Pay no attention to those who complain. Those of us who are hungry for knowledge will never complain about the wealth of knowledge you so humbly provide Mr. Pete. Thank you so much for your contributions.
Outstanding presentation as usual. 40 years ago I regularly used spot welders in a sheet metal shop building Blue Berry Pickers. Several years ago when the company went out of business I bought the very same spot welder, finger break and some other tools I used years ago. You reminded me of the spot welding process but also taught me a few new things. As you know we never stop learning. Thanks again.
Another great job explaining the in and outs of this machine. I never knew much about them and was happy to get training on this tool. The more info you share the better. Those who get bored will go and those who want all the education will stay till the end. My gain, their loss! Being 70 now, I am finding more and more things to learn. Wish I was this smart at 20.....
Great demonstration, we don’t care that the others left your internet classroom after part one. Looking forward to more interesting and informative videos.
Thank you Mr. Pet, This video was awesome I have learned so much and now understand how a resistance spot welder works. I would like to thank you for all the hard work that you put into your videos and all areas that you do it is not an easy job to film them and then due the editing and then up load the videos for all of us to be able to increase are knowledge
Showed us what to expect out of spot welding and how to do it. Opens possibilities for those like me who has never done it and may find it useful. Thanks very much!
Thumbs up, both parts all the way through. Personally I enjoy these in depth videos. Superficial treatments of a subject I can find elsewhere in great abundance.
Thanks Lyle, as the saying goes “one is never too old to learn” I have a very expensive spot welder chucked unused under my workbench for at least 10 years. Was thinking to include it in the metal scraps when they are picked up but kept on forgetting about it. The spot welder worked excellent for a week or so and then the performance got worse and worse. But having followed you through both videos. I think I know where to start fault finding, so out it will come on Monday and it might just get a new lease on life! Love your videos and have been a viewer for years. We are close to the same age, and I must say that I admire you for the time and energy you spend on presenting your videos to one and all! Thank you! King regards.
Years ago, I worked in an electric motor shop and sometimes we had to make long screw that would be used to assemble the end bells to the stator and we used a spot welder much like the one your featured in your video and as I remember the tips would always stick to the work. That motor shop was the most dangerous place I have worked at, luck to never have been injured there. I enjoy your videos, thanks for the hard work.
You video makes me wish I had taken metal shop in high school back in the 60's' instead of wood shop. You sound like you were a great teacher to those kids. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Mr Pete, this video took me back to my high school days (1973 to 1977) in central New Jersey to Mr MacCleen's metal shop. I think the Miller spot welder and all other aspects of the metal shop helped inspire my 40 year long career in auto body repair. I use highly sophisticated water cooled spot welders to weld not just mild steel but high strength steel and galvanized steel. Again thanks for your videos.
Enjoyed both part 1 and part 2. The Hull Technicians (in the Navy) used these units a lot in spot welding vent covers and the like. Keep up the good work!
Lyle, Great video and definitely _NOT_ too long. Aluminum can be spot and seam welded, but you definitely need the proper machine for that. We build aircraft repair parts where I work, so I occasionally get to see the Spot Welding Shop's machinery.
My physics teachers taught us that a spot welder is just a lot of capacitors that are charged up and then discharged to make the weld. Not so long after I found a load of capacitors for sale at a second hand shop, bought them and by some fluke managed the odd weld in some scrap, most failed. I went for several years with that delusion and another of his explanations that fast heat soldering irons also used capacitors. It was kind of vexing as a lot of his other practical stuff on electronics, photography was good. Still despite garbage in on capacitors in industrial applications I went on to do a physics PhD, so it didn't hurt me too much. Love your videos & I regularly use things that I learned from you in my little machine shop.
Thanks. Enjoyed both videos. Very interesting the way you explain the workings of this spot welder. I’m familiar with the pliers with side cutter. My Dad had a pair he used in his shop, now they are in my shop. I’m 77. for my shop. I’m 77.
Very interesting, thank you Mr. Pete! We had a spot welder in our high school shop class, but for some reason we were never taught about settings and timers. Just to hold the jaws closed "for a few seconds." So this is the first I've heard the correct way.
