Welding spring-steel rock-rake tines

[Sodo]

Understood, and they lay pretty flat too. In my setup they are ahead of me, I can look directly at the rake if I hear that "TWANG". I'll get to welding them up soon, will try a couple different methods. I'm currently 5,000 miles away from home, maybe next week.

 

[Sodo]

OK welded up 6 tines today.





Welded other side then ground the tack off before welding it up.





Used 2 different lengths because it just "seemed" like if they were same length then it's likely to break at the end of the doubler rods. It "seems" like if the doubler rods were different lengths then it can't figure out where to break. I guess time will tell if this was a good idea.

Voltage maxed, wire feed speed at about 75. Blew a 15A breaker, so plugged into a 20A to keep going.



All stocked up again, even have spares now.

 

[dstig1]

Blew a 15A breaker, so plugged into a 20A to keep going.

Pure genius. Why not a 30A breaker? Or 40? I mean if that breaker is holding you back, why not put whatever you want in there? To heck with the 14ga wires in the circuit, you've got a point to make about 120V welders! To those who don't get sarcasm, this was a VERY bad idea, not safe at all, and could ACTUALLY cause a house/garage fire.

I've read all your tirades about 120V welders, and while I get your point about it being what a lot of people have, I do not agree that you can or should push it beyond it's limits, except in urgent situations where it will be fixed properly later. Watts are the limit, and you cannot get the needed watts for thicker metal on a 120V circuit, without some very unusual gyrations (30A breakers exist, for example, but are so rarely used as to being the ones the hardware store guy will be asking you if you really know what you are doing as he blows the dust off of it...). In most cases, pulling a new 220V circuit is so easy that using that as an argument is just lazy. Especially if you are serious about doing some welding work.

Seriously . Give it a rest. Seriously. Before someone gets hurt or burns their house down from your misguided advice. STOP!

 

[CNC Dan]

Pure genius. Why not a 30A breaker? Or 40? I mean if that breaker is holding you back, why not put whatever you want in there? To heck with the 14ga wires in the circuit, you've got a point to make about 120V welders! To those who don't get sarcasm, this was a VERY bad idea, not safe at all, and could ACTUALLY cause a house/garage fire.

He didn't say he changed the breaker. He said that he changed from using a 15 amp circuit, to using a 20 amp circuit.

 

[Sodo]

My garage panel has a couple GFCI circuits fed by 15A breakers, and one 20A circuit. (and a new 20A 240v circuit too, thx to TBN assistance! :thumbsup: )

There's been some discussion regarding welding on 15A vs 20A circuits so this is pertinent information for those interested. I rarely weld any distance at the machine's full power setting so haven't encountered this 15A limit before (or may have forgotten). Half of the six tines were welded on the 15A circuit before the breaker popped. Each tine has about 13 inches of welding. So welding 3 tines in quick succession (with the machine set at max power) pops the 15A breaker. Now I know.

If I slowed down a little the 15A circuit coulda done it, so anyway now I know what pops a 15A breaker. I do not consider popping a breaker to be a worrisome incident for this kind of repair. Maybe,,,, if I was right in the middle of the best weld EVER, and had intent to publish a photo,,,,, .

Been trying to find time to get these tines fixed for a couple weeks now. I consider these tines properly fixed & if they bust again replacing with new tines is a $12 option. Have a simple plan using 1/8" flatbar to add "bend limiters" which could extend the life of the remaining (un-molested) tines.

 

[woodlandfarms]

OK... so... can you explain your wiring on your generator in the first picture? No plug so you just made pins? Are you tying the two together?

I had a guy in Buenos Aires tie two 2500's together so we would have enough amps for a large light on a distant location. I have no idea how he got past the phasing issue but it worked.

 

[Sodo]

Generators in that pic (from a year ago) are Honda EU2000i, 120v inverter generators. When you "pair" them, the electronics in the inverter have a feature to align the phases (for that purpose of doubling the amperage output from 13.3A to 26.6A). I suspect the 2500s you refer to in Buenos Aires were also inverters? If not then I have no idea how he did it too.

The wires you see are the HONDA power eqpt kit, which is a couple wires for about $40. From what I understand you can attach 3, 4 or more of these EU2000i together, there are folks making these kits on the internet. Based on my experience that two EU2000i can only produce enough starting power to weld at the 3/16" presets. Just for the sake of complete internet info, three EU2000i would be necessary to weld at full power. Not because 26.6A is insufficient, it's because the generators will bog a little at the start of each weld (only when the welder is set at full power). :thumbdown: They can sustain the load once you get going but the bog at trigger pull is not good.

When I weld with the pair of EU2000i, I only use 75% power settings (it's the 3/16" thickness preset). Then there's no bog when I pull the trigger.

I did the rake tine repair at my home, at full power (not running from generators).

 

[woodlandfarms]

Way cool. Thanks for the info. Yeah. This would make sense on the BA situation. Thought for sure the guy was going to melt something but he was very confident.

Now not to sidetrack, but what you did is create a 26.6 amps. What this guy did was take one leg from Generator A, and one leg from generator B to create 240v.

 

[Ed of all trades]

The proper way to temper them is to heat the whole piece to non- magnetic and quench until cold. Then heat the whole thing to about 500 f for 20 min a couple times. that would put the temper of the spring steel back to spring. The weld materal is anouther story.

 

[dstig1]

My apologies. I misread the initial statement as "changed in a 20A breaker" meaning what I described. That is what lit me up as it is very risky. Mea culpa.