DIY tig pedal

[Premiershipman]

Just wondering how many forum members have constructed DIY foot pedals for their tig welders.

It's seems a fairly straight forward process involving mainly a potentiometer and micro switch.

I was wondering whether to go the full DIY route and actually build the pedal from scratch or to get an old guitar pedal / sewing pedal and modify that.

Any suggestions ?

Shady

 

[rkde]

just a thought but could you not take lets say a bmw throttle peddle with drive by wire and convert that? I purchased mine with the tig welder

 

[shenion]

Here's mine:

Worked ok but had issues with the drive circuitry on my TIG (Airco/Dialarc beast). The stock pedal had a 150 watt, 25 ohm rheostat. Had hard time getting a driver circuit to work to use a regular pot. Found it was getting about 200VAC fed back from the HF start and blowing out my transistors. Before implementing a fix, found one on ebay cheap.

Newer inverter TIGs are low voltage and any pot will probably work (10K linear is common). So it is just a mechanical issue.

Many transformer TIG's (especially old ones) have very specific pedal requirements.

Pedal had pot mounted with small hole drilled through the shaft. Dial cord (string in picts) wrapped shaft and went back to a spring. The other end went to bottom of the pedal. A microswitch was mounted also. It works well.

 

[Shox Dr]

Some nice pedals posted on weldingweb.com. I tried to find out what was inside the RF11 pedal for my Kemppi. No info anywhere, in the end I just gave in a bought one.

Wish I had never opened it up: A linear pot and micro switch

All for 220quid Plus VAT


Robbing a*******s*



*I know sorry mods

 

[Premiershipman]

Thats the issue for me, whilst the welder is a lovely machine there is never much to a pedal than what you say Shox - a potentiometer and a microswitch.

Might fabricate one from scratch but need to find a good quality cable that will take some abuse in the grage environment rather than Cat5 cable.

Shady

 

[awemawson]

Google 'SY cable'

 

[Premiershipman]

Funnily enough I had found that on TLC direct - have used it in the past for wiring external lights in soffits and thought it would do the job nicely as its a bit cheaper than H07RNF cable and more easily obtainable from my local outlets.

Cheers

 

[Shox Dr]

Google 'SY cable'

I was going to suggest that but couldn't be arsed at the time

There does seem to be more flexible makes of it than others

 

[Robotstar5]

It depends what sort of screening is needed? may need to use CY?

Handy link to the different types

 

[hotrodder]

I've done the crying into my wallet/cussing out the manufacturers thing before but i'm not so sure it was justified... i tend to kick the pedal around the floor when i'm moving around something to weld and when i'm not kicking it on purpose i'm doing it by accident or tripping over the thing, dropping and spilling stuff on it etc. I'm probably wrong but i suspect a cheap pot and microswitch from the local 'radioshack' type place wouldn't have put up with 'normal' (ab)use these things take? If one 'bugs' out in the middle of a weld it could quite easily ruin your day...

Yeah, i'm sure there's a bit of the old 'printer ink' thing going on but for the likes us buying one of each component etc it's got to be possible to end up spending the best part of £100 on the parts? Amphenol connector alone is typically what around £30 or more?

With regards to the mechanical design the nicest style i've ever used have been SSC controls... http://www.ssccontrols.com/images/products/TIG%20Foot%20Controls/TIG%20Foot%20Control%20Pedal%20Miller%20RFCS-14.jpg
Unless one of your legs is shorter than the other they're a lot more comfortable to use (especially when standing) than this type http://www.weldequip.com/foot-pedal.htm

 

[langy]

I've done the crying into my wallet/cussing out the manufacturers thing before but i'm not so sure it was justified... i tend to kick the pedal around the floor when i'm moving around something to weld and when i'm not kicking it on purpose i'm doing it by accident or tripping over the thing, dropping and spilling stuff on it etc. I'm probably wrong but i suspect a cheap pot and microswitch from the local 'radioshack' type place wouldn't have put up with 'normal' (ab)use these things take? If one 'bugs' out in the middle of a weld it could quite easily ruin your day...