The lube for the threads looks to me like White Lead....We used that many times in the repair of construction and mining equipment in the 70s.......That was the brand we used.....One of the best anti-seize compounds you could get. Wish I had it today.....Thanks for the look back into history....
always enjoy watching your videos. I wanted to let you know that I looked up to and had the utmost respect for my shop teacher (Mr. Bill Smith) more than any teacher I ever had. He really impacted my life, like I'm sure you have done the same with many of your students, even if they never had the nerve to tell you.
I haven't used a spot welder since I was in junior high. We had to make a small metal box out of galvanized, so we must have ground the plating off- I don't recall that. Also made a small shelf unit as a final project. Fun stuff!
Great video, thank you for sharing. I recently saw a video that showed how to spot weld aluminum. They put the two pieces of aluminum together, and sandwich that between two pieces of steel. then applied current. it seemed to work pretty well. As a side note, that is the same principle as the old Willard soldering guns. Very low voltage and a very high current. Again, Thank you for the videos. Your videos are always good information, and Good information is hard to get sometimes. There is a lot of Bad information out there and sometimes we just don't know who to trust. But we can always trust you Mr. Pete. Joe.
Our HS vocational shop had a stationary spot welder. It was mounted on a heavy stand. I can't ever recall seeing it used in 4 years of vocational classes.
That's an awesome welder! Wish Miller still made spot welders but especially ones with a built in timer. That's so cool it uses vacuum tubes for the timer too!
Excellent info made me want to go buy one even though i really dont have anything to use it for, still great info to learn a lot very interesting cool and maybe one day will grab one for fun. Keep up the good work really enjoy the great videos.
I liked it Professor Lyle. Um thunkin 'bout gettin the cheapo HFT spot welder. With my vision impairment, um limited to solder and spot. I've tried the torch and brazing with MAP, but so far failed. Soldering, brazing, welding and cutting - hot topics my man. Thanks for the 411 teech. Don
This pair of episodes is quite entertaining, and took me back to metalwork at high school :) In our first year of high school, we made a pencil case of tinplate with a 'marvi plate' (plastic veneered steel) lid. These were bent on the 'magnabend' (an electromagnetic sheetmetal brake). The box base was held in shape by side flaps which were bent over the ends and spot-welded. My two boys went to the same school almost 30 years later and made a similar box, but they were not allowed to use either tool (they had to get the teacher to do the work, apparently for 'liability reasons').
Thanks for producing your very informative videos. I watch them whenever I have some spare time. As I am from Western Australia some of the equipment you use is not available here but there are similar manufacturers in Australia.Cheers
Would have been interesting to see the internals of the welder, especially the transformer and the tube timer. Do you happen to have a schematic of the timer? When I went to electrical engineering college 30 years ago we built a spot welder, a stand alone unit in cooperation with other schools. one school did all the sheet metal work, others did the frames etc. and we did wind the transformers and designed and built the electronics for the timer. The welders were then given to the schools that participated. And, Lyle, your videos can't be too long if one is interested in that stuff, and if one isn't interested in such things he or she is watching the wrong channel. Don't care too much about those not interested and keep up the good work.
Enjoyed it, not too long at all. In passing - Lazze over on his channel found that aluminum can indeed be spot welded with a machine very similar to yours. The trick he used was to sandwich the two pieces of aluminum between two sheets of thin steel. You might want to check out his channel, Lazze metalshaping. Keep up the good work.
I watched both parts highly informative as well as entertaining . P.S. I have a Miller spot welder but with tips quite different so it was interesting to see this version.
HI Lyle, I have to say your videos are excellent. You definitely show your talent for teaching. I am a professional engineer and your explanations are always very clear with a smattering of other interesting information. Please carry on I love them. Everything you do I find entertaining and interesting. I might slightly disagree sometimes but I have never found anything so far which is totally wrong or misleading. I wish I could clean all my machines without using air but unfortunately jobs need to be done. I do however totally agree with your philosophy in that compressed air cleaning is bad for machines. So I try to do as much as I can by hand without the use of compressed air. I am the one who has to strip it down and clean all those chips out. A shop vacuum works really well. I will get some more videos up soon. I want to do one about my cylinder grinder where I have to replace an old 8 pole 850 RPM motor with a standard 1750RPM motor which runs the table back and forth using a small VFD because you cannot get low hp (0.3) 8 pole motors easily anymore. It was built in `1962 . Keep up the great work as long as you can they are wonderful to watch.I am a big fan Yours Allister Denyer B.Eng hons. elec MIET P.Eng.
