welding with car batteries

[MatthewF]

today i took two drill bits, touched them to positive negitave terminals on my drill battery and touched them together , sparks flew and they got welded together.


can i put like 3 car batteries in a circut, minus to work peice positive to an electrode and weld with it???

it will be ugly *** but i wanna see if it works? anyone try this?

[aczeller]

it'll work... you can also do the same thing by making a red-neck welder. DC only with a spare alternator hooked into the belt system on your truck. pretty red-neck'ish, but it works.

the thing you have to be careful about is keeping the batteries from exploding and/or over-heating. sulfuric acid burns like hell when it leaks out/ explodes out.

Later,
Andy

[MatthewF]

how would i go about not blowing up my garage? just dont use it alot? and what kinda amps do you think ittl put out? and what will the welds look like?

[aczeller]

no boom = no use... there is no real good way of determining when they will blow. a lot of factors go into it like how old your battery is and/or what condition it's in.

welds, IN THEORY, will look okay... similiar to a CV/CC DC welder. in reality, they will look like poo and will probably not be anywhere near the quality of a welding machine.

as far as amperage, figure you have 3 batteries, 12 volts each, 600 CCA each. depending on how you hook them up, you can look at either 12 volts and 1800 amps, or 36 volts and 600 amps.

Later,
Andy

[aczeller]

P.S. take a look on youtube for "homemade welders"... there's gotta be something out there... i've seen transformer welders made from old battery chargers. also, DC voltage supplies for things like printers and what-not work great, but can either blow themselves apart or flip the breaker/fuse.

Later,
Andy

[MatthewF]

thanks andy... i did a search and found an awesome thread

http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php...tteries&page=2

[David R]

Do a search right here. There was one that did it in depth.

David

[MatthewF]

hey wait.. .is this safe???? not the batteries but this.

i took an old power cord, chopped it to expose the black and white wires. then i wrapped the wires around nails . plugged the power cord into 2 power bars, with serge protection and i struck an arc on a big bolt i have. it instentaly melted part of the bolt and the breaker didn't trip....

im worried that i might start an internal fire inside my house somewhere... am i in danger???

[David R]

Please don't play with electricity. Yeah, you could get hurt.

David

[MatthewF]

no no its cool im wearing a pair of winter gloves :P yeah your right.. probally shouldnt be doing that

[MEWelding.com]

Oh man, i have too many windows open again. I can't delete the post it was meant for another thread.

[MatthewF]

no but i dont think that would change TOO much

[aczeller]

okay... i can;t keep my mouth shut any longer... are you completely dumb? i mean i know this sounds kinda bad, but what dim-wit just starts cutting wires, plugging them in, sparking things, THEN asks if it's safe?

i won;t say much more unless this shear stupidity continues.

Later,
Andy

[tresi]

welding with car batteries has been done before. but yuor method is going to get you a room beside mine in the hospital. food is good and i get share 2 computers among 3 people who are able to still use one. Beside that you can get a welder from a pawn shop for the price of two or three batteries.

[Mark...]

Snap on used to carry a spool gun that runs off of batteries. I used to have one and it worked pretty good. Worked on up to 36 volts. There was no voltage adjustment, just from 24 to 36. You would be surprised by the nice beads that thing would put out. Went through deep cycle batteries pretty quick though.

[boogaloo]

Redneck's last words,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Hey ya'll watch this, haha,,,,just had to be said,,,,,,,,,Boo,,,,

[flydrifter]

Are you getting some video of this??? This seems to be akin to that guy video taping himself with the bears in Alaska and I think Darwin had some things to say about things like this...

[Tractapac]

Yep, has all the hallmarks of adding chlorine to the gene pool.

[comp]

Originally Posted by Tractapac

Yep, has all the hallmarks of adding chlorine to the gene pool.

[comp]

looks like you could tack things together if you were fabing things ,,light gauge stuff

[z0diac]

Originally Posted by David R

Please don't play with electricity. Yeah, you could get hurt.

David

The best advice in this thread.

I'm not even sure what you're using as a ground, but I wouldn't even experiment with basically big cases of sulfuric acid beating heated up. Save up, buy a welder that's built for what you're doing.

[gnm109]

Originally Posted by z0diac

The best advice in this thread.

I'm not even sure what you're using as a ground, but I wouldn't even experiment with basically big cases of sulfuric acid beating heated up. Save up, buy a welder that's built for what you're doing.

I don't mean to be critical but I also was wondering why we need to weld with batteries, a whole bank of batteries. I understand that there are four wheeler drivers who have battery welders with them for a quick fix when something breaks but I can't understand why one would want to do this at home.

For general use, I really think it's a waste of time. This is just my uneducated, unsolicitated, certainly unwanted opinion.

[Skwerly]

http://www.jeepsunlimited.com/forums...d.php?t=302823

Check that thread out. I have seen it done on the trail firsthand, it's really cool!

[mudbugone]

Instead of trying to blow up batteries in your face you might want to look at this and be a lot safer... http://www.readywelder.com/ if you visit their forum you might get better answers to your questions about what 2-3 batteries can weld. The military likes these,but then their stuff is 24 volts. These are popular with the 4x4 guys too.

[Aquafire]

When I was a 12 year-old basement scientist/inventor, one of my experiments was building an electromagnet by coiling wire around a nail and running current through the wire. Pretty simple experiment, however what I didn't know was that batteries (especially when charging, which this one was) produce hydrogen gas (remember what happened to the Hindenburg). I kneeled over the battery on the concrete floor, shorted it out just as described and saw a nice arc too.
However unlike the above contributor(s) above, my barrel in the game of russian-roulette was loaded. The explosion knocked me backward, covered in suphuric acid and bleeding from the forehead. The house shuddered and the shrapnel left holes in the ceiling. Luckily for me, I received no acid (or anything else) in the eyes, no serious burns and no hearing loss (the ringing eventually went away). I was very lucky.
In short, if you don't REALLY know what you're doing (or even if you DO)- be careful building these contraptions and be even more careful following the how-to-guides of strangers that involve messing with batteries and lots of juice.
"How did you lose your left eye, Dave?" "Well, some guy on the internet named Hillbilly62 said I could..."
Trying to save a couple of bucks might cost you a lot more than you intended in the long run. Be safe!