Yeah, i'm sure there's a bit of the old 'printer ink' thing going on but for the likes us buying one of each component etc it's got to be possible to end up spending the best part of £100 on the parts? Amphenol connector alone is typically what around £30 or more?

With regards to the mechanical design the nicest style i've ever used have been SSC controls... http://www.ssccontrols.com/images/products/TIG%20Foot%20Controls/TIG%20Foot%20Control%20Pedal%20Miller%20RFCS-14.jpg
Unless one of your legs is shorter than the other they're a lot more comfortable to use (especially when standing) than this type http://www.weldequip.com/foot-pedal.htm

I agree Pete, never had any problems with the one I bought

 

[hotrodder]

An SSC pedal? Yeah, i don't think i've ever heard a negative comment* about them and (in pedal terms) they aren't especially pricey either.

*apart from maybe they don't do a pedal for my brand of welder

 

[gordon stephenson]

I have had 2 pedals from SSC in the usa, one for a Lincoln 205 ac/dc and one for a lorch T220, I think I paid around £130 each for them.I also think they will make a pedal for any machine as long as you can tell them the potentiometer size needed, The chap to get in touch with via email is called James Moll, He will certainly help you out if he can.
P.S. one came through the post as usual, the second one I got collared for import duty of about £25-00.

 

[graffian]

I'm probably wrong but i suspect a cheap pot and microswitch from the local 'radioshack' type place wouldn't have put up with 'normal' (ab)use these things take?

RS parts are fine.
I did replace a pot in my pedal, but it turned out to be the wire was flaky, from standing on it I guess. The pots are just RS parts, Crawley welding tried to charge me £50 for the replacement, but he handed me an RS part and I
told him he was having a giraffe, I hadn't looked in the pedal and expected some special thing[I was young]. RS is a few hundred yards away and the pot was something like £8. One pot is a rotary[max] and the throttle is a sliding pot.
New wire would be nice, I have chopped through the wire to mine several times, it's taped up and looks a state.
The microswitch doesn't look any more special then the jag inhibitor switch I use as a hand switch very rarely.

 

[gordon stephenson]

The SSC pedals are very low profile compared with most others, Very robust and great design too, The pins that the pedal pivots on are spring loaded,so you just push them in and the whole top just lifts right off allowing access to the micro switch and potentiometer.

 

[Wedg1e]

Mine started life as a £12 guitar volume pedal off the 'bay. The pot happened to be the correct value for my TIG set; I just fitted a microswitch at the 'heel' end with a block of neoprene as a buffer. To use, you 'heel' the pedal to compress the foam and trip the switch, which fires up the set in 'latch' mode. Rock foot forward for desired output. Rock back onto heel to hit the switch and off goes the welder.
As there's no return spring you can take your foot off the pedal (eg if you need to move it or change position) and the arc stays on

 

[loply]

Hi folks,

Just got myself an inverter type tig welder which has no socket to accept a pedal.

It's a Parweld MP601 which also functions as an arc or mig welder as required.

The controls are digital and I assume the amperage control is just a pot. I'm more than confident I can make a nice pedal and hook up a secondary pot (or relocate it), however, because this welder wasn't designed to take a pedal I'm wondering if anything about it will react badly to having the amperage varied during a weld?

Cheers,
Rich

 

[Premiershipman]

I have seen a few posts about welders that dont have a foot pedal and that it normally isnt worth the time or effort to try and splice one in.

 

[loply]

I have seen a few posts about welders that dont have a foot pedal and that it normally isnt worth the time or effort to try and splice one in.

Well this is an inverter welder and the existing pot is a simply digital/analog input signal provider, so it really is simple to make a pedal wired in series, wouldn't take me more than an hour or two at most.

My only concern is whether or not, as a machine not designed to take a pedal, there will be some aspect of it which doesn't react well to having the amperage varied during a weld?

 

[shenion]

Pedal wired in series?

You would need a switch to swap the 2 wiper wires, the other 2 wires could be connected to both pots.

The main issue, is the board was probably not designed for a remote input. Running the signals out will pick up the HF signal, induced welding currents and noise the board probably has no protection from.