You can use dielectric grease mixed in with a smidge of never seize to keep electric contacts like that from sticking in the thread. I use it all the time on my antique electric connectors.
Tip on tip alignment. Take a piece of 3/8" or so stock (plastic, aluminum, wood...) Drill a 1/16 hole through it, now use a counter sink to create two nice pockets on either side. When you need to swap the jaws you can put that between the tips, it will align them for you. A good informative video is never too long... Far too short is common though.
I've always wanted one of those. I keep turning back to the McMaster-Carr page, but they just cost too much for the amount I'd be likely to use it. My latest potential use would be for fabricating things from Stainless TIG filler rod. I currently silver solder, but that's not very strong for 90˚ crossing joints (and a lot harder to do than parallel joints). Nice demo (and it's firing up my desire for one of those tools again).
The grease is dielectric grease. The sparks are because the the tips aren't inline correctly or the pressure isn't great enough. The tip sticking can be from the tips not aligned correctly. Weld time to long . not enough clamping pressure. Currant too high. Looks to me like your sparking and tip sticking are going hand in hand cure one you cure the other. Thanks for the videos. Worth
Fairly recently I recall hearing a story about how some sectors of the automotive industry are moving away from the practice of spot welding body parts. The new " high strength steel " being used today is thinner. I don't know exactly what problems are being encountered with the newer steel alloy but a form of brazing is used instead.
Look up MIG brazing, it's the method being used along with MAG (MIG with an active gas). The problems are that the high tensile steels and boron steel get very brittle in the HAZ of the spot welds and cause the welds to fail and that a smaller unit like the Miller cannot create the tip pressures needed to properly weld the steels.
i should add that i made electrical meter boxes from galv for 13 years so i have litteraly done millions of spotwelds in galv and it is still done the same way today
The old school anti seize was white lead, very common years ago and very effective. A combination of powdered lead and grease. It looked very similar to the compound with the new tips.
Super video Lyle, keep them coming and make the content as long as you like you make them. If they are too long for some people, then hard luck for them.
You can spot weld galvanized metal but for a machine like that it would be hard. The industrial spot welders use a super high current for just a second to burn off the coating. Then they do a normal weld current to actually fuse the metal. The tips though on galvanized material have to be cleaned every 10th weld or so. At work they use a combination of a file and sandpaper to clean the tips. After so many cleans they will dress the tips to reshape them. Reshaping the tips keeps them from being big and fat. Which the more surface area of the metal the tips are in contact with decreases the resistance and can make the weld fail.
Aluminum and galvanized can certainly be resistance welded. Please keep in mind that the Miller/Harbor Freight spot Welders are the absolute lightest of all light duty Welders. If all you have is one of these though, you cannot successful join aluminum. You might have some luck with galvanized o other coated materials, but I would not recommend the machines. (I have been selling, designing/ building, and servicing resistance welders since 1991.)
tips are sticking because they arent smooth. if they are polished they seldom stick. also the square eddge were the sides meet the face causes sticking as the face "mushrooms" slightly in the hot metal
Very interesting and informative. Now I've got to go back down to Harbor Freight and spend more of my hot lunch money. My wife said she's going to get me barred from their.
Do you recommend using a 220v spot welder if you are welding 1.5mm sheet metal? My 110-115v Chicago Electric just doesn't seem to cut it. I have to hold the juice on for up to 15 seconds till I get a faint red glow, and usually, that isn't enough.
Pay no attention to those who complain. Those of us who are hungry for knowledge will never complain about the wealth of knowledge you so humbly provide Mr. Pete. Thank you so much for your contributions.
THANKS for watching
Outstanding presentation as usual. 40 years ago I regularly used spot welders in a sheet metal shop building Blue Berry Pickers. Several years ago when the company went out of business I bought the very same spot welder, finger break and some other tools I used years ago. You reminded me of the spot welding process but also taught me a few new things. As you know we never stop learning. Thanks again.
👍👍
We sure do want it long Lyle, keep doing what you do best, i.e. teaching!! You are the best teacher I have ever known (or rather heard).
