Ive got my standard battery under my hood, but I'm thinking of putting in a second battery towards the back of my 4runner. I'm welding a case for my welder to sit in the back of my truck. On a scale of 1/10 10 being the hardest, how hard is it to make the conversion from a battery to a 110
I need the battery to be able to power my welder when I am on the trail.
Post pics of your second battery if you have one. Pics of conversion if possible.

Thanks

easy, just buy an inverter

Ive got my standard battery under my hood, but I'm thinking of putting in a second battery towards the back of my 4runner. I'm welding a case for my welder to sit in the back of my truck. On a scale of 1/10 10 being the hardest, how hard is it to make the conversion from a battery to a 110
I need the battery to be able to power my welder when I am on the trail.
Post pics of your second battery if you have one. Pics of conversion if possible.

Thanks

Ive got my standard battery under my hood, but I'm thinking of putting in a second battery towards the back of my 4runner. I'm welding a case for my welder to sit in the back of my truck. On a scale of 1/10 10 being the hardest, how hard is it to make the conversion from a battery to a 110
I need the battery to be able to power my welder when I am on the trail.
Post pics of your second battery if you have one. Pics of conversion if possible.

Thanks

You'd be much better off to install a ReadyWelder.
Getting an inverter strong enough to put out 20-25amps of 115vac (about 45lbs) and installing a second battery and the associated wiring takes up alot more room in your rig and won't be any cheaper.

x2 on buying an on board welder

Well I bought the welder, and I plan on locking it in the truck.

Well I bought the welder, and I plan on locking it in the truck.

Well, that's fine. But if you try to use your existing rig's electrical system to actually power the welder, you're in for dissappointment.

think about this:

that welder is designed to take 115 volts and to convert it down to roughly 40 ish (depending on your setting). Trying to design a system that brings 12 volts up to 115 volts just to bring it back down to 40 is, from the very start, about the least efficient way to go about the task of making an on-board welding solution. the afore-mentioned OBW is pre-engineered and proven to work well.


But hey- This is Pirate... You don't get points for taking the high-dollar pre-tested way out. Put your brain to this and good luck. All _I'm_ say'in is that converting 12V up to 115 so that you can use the house-current welder is gonna be tough.

Personally, I'm in the middle of riggin up an auxillary 36V system (using 3 batteries in series) that can be reconfigured to charge one of the 3 batteries at a time from the existing 12V alternator. So I'll be able to weld on the trails, and to recharge from my rig, but I will not be able to pull 'real-time' from the engine... I'll have to weld, then charge the 3 batteries later.


But hey... If you come up with something clever, please post a write-up. I'd love to see an easier way than what I'm planning.

Well, that's fine. But if you try to use your existing rig's electrical system to actually power the welder, you're in for dissappointment.

think about this:

that welder is designed to take 115 volts and to convert it down to roughly 40 ish (depending on your setting). Trying to design a system that brings 12 volts up to 115 volts just to bring it back down to 40 is, from the very start, about the least efficient way to go about the task of making an on-board welding solution. the afore-mentioned OBW is pre-engineered and proven to work well.


But hey- This is Pirate... You don't get points for taking the high-dollar pre-tested way out. Put your brain to this and good luck. All _I'm_ say'in is that converting 12V up to 115 so that you can use the house-current welder is gonna be tough.

Personally, I'm in the middle of riggin up an auxillary 36V system (using 3 batteries in series) that can be reconfigured to charge one of the 3 batteries at a time from the existing 12V alternator. So I'll be able to weld on the trails, and to recharge from my rig, but I will not be able to pull 'real-time' from the engine... I'll have to weld, then charge the 3 batteries later.


But hey... If you come up with something clever, please post a write-up. I'd love to see an easier way than what I'm planning.

I can wire them up with 6 terminal solenoids so you have 12volts while running then you can switch it to 36volts for welding. It would be expensive as good solenoids are $50 a piece. You can get so so ones for $15 a piece i think. Also require a lot of wire to. My thought would be to use quick disconencts so you can run the batteries in parallel most of the time. then take you 5 minutes to change over to series by hand when ever you need to weld.

