12V BATTERY OPERATED WELDING

>Does anyone know of a better deal than this?

Yeah, me!

Almost anything.

For $300 you appear to be getting 3 bits of wire, a few welding rods and a couple of clips.

How about: some decent jump leads (or indecent ones and two hose clips), a couple of bits of thick wire or fencing wire to link the batteries (+more hoseclips), a piece of welding glass you can tape into a cardboard shield if you have to and a few welding rods.
Total cost = not much and a lot less than $300!

Incidentally; people who know about welding (and I'm not one of them :) say that you really need three batteries to do a decent weld.

Mike Harding

Not a bad kit although longer leads to get the arc away from the battery gas's would be good. At $300 it could of course be cheaper to buy your own parts & assemble yourself or better still forget the fancy hand piece & just use a pair of heavy duty jumper leads & a short purpose made lead to join the batteries together. As most already have a set of jumper leads it would cost less than $80 for a pack of welding rods, a metre of wire & 2 battery clamps.
Cheers Craig..............

Holy Chicken Manure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! $299......................!

My outback welding kit cost me about $75 and that includes rods and glass.

We used one on our trip last month. The welder did a great job to stitch a broken wheel carrier together



Cheers

Hi KiwiAngler,
Just had a look at that kit.
Seems a bit pricey for what looks like a fairly basic setup, other than the electrode holder the rest appears to be cable and connections.
It doesnt even have the eye protection needed to stop damage to your eyes when welding. (none evident in that site)
Maybe some other forum users can have some imput into the methods/ways of doing some bush welding?
William

all you blokes are too harsh.
$299 if it included the 2 batteries would be reasonable
withoutbatteries its ripoff.
cheers
howard

Thanks for all the replies you made me think about this a bit more


I have already got:

2 x 3m (postive and negative) 400amp jumper leads - they both have the 'surge protector' units - will this cause a problem if used for welding?

I have an old welding mask

I have 2 x 130aH deep cycle batteries

I don't have a purpose made welding rod holder - can thse be bought seperately? - can I 'improvise' (safely) using something else?

so 'basically' I already have 90% of the kit - correct?

I'm a backyarder when it comes to welding, but this is what I do.

We've needed 3 batteries whenever we've needed to weld. But 3 batteries packs a lot of punch.
I take
the lead off my home arc welder,
An old welding mask,
Two short lengths of 4Ga wire and 4 worm clamps to join the batteries in series.
A jumper lead for the earth.

A good file is handy for cleaning up the area to be welded, and to knock the slag off, and have a wire brush stored inside some 40mm plastic pipe. A bunch of 2.5mm Satincraft rods in a sealed plastic bag. A flat board (say a jackplate) is handy to put bits on when you're lining up and tack welding. And some pieces of flat mild steel, and a hacksaw to cut them. I clamp steel to the side of the tray with vice grips to cut it to size.

Kiwiangler.
Yes you have most of a set already. The advertised set is a mighty ripoff. Not sure about the surge protector on your jumper leads, what I have done with mine is cut one of the protector fly leads then reconnect it with a screw connector, then I can just disconnect it while welding. You can get a hand piece from BOC or Weldwell, get them to put about 500mm of lead on it for you. Though Crackles idea with the 4mm hole sounds good. Rods are an issue, with a lot of people opting for GP type grades because they are easy to use, however they are meant for mild steel only and we are seeing less of that now on vehicles and commercial trailers. A good compromise is a Stainless 316L rod, which covers a range of steel grades and is still relatively easy to use. As Mike said three batteries are better than one because 36volt makes for easier starting and maintaining the arc, 24v is really only for a practiced welder. There is a simple way of controlling current (amps) if you want to be bothered. Take a length of 3.2mm Dia wire (No 8 fencing will do) say 500mm long and clamp one end tightly to the battery terminal going to the other battery (the link). Then clamp with vise grips (tightly) the terminal of the next battery somewhere along the length of the wire. Clamping right at the end will give max resistance and less current, sliding the joint along the wire towards the first battery (shorter link) will increase the current. You now have a fully adjustable welder. Just be careful of the heat generated in the adjusting wire though. I always carry this set up with me as the 500mm of wire can be folded in half to fit in a welding rod packet.
There is a good article on the “Lcool.com” site on battery welding, good that is until he gets to the point of welding without a lense or helmet but just shuts his eyes. That is a really stupid thing to do.
Regards. CliveG. NZ.

Yet another Kiwi. if it gets any worse the site will have to be renamed ExplorNZ. ha ha. Now hiding under the bed.

hi kiwi angler last centry while i had the shell garage in norseman . i also had a tow truck and i fited a purpose built alternator it put out 240 volts as well as a welder .i think it was a unit from the (capricorn society.) may be wrong and this worked well this was built with a bosch unit all you needed to do was put leads on alternator start engine and away you worked regards morry

You could go this way - Ebay has inverter welders, go for aroun $150, specs as follows: 0nly 5.6kg. Regards Tony

INCLUDES MANUAL, MASK AND ACCESSORIES!SPECIFICATIONS:
Rated input current 19.5A
Rated input voltage 230 V
Rated frequency 50HZ
Rated output current 140A
Rated output voltage 25.6V
Non-Load Voltage 78V
Rated Duty Cycle 20% at 140A & 60% at 80A
Load current 140A
Input Capacity 4.5 KW
Class of Insulation H
Applied Welding Rod 1.6-3.2mm
Fuse 16A
Case Protection Degree IP21
Arc-Starting COS 0.9
Efficiency 80%
Weight 5.6kg