Purchased one at an auction yesterday. Appreciate the ability to tap your resources - just think of the legacy you have created.
Awesome
Another great job explaining the in and outs of this machine. I never knew much about them and was happy to get training on this tool. The more info you share the better. Those who get bored will go and those who want all the education will stay till the end. My gain, their loss! Being 70 now, I am finding more and more things to learn. Wish I was this smart at 20.....
Thanks, Tubalcain! Once more you showed me things I'd forgotten I was interested in :-) You are a true teacher, if there ever was one!
THANKS for watching
Great demonstration, we don’t care that the others left your internet classroom after part one. Looking forward to more interesting and informative videos.
Thank you for staying with me
Thank you Mr. Pet, This video was awesome I have learned so much and now understand how a resistance spot welder works. I would like to thank you for all the hard work that you put into your videos and all areas that you do it is not an easy job to film them and then due the editing and then up load the videos for all of us to be able to increase are knowledge
THANKS
Showed us what to expect out of spot welding and how to do it. Opens possibilities for those like me who has never done it and may find it useful. Thanks very much!
Thumbs up, both parts all the way through. Personally I enjoy these in depth videos. Superficial treatments of a subject I can find elsewhere in great abundance.
Thanks Lyle, as the saying goes “one is never too old to
learn” I have a very expensive spot welder chucked unused under my workbench
for at least 10 years. Was thinking to include it in the metal scraps when they
are picked up but kept on forgetting about it. The spot welder worked excellent
for a week or so and then the performance got worse and worse. But having
followed you through both videos. I think I know where to start fault finding,
so out it will come on Monday and it might just get a new lease on life! Love
your videos and have been a viewer for years.
We are close to the same age, and I must say that I admire
you for the time and energy you spend on presenting your videos to one and all!
Thank you! King regards.
Thanks for watching--fire up that welder!
I inherited one of these and now I feel at least mildly confident about using it. Thanks MrPete. Best info on the net.
Thank you for watching
Thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Pete!! And very informative re spot resistance welding. You remind me of my high school auto shop teacher!!
Years ago, I worked in an electric motor shop and sometimes we had to make long screw that would be used to assemble the end bells to the stator and we used a spot welder much like the one your featured in your video and as I remember the tips would always stick to the work. That motor shop was the most dangerous place I have worked at, luck to never have been injured there. I enjoy your videos, thanks for the hard work.
You video makes me wish I had taken metal shop in high school back in the 60's' instead of wood shop. You sound like you were a great teacher to those kids. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you very much--I wish you had been in my classes.
Thank you Mr Pete, this video took me back to my high school days (1973 to 1977) in central New Jersey to Mr MacCleen's metal shop. I think the Miller spot welder and all other aspects of the metal shop helped inspire my 40 year long career in auto body repair. I use highly sophisticated water cooled spot welders to weld not just mild steel but high strength steel and galvanized steel. Again thanks for your videos.
Neat
Are you referring to GM's primer?
Enjoyed both part 1 and part 2. The Hull Technicians (in the Navy) used these units a lot in spot welding vent covers and the like. Keep up the good work!
While working my way through college back in the early 1970's I regularly used one of these in a machine metal shop. Greatly enjoyed your post.
Lyle, Great video and definitely _NOT_ too long. Aluminum can be spot and seam welded, but you definitely need the proper machine for that. We build aircraft repair parts where I work, so I occasionally get to see the Spot Welding Shop's machinery.
My physics teachers taught us that a spot welder is just a lot of capacitors that are charged up and then discharged to make the weld. Not so long after I found a load of capacitors for sale at a second hand shop, bought them and by some fluke managed the odd weld in some scrap, most failed. I went for several years with that delusion and another of his explanations that fast heat soldering irons also used capacitors. It was kind of vexing as a lot of his other practical stuff on electronics, photography was good. Still despite garbage in on capacitors in industrial applications I went on to do a physics PhD, so it didn't hurt me too much. Love your videos & I regularly use things that I learned from you in my little machine shop.
Thanks for watching - that phd is pretty impressive
I was just given one if these Miller welder's the other day. Thanks for the excellent tutorials!
Mr. Pete, I liked both part 1 & 2. and all your videos!
