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Cheap on board welder

bigred4x4

Off-road enthusiast
Elite Explorer
Joined
October 6, 2008
Messages
755
Reaction score
84
Location
Va
City, State
chesapeake virginia
Year, Model & Trim Level
'96 xlt 4x4
Recently I've been looking into 24 to 36 volt reverse polarity DC stick welding and I pretty much already had everything I needed to have it on board welder all I had to do was make a jumper wire out of an old set of jumper cables have a good set of jumper cables have at least two 12 volt batteries something to Shield your eyes and some 6011 welding rods the concept is easy you connect the positive terminal of One battery to the negative terminal on the other then you take your jumper cables attached one into the positive side on One battery on in the other to the negative side of the other battery then attach the positive side (hints reverse polarity)to your work piece then use the negative side to attach your welding rod and bam! you have a stick welder capable of welding some pretty thick stuff. Because the amperage is not controlled by a machine you can only weld for a few seconds at a time but for a repair this setup is super simple super cheap and super effective and no longer will you worry about breaking things on the trail if you can simply weld it back together at least to the point where it can get you back to a paved Road. Two or three fully charged batteries should have more than enough power and them to repair whatever is needed and still have plenty of juice to start the vehicle. Of course two batteries will work and some people if not most actually use three batteries wired in series as explained above I don't want to go into it in any more detail just look it up on YouTube and with the 6011 (good for welding through paint and rust) welding rods the need for having a grinder and all that isn't all that important since this is just a temporary fix. Look at some videos on YouTube for further details I thought maybe by posting this you might learn something that you didn't know before and will be interested in bringing the supplies along with you on the trail to have this capability. I bring an extra deep cycle battery with me to power my refrigerator/cooler when the truck is off and as an emergency power Reserve in case I wake up to a dead battery. so I have two batteries on the trail and I already had jumper cables I just took the auto darkening unit out of my shield and stowed it in my box with a makeshift headband I already have gloves and a brush in my box I pretty much just needed to buy a pack of 6011 rods and make the jumper wire, to wire the batteries in series out of materials I had laying around the garage.i will be experimenting with this next week or maybe I'll have to use it this weekend on the trail but I hope not. Lol
 






Recently I've been looking into 24 to 36 volt reverse polarity DC stick welding and I pretty much already had everything I needed to have it on board welder all I had to do was make a jumper wire out of an old set of jumper cables have a good set of jumper cables have at least two 12 volt batteries something to Shield your eyes and some 6011 welding rods the concept is easy you connect the positive terminal of One battery to the negative terminal on the other then you take your jumper cables attached one into the positive side on One battery on in the other to the negative side of the other battery then attach the positive side (hints reverse polarity)to your work piece then use the negative side to attach your welding rod and bam! you have a stick welder capable of welding some pretty thick stuff. Because the amperage is not controlled by a machine you can only weld for a few seconds at a time but for a repair this setup is super simple super cheap and super effective and no longer will you worry about breaking things on the trail if you can simply weld it back together at least to the point where it can get you back to a paved Road. Two or three fully charged batteries should have more than enough power and them to repair whatever is needed and still have plenty of juice to start the vehicle. Of course two batteries will work and some people if not most actually use three batteries wired in series as explained above I don't want to go into it in any more detail just look it up on YouTube and with the 6011 (good for welding through paint and rust) welding rods the need for having a grinder and all that isn't all that important since this is just a temporary fix. Look at some videos on YouTube for further details I thought maybe by posting this you might learn something that you didn't know before and will be interested in bringing the supplies along with you on the trail to have this capability. I bring an extra deep cycle battery with me to power my refrigerator/cooler when the truck is off and as an emergency power Reserve in case I wake up to a dead battery. so I have two batteries on the trail and I already had jumper cables I just took the auto darkening unit out of my shield and stowed it in my box with a makeshift headband I already have gloves and a brush in my box I pretty much just needed to buy a pack of 6011 rods and make the jumper wire, to wire the batteries in series out of materials I had laying around the garage mobile welding dallas ga. i will be experimenting with this next week or maybe I'll have to use it this weekend on the trail but I hope not. Lol
I know there have been lots of write ups on these, but I love to see all of the different versions people make. Here is one I just finished up on my TJ.

I used a cs144 alternator, $5 from scrap bin, and upgraded the rectifier to a non-avalanche 200 amp diode version. I removed the voltage regulator and ran a new power wire to the brush holder. I went with this alternator because they produce good amperage at low rpms.

My TJ does not have ac so I mounted the alternator on the ac bracket. I picked up a belt for an ac equipped jeep and it worked perfect for length.

I ran 4 gauge battery cables out through the grill by my winch and snowplow connectors. There are tweco style connectors on those that hook to my welding leads.

To excite the alternator I ran a fused 12v wire through a outdoor extension cord to the front and the other wire goes to the alternator. I have an on/off swith on my electrode holder. If I need more welding control or need to use the leads for jumpstarting I also have a dimmer switch I can plug into the front to adjust the voltage/amperage.

For throttle control a cheap motorcycle tie down strap can be ran from the seat frame to gas pedal and allows easy and fairly precise adjustments.

My whole plan was to make it useable without ever opening the hood for convenience. If something is not easy to use it probably wont get used much.

Ended up being around a $100 total investment. I have used it a couple times already, and it exceeded my expectations. I used it with 6011 and some 7018 in 3/32 and 1/8" sizes. Easily welded all of them under 2000 rpm.




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