foot pedal adaption ?

[mikejack]

i have a bernstein d-32457 porta westfalica foot pedal it appears to be used for turning on/off routers band saws etc ! my question is , could this be used as a remote pedal for tig operation ? anyone with any electrical no how be able to direct me in adapting it ? don't even know if this is the correct part of the forum to post this , but it is a tool (or is that just me )

 

[hotrodder]

If it's a simple on/off switch it may not lend itself to a variable amperage remote so easily. A typical TIG foot pedal is kinda like a throttle pedal in a car... too much travel and it's uncomfortable to use, too little and it's difficult to use smoothly as small movements = large changes to power. Same deal with start and finish angles if they don't match the natural range of motion human ankles have. Bulky pedals don't help either whether standing or sitting unless your legs are different lengths...

For most welders all that's inside them is a microswitch and potentiometer although some older kit used high powered rheostats and some newer stuff uses CAN (common area network) witchcraft. Tell us the make and model of welder and someone might know what pot value you need and the pinout for wiring it up. Some machine owners manuals also include this info. While there's very little to most pedals a lot of manufactuers still get things wrong (as well as charging LOTS) with both ergonomics and mickey mouse pot drives. Personally i'd just buy an SCC controls pedal if they make one for your kit; while they aren't cheap in absolute terms they're exceptionally well made & designed with top quality components, relatively cheap compared to many other commercially available pedals and very good value for money IMO

 

[mikejack]

i'm not good enough of a welder to warrant another purchase to the girlfriend , 2 migs an ac/dc tig along with plasma cutter etc etc , , imagine how many shoes and handbags she could of had !
the footpedal seems to be microswitch press once to power on and press again to turn off !
my tig is a cebora ac/dc bought off one of the guys off here , but a wiring diagram with all the resistor values etc would be wasted on me im afraid , will see if i can pick up a never to be missed bargain somewhere !

 

[eSCHEn]

If you do get a wiring diagram Mike I'll happily knock you a circuit up from it. That would just leave the case mounting for you to do

 

[mikejack]

cheers for that , we need to catch up so i can pick your brains ,lol
the pedal i have is a bernstien d22457 porta westfalica , but as for the rest of it , i'm lost

 

[eSCHEn]

Stick the machine details up like hr says mate. Someone may well have a circuit diagram. I wouldn't imagine it to be too onerous if it for the machine I think you have

If it's just a pot and some basic discrete components then I may well have them already.

Pick away buddy but be gentle - there wasn't much to begin with and nowt much left now ^_^

 

[mikejack]

this is the very machine i bought , says suitable for use with footpedal

 

[mikejack]

http://www.cebora.it/sche/sche235.pdf
wiring diagram for the machine !

 

[mikejack]

wiring diagram and schematic for the pedal i have , (no guard)
http://www.altechcorp.com/bernstein/bernstein_footswitch/documents/7100002000_en1.pdf

 

[eSCHEn]

Had a look at that schematic Mike but it's just showing how the internals of the machine are laid out and which pins control the on/off.

What you need is to sweetheart someone with the same or a similar unit and ask for some pics of their pedal's circuit.

I've had a grep about but no joy unfortunately.

 

[mikejack]

cheers for looking , i will try and find out if anyone has the same ,

 

[eSCHEn]

Let me know if you do get something and I'm sure we can fashion something together and pop it on here to help any future people

 

[hotrodder]

http://www.cebora.it/istr/431g.pdf Manual for the Tig Star 16P barely mentions pedals so not useful however emailing Cebora might get something useful like pinouts for the machine and pot values? By the looks of things pedals for it use two cables & plugs, while a pic* http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTA2MFgxNjAw/z/B7sAAOSwQPlV9ew4/$_57.JPG shows two five pin plugs i wouldn't be surprised if one of them only uses two pins for the on/off switch and the other plug is used for the pot so only uses 3 of them. Plugs with more pins than needed is fairly common for example the foot pedal for my lincoln uses a 6pin Amphenol but only 5 of them are needed. I might be wrong and the Cebora pedal uses two pots or some other wackyness though

The Bernstein pedal you have... be easy enough to make it work like the button on the TIG torch, dunno which of the switch options shown in the schematic yours has but ideally you'd throw away whatever type of latching switch it has in it and replace with a momentary switch. Then it'd work like the torch button does i.e. can select 2T or 4T (explained on pg13 of the manual under F - manual/automatic selector) on the machine

* that's an aftermarket TecArc pedal, i wouldn't touch one with a bargepole personally even if you were actively shopping for a foot pedal

 

[mikejack]

cheers for looking into that hotrodder , much appreciated on an aside , do you currently have a rod ? in the workshop we have a v6 pop (on the road project) , a ww2 replica kublewagen with chevy up front and a bay window van with rover v8 and a beetle getting rebuilt !

 

[hotrodder]

Not