THANKS for watching
Spot on....and spot off....thanks for demonstrating its use and the weld efficiency test. You presentation fit the spot for me.
Of Course I watched it to the end ...I found this interesting and If I get a Spot Welder I now know how they work
THANKS for watching
Thanks. Enjoyed both videos. Very interesting the way you explain the workings of this spot welder. I’m familiar with the pliers with side cutter. My Dad had a pair he used in his shop, now they are in my shop. I’m 77.
for my shop. I’m 77.
I am glad you liked it
always a great refresher video for things you learned 40+ years ago.
Great videos. I retired from the factory where spot welding was invented, here in Quincy Illinois. It was The Electric Wheel Co. Now Titan Wheel.
Good to know!
Fred Ohnemus
Which the CEO is Maurie Taylor who I wouldn't walk across the street to pee on him if he was on fire. Evil man
garygsp3 I wuoldn't either.
Very interesting, thank you Mr. Pete!
We had a spot welder in our high school shop class, but for some reason we were never taught about settings and timers. Just to hold the jaws closed "for a few seconds." So this is the first I've heard the correct way.
The lube for the threads looks to me like White Lead....We used that many times in the repair of construction and mining equipment in the 70s.......That was the brand we used.....One of the best anti-seize compounds you could get. Wish I had it today.....Thanks for the look back into history....
always enjoy watching your videos. I wanted to let you know that I looked up to and had the utmost respect for my shop teacher (Mr. Bill Smith) more than any teacher I ever had. He really impacted my life, like I'm sure you have done the same with many of your students, even if they never had the nerve to tell you.
Some of the best teachers I ever had were shop teachers-they got little respect from other faculty mem.
And the shop teachers had the most impact on the backbone of America. Thank you Mr pete!!
Thank You, Mr.Pete,
Very interesting
Gary 73-year-old Home Shop Machinist in N.W. Arkansas
I haven't used a spot welder since I was in junior high. We had to make a small metal box out of galvanized, so we must have ground the plating off- I don't recall that. Also made a small shelf unit as a final project. Fun stuff!
Thanks Lyle....always informative with a great honest presentation....don't slow down...Jeff
Great video, thank you for sharing. I recently saw a video that showed how to spot weld aluminum. They put the two pieces of aluminum together, and sandwich that between two pieces of steel. then applied current. it seemed to work pretty well. As a side note, that is the same principle as the old Willard soldering guns. Very low voltage and a very high current.
Again, Thank you for the videos. Your videos are always good information, and Good information is hard to get sometimes. There is a lot of Bad information out there and sometimes we just don't know who to trust. But we can always trust you Mr. Pete.
Joe.
Very interesting, as usual. I had a theoretical understanding of the process, but hadn't seen it done. Thanks!
Our HS vocational shop had a stationary spot welder. It was mounted on a heavy stand. I can't ever recall seeing it used in 4 years of vocational classes.
That's an awesome welder! Wish Miller still made spot welders but especially ones with a built in timer. That's so cool it uses vacuum tubes for the timer too!
Yes, it’s an old one from 1967
Super-rare cameo by the little Hardinge!
Excellent info made me want to go buy one even though i really dont have anything to use it for, still great info to learn a lot very interesting cool and maybe one day will grab one for fun. Keep up the good work really enjoy the great videos.
I liked it Professor Lyle.
Um thunkin 'bout gettin the cheapo HFT spot welder.
With my vision impairment, um limited to solder and spot.
I've tried the torch and brazing with MAP, but so far failed.
Soldering, brazing, welding and cutting - hot topics my man.
Thanks for the 411 teech. Don
This pair of episodes is quite entertaining, and took me back to metalwork at high school :) In our first year of high school, we made a pencil case of tinplate with a 'marvi plate' (plastic veneered steel) lid. These were bent on the 'magnabend' (an electromagnetic sheetmetal brake). The box base was held in shape by side flaps which were bent over the ends and spot-welded. My two boys went to the same school almost 30 years later and made a similar box, but they were not allowed to use either tool (they had to get the teacher to do the work, apparently for 'liability reasons').
Wow-what an interest killer
Thank you! I always enjoy learning about different types of tools. Great Video!
