rods, IF the voltage is high enough under load.
How hot did the bolt get? Use an old stator core and wind on that (or remove wire from a winding). Solid iron is very lossy, stacked core should do better, less high freq loss. Did you use high freq fast recovery diodes? Ripple should be 1400 Hz. Measure winding R to find if it has more turns than other units.
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Ian
Notorious member
The king pin actually got warm, much more so than the wire. I have no idea how well it's working and at this point don't care to improve on it because.........
Success!!
After stewing on this all of last evening I decided to try one more time, just the way it was but to really run the dog out of it this time and see what kind of voltage it would produce. Well, at 3000 rpm it will do 120 volts DC open circuit, so that looked promising. I put a few more gallons of fuel in the truck, strapped an ice pack to the rectifier and proceeded to burn holes through 5/16" pipe with the 6010s. Way too many amps. So I backed it down to 105 volts and it did fine until the pipe got hot and I had to lower the rpm/volts again to 90, which seemed a good balance of amps and volts......for a while. The more I ran it the more amps I was getting at the same rpm.
At that point I notched and fitted three pieces of pipe to finish one of my remote corner braces and drove down there with all the gear (and water mister, 10 lb fire extinguisher, and coulpe extra ice packs for the rectifier), set it up and got to welding. At first I was cautious, burning one rod at a time and stopping to check everything for overheating, but as everything seemed ok I started going two rods and then three or four. The amps kept going up so I kept having to dial back rpm and run the ragged edge of low voltage, but I was even able to fill a bad gap using two rods "Tijuana Tig" style. Definitely not underpowered anymore, in fact quite the opposite, I'm guessing it just needed more rpm to get everything heated up and working. A remote field voltage control is going to be a MUST to deal with the pipe getting hot and places where more fill and less penetration is needed. Anyway, when it was dialed in on volts and amps it was one of the finest stick welders I have ever run, blowing away my Miller TiG that has all the fancy frequency controls.....and really blowing it away on amps and duty cycle.
Toward the end of the job I changed the ice pack again, hosed off the weldernator with a mist of water (got a brief sizzle but no big cloud of steam), full-fielded it again and just let it eat at 75 volts (about 1800 rpm). It had already paid for itself and I didn't owe it anything so I ran straight through to the end of the job, burning eight rods in a row, several of them continously and some zap-pause-zap to fill the last gaps and holes. The rectifier melted the ice pack and melted the plastic shopping bag that it was wrapped in a little, but only a brief sizzle from another light water mist on the weldernator. My welding sucked, but it was at least 50% me learning how to use this setup and being in a big hurry, 25% fighting settings, and 25% piss-poor prep/fit. The welder itself is a joy when it's in the right zone.
Success!!
After stewing on this all of last evening I decided to try one more time, just the way it was but to really run the dog out of it this time and see what kind of voltage it would produce. Well, at 3000 rpm it will do 120 volts DC open circuit, so that looked promising. I put a few more gallons of fuel in the truck, strapped an ice pack to the rectifier and proceeded to burn holes through 5/16" pipe with the 6010s. Way too many amps. So I backed it down to 105 volts and it did fine until the pipe got hot and I had to lower the rpm/volts again to 90, which seemed a good balance of amps and volts......for a while. The more I ran it the more amps I was getting at the same rpm.
At that point I notched and fitted three pieces of pipe to finish one of my remote corner braces and drove down there with all the gear (and water mister, 10 lb fire extinguisher, and coulpe extra ice packs for the rectifier), set it up and got to welding. At first I was cautious, burning one rod at a time and stopping to check everything for overheating, but as everything seemed ok I started going two rods and then three or four. The amps kept going up so I kept having to dial back rpm and run the ragged edge of low voltage, but I was even able to fill a bad gap using two rods "Tijuana Tig" style. Definitely not underpowered anymore, in fact quite the opposite, I'm guessing it just needed more rpm to get everything heated up and working. A remote field voltage control is going to be a MUST to deal with the pipe getting hot and places where more fill and less penetration is needed. Anyway, when it was dialed in on volts and amps it was one of the finest stick welders I have ever run, blowing away my Miller TiG that has all the fancy frequency controls.....and really blowing it away on amps and duty cycle.
Toward the end of the job I changed the ice pack again, hosed off the weldernator with a mist of water (got a brief sizzle but no big cloud of steam), full-fielded it again and just let it eat at 75 volts (about 1800 rpm). It had already paid for itself and I didn't owe it anything so I ran straight through to the end of the job, burning eight rods in a row, several of them continously and some zap-pause-zap to fill the last gaps and holes. The rectifier melted the ice pack and melted the plastic shopping bag that it was wrapped in a little, but only a brief sizzle from another light water mist on the weldernator. My welding sucked, but it was at least 50% me learning how to use this setup and being in a big hurry, 25% fighting settings, and 25% piss-poor prep/fit. The welder itself is a joy when it's in the right zone.
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freebullet
Guest
Awesome work, Ian.
A detailed how to of this would help a lot of folks in similar situations to yours I'd bet.
Wonder if a copper tube, liquid, fan arrangement...like a laptop uses, could be workable.
A detailed how to of this would help a lot of folks in similar situations to yours I'd bet.
Wonder if a copper tube, liquid, fan arrangement...like a laptop uses, could be workable.