I'm not sure if this is what your talking about or if you have come across this, but I remember a year or so ago, there is a whole 'How to make your own OBW for under 200 bucks' and that was in the tech section on this site....I'm going to go look for it and see if it's still on here...and I'll post the link if i find it..

But if I recall correctly it was a pretty cool design and all the parts needed were easy to get (purchased at your local NAPA and it even gave part numbers).

Well here is one for running dual battaries:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/dual_battery/my_dual_battery_setup.htm

Ahhh...and yes I found it....It took some searching but here it is....the OBW link:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/on-boardwelder/

Hope this helps!

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Ahhh...and yes I found it....It took some searching but here it is....the OBW link:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/on-boardwelder/
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Yeah,
That's the page that got me thinking about my current plan. On the bottom it mentions battery welding. Well, since I happen to have 3 car batteries lying around, I started designing the system I mentioned. I've spent about $25 on cable and terminals, and I expect to be finished without spending another $15, so I'm hoping that even if I get fancy (maybe putting wheels on it to drag it around outside my rig), I'll still be done under $50.

That's a really good resource. Thanks for hunting down the link.

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My thought would be to use quick disconencts so you can run the batteries in parallel most of the time. then take you 5 minutes to change over to series by hand when ever you need to weld.

The problem there is the load on the alternator. If you spend any ammount of time welding from the batteries, then you hook them into one enourmous, but 12V parallel circuit, the amps drawn from the charging system will blast the poor critter to smitherines.

If, on the other hand, you plugged even a completely drawn-empty single battery into a functioning system where the existing battery was fully charged, then the full battery plus the alternator should be able to handle the load. - From the alternator's point of view it would be no worse that being jumpstarted when the battery had drained, and running untill the battery was charged.

So, If I were spending real money on this, then I might wire up some 36V system to make this all plug-and-play along with some sort of dial to fine tune the voltage for welding performance. But if I'm willing to do the logic myself and manually switch between serial (ready-to-weld) mode and charging the batteries one at a time, then I can get away pretty cheap.

And, since you can pick up a cheap car battery for $40 (I looked, just for the heck of it) somebody could duplicate my $50 solution and add $120, still being under the $200 the OBW link talks about.

I'll be sure to post a write-up once I'm done... if everything works.

Onboard welders are easy and compact if you have the underhood space.

Get one Delco alternator, any amperage (junkyard 60A versions do fine), and remove the regulator. Alternately, get a ~60+A externally regulated alternator. Fab a bracket, and add a pulley and the proper sized belt. Plumb in a hand throttle. Buy cables (~20' each), quick connects, stinger and ground clamp, and your rod of choice. Wire a switch to a 30A relay that will give field power to the alternator when you want to weld. Weld.

I see your concern now with switching back to the 12v system after welding if you don't want to wait for them to cool down before hand....but then again this isn't an eveyday welder were making, it's for an occasional OOPS!, I hit a stump and busted my steering knuckle or OUCH I just ripped my steering box off the frame....ya know....
Do you think if you run a seperate "Ford" non-interanally regulated alternator to be used just for welding, then you should have to worry about switching back, correct?

I think it would be really troublesome and a pain in the you know what, to carry around 3 battarys, I rather have a plug and play set up...but thats me. Let us know how it turns out and be careful playin with them battarys, if they explode things could get ugly and that wouldnt' be cool.

Do you think if you run a seperate "Ford" non-interanally regulated alternator to be used just for welding, then you should have to worry about switching back, correct? .

I would rather do something like this. This would be a more "valuaable" setup for me. I will try to get some parts to do so. Wont happen right away, but I am doing this soon. :smokin:


I think it would be really troublesome and a pain in the you know what, to carry around 3 battarys, I rather have a plug and play set up...but thats me. Let us know how it turns out and be careful playin with them battarys, if they explode things could get ugly and that wouldnt' be cool.