Takes me back to shop class in High School. Great video, thanks for sharing.. Fred
THANKS for watching
Thanks for producing your very informative videos. I watch them whenever I have some spare time. As I am from Western Australia some of the equipment you use is not available here but there are similar manufacturers in Australia.Cheers
Always enjoy informative stuff like this. Thanks.
Thank you very much
Would have been interesting to see the internals of the welder, especially the transformer and the tube timer.
Do you happen to have a schematic of the timer?
When I went to electrical engineering college 30 years ago we built a spot welder, a stand alone unit in cooperation with other schools. one school did all the sheet metal work, others did the frames etc. and we did wind the transformers and designed and built the electronics for the timer. The welders were then given to the schools that participated.
And, Lyle, your videos can't be too long if one is interested in that stuff, and if one isn't interested in such things he or she is watching the wrong channel. Don't care too much about those not interested and keep up the good work.
THANKS--no schematic
Enjoyed it, not too long at all. In passing - Lazze over on his channel found that aluminum can indeed be spot welded with a machine very similar to yours. The trick he used was to sandwich the two pieces of aluminum between two sheets of thin steel. You might want to check out his channel, Lazze metalshaping. Keep up the good work.
I really like your videos. Very educational, I learn a lot from them. Thanks.
That's been most interesting to watch and listen to your explanation.
Great video thanks for sharing. Very informative. I like this series. regards from the UK
THANKS for watching
I watched both parts highly informative as well as entertaining . P.S. I have a Miller spot welder but with tips quite different so it was interesting to see this version.
HI Lyle, I have to say your videos are excellent. You definitely show your talent for teaching. I am a professional engineer and your explanations are always very clear with a smattering of other interesting information. Please carry on I love them. Everything you do I find entertaining and interesting. I might slightly disagree sometimes but I have never found anything so far which is totally wrong or misleading. I wish I could clean all my machines without using air but unfortunately jobs need to be done. I do however totally agree with your philosophy in that compressed air cleaning is bad for machines. So I try to do as much as I can by hand without the use of compressed air. I am the one who has to strip it down and clean all those chips out. A shop vacuum works really well. I will get some more videos up soon. I want to do one about my cylinder grinder where I have to replace an old 8 pole 850 RPM motor with a standard 1750RPM motor which runs the table back and forth using a small VFD because you cannot get low hp (0.3) 8 pole motors easily anymore. It was built in `1962 . Keep up the great work as long as you can they are wonderful to watch.I am a big fan
Yours
Allister Denyer B.Eng hons. elec MIET P.Eng.
THANKS for watching--
Very informative. Thanks muchly. I always enjoy your tour videos.
Not to long at all. Another very interesting video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Very interesting. Always wondered how those worked. Great job.
You can use dielectric grease mixed in with a smidge of never seize to keep electric contacts like that from sticking in the thread. I use it all the time on my antique electric connectors.
Tip on tip alignment. Take a piece of 3/8" or so stock (plastic, aluminum, wood...) Drill a 1/16 hole through it, now use a counter sink to create two nice pockets on either side. When you need to swap the jaws you can put that between the tips, it will align them for you.
A good informative video is never too long... Far too short is common though.
Great work
spot welding , copper cote grease is used on the tip thread to stop it seizing
i prefer the longer videos... Thanks for sharing sir....
I've always wanted one of those. I keep turning back to the McMaster-Carr page, but they just cost too much for the amount I'd be likely to use it. My latest potential use would be for fabricating things from Stainless TIG filler rod. I currently silver solder, but that's not very strong for 90˚ crossing joints (and a lot harder to do than parallel joints). Nice demo (and it's firing up my desire for one of those tools again).
Thanks, I had always wondered about these machines. Might be useful for my car restoration hobby!
The grease is dielectric grease.
The sparks are because the the tips aren't inline correctly or the pressure isn't great enough.
The tip sticking can be from the tips not aligned correctly.
Weld time to long .
not enough clamping pressure.
Currant too high.
Looks to me like your sparking and tip sticking are going hand in hand cure one you cure the other.
Thanks for the videos.
Worth
very good, I am happy to see how one of these spot welders work.
Fairly recently I recall hearing a story about how some sectors of the automotive industry are moving away from the practice of spot welding body parts. The new " high strength steel " being used today is thinner. I don't know exactly what problems are being encountered with the newer steel alloy but a form of brazing is used instead.
Look up MIG brazing, it's the method being used along with MAG (MIG with an active gas). The problems are that the high tensile steels and boron steel get very brittle in the HAZ of the spot welds and cause the welds to fail and that a smaller unit like the Miller cannot create the tip pressures needed to properly weld the steels.
That gooey stuff looks like thermal paste I use on heat sinks in my amateur equipment repairs.
THANKS for watching
i should add that i made electrical meter boxes from galv for 13 years so i have litteraly done millions of spotwelds in galv and it is still done the same way today
I love the longer videos, keep them up
The old school anti seize was white lead, very common years ago and very effective. A combination of powdered lead and grease. It looked very similar to the compound with the new tips.
Popular guys Mark and Chuck approach Jimmy on his first day of metal shop class..."Hey, Jimmy, stick out your tongue!"
I think the gooey compound is dielectric grease. It works like grease but lets current flow!
Very informative I'll be watching for one of these at my local flea market.
As always, very instructional and useful. Thanks.
Super video Lyle, keep them coming and make the content as long as you like you make them. If they are too long for some people, then hard luck for them.
You can spot weld galvanized metal but for a machine like that it would be hard. The industrial spot welders use a super high current for just a second to burn off the coating. Then they do a normal weld current to actually fuse the metal. The tips though on galvanized material have to be cleaned every 10th weld or so.
At work they use a combination of a file and sandpaper to clean the tips. After so many cleans they will dress the tips to reshape them. Reshaping the tips keeps them from being big and fat. Which the more surface area of the metal the tips are in contact with decreases the resistance and can make the weld fail.
Oh the beauty of something built to last.
Good bless you
Really, it was fantastic what you had shown.
Aluminum and galvanized can certainly be resistance welded. Please keep in mind that the Miller/Harbor Freight spot Welders are the absolute lightest of all light duty Welders. If all you have is one of these though, you cannot successful join aluminum. You might have some luck with galvanized o other coated materials, but I would not recommend the machines. (I have been selling, designing/ building, and servicing resistance welders since 1991.)
tips are sticking because they arent smooth. if they are polished they seldom stick. also the square eddge were the sides meet the face causes sticking as the face "mushrooms" slightly in the hot metal
Nice! Always informative and great fun here.
I enjoyed your video look forward to more of these.
Anti-seize, available at an auto parts dealer would work fine. It's the stuff used when installing spark plugs.
Fascinating stuff. Could you show us the internals of the vacuum tube timer inside this device?
Thanks. Always appreciate your lessons.
Thanks
Rechargeable, OEM-type batteries have spot-welded tabs for connections.
"THUMBS UP" Mr. Pete!!!
I always watch all your content.
Very interesting and informative. Now I've got to go back down to Harbor Freight and spend more of my hot lunch money. My wife said she's going to get me barred from their.
Thank you Mr. Pet,
This video was awesome
Thanks
ON A STRAIGHT PULL PULL THOSE WELDS WOULD BE VERY STRONG. THANKS MR. PETE
I see a Bet'r Grip screwdriver with the metal flake handle. Made by one of the company's Proto owned.
Aluminum can be spot welded. You place the aluminum between two pieces of steel across the electrodes.
Thanks, Mr. Pete! Just curious, why do spot weld joints not need flux?
What a neat little machine. Is there a different one for aluminum?
Lyle, could your tips be slightly contaminated by the paint (coating) from the "tin" can? Just askin' 😀
Enjoy your videos, very informative, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for another informative and interesting video.
Do you recommend using a 220v spot welder if you are welding 1.5mm sheet metal? My 110-115v Chicago Electric just doesn't seem to cut it. I have to hold the juice on for up to 15 seconds till I get a faint red glow, and usually, that isn't enough.
Yes, probably 220 V
Excellent video! How long did you teach shop?
Thanks - very interesting.
Would like to know the amperage the machine is capable of?
What is the voltage at the tips?
I seem to remember that some tips had a set of concentric groves on the tip. Do you know the purpose or have you tried machining tips like that?
I've seen industrial tips that way. Supposed to prevent bad welds/burn through because the grooved areas don't get as hot.
glad to see the video thanks A. Noyes