Couldnt agree more..

I ended up doing Fozzys idea of having the 3 batteries to weld on the trail. The only problem I'm having right now is that I have to recharge the batteries seperately, which is odd because when my truck is running it only charges one of the batteries instead of all 3 of them slowly at a time.
Fozzy you have this problem?

Thanks to everyone else

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it's for an occasional OOPS!, I hit a stump and busted my
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I think it would be really troublesome and a pain in the ... I rather have a plug and play set up...but thats me.
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Why Yes. It IS more convinient to have a plug-and-play set up. The system I'm working on is NOT as nice as that. Make no mistake about it; I'm talking about a cheap solution because I can't justify the resources it would take to do this """Right""".

I live on the mid-Atlantic coast. Any rocks whatsoever are 100 miles away and the closest trail of any difficulty is a 3 hour drive. The vast majority of times when I go wheeling, we are only 45 minutes from some sort of civilization, and if anybody breaks something, it's only one person in the group. If I were into more remote locations, or over rougher terrain where stuff broke, it would be worth it to spend a few bucks and take care of my safety. But for me, the $50 I'm plopping out to do this "little project" is all I can really justify. I certainly wouldn't post this in the hardcore tech forums here, but for people like me, that just do a little wheeling on the weekends, this can be a little peace of mind that if I break something out in the woods, I can get home without calling for help.

But yeah, if I egt more serious about this hobbie, I'll be upgrading to a "real" OBW solution.

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Fozzy you have this problem?

Thanks to everyone else

Work's been nuts this week. I haven't even touched my rig all week. - hopefully this weekend. I'll let you know.

I understand your approach, it is against everything I work towards :) , but still understand it completely. LOL Been there and done it before too, not with welding but with a lot of other things.

If you guys are going the alternator route and converting over a second alternaotr for welding, the ford 130amp 3G is the easiest and most power unit to grab for the conversion. You can grind the IC circuit off the regulator and have a very easy to adapt brush holder. All you need are a cuople of no ten screws and one small insulator.

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it is against everything I work towards :) ,
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Well yeah. YOU are a vendor (with the phrase "Power Products" in the name). If I ever get to the point where I am going to pay a professional, that's the attitude I'll be looking for.

But like I said.... I saw the article that mentioned using 3 batteries to weld, I figured "Hey, _I_ have 3 batteries lying around..." and off I went. As a matter of fact, I am hoping that I end up using it so much, that I can justify getting something nicer. But if not, then I've spend $50 and a few afternoons of my time fiddleing with my jeep. - Not the first time.... won't be the last. :grinpimp:

Well yeah. YOU are a vendor (with the phrase "Power Products" in the name). If I ever get to the point where I am going to pay a professional, that's the attitude I'll be looking for.

But like I said.... I saw the article that mentioned using 3 batteries to weld, I figured "Hey, _I_ have 3 batteries lying around..." and off I went. As a matter of fact, I am hoping that I end up using it so much, that I can justify getting something nicer. But if not, then I've spend $50 and a few afternoons of my time fiddleing with my jeep. - Not the first time.... won't be the last. :grinpimp:

LOL I hope you didnt miss the part where I said i understood and had been there before. My electric bike and the world record came about with me screwing around in the shop and the phrase "I will bet...." So please dont take it as bashing by any means. As a professional I am supposed to push you towards the best possible solution. But if I know the end result is only supposed to be a $50 on board welder I can try and give advice to help that as well. I like old school bare bones McGuyver stuff. Hope that makes sense.

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So please dont take it as bashing by any means. As a professional I am
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old school bare bones McGuyver stuff.
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No bashing perceived. I knew what you meant...


I don't know if I'm in the Old School MacGuyver Stuff catagory, but offroading on a budget sometimes causes you to hear that theme song play in your head...

Just Great... now I'm gonna be humming that All Day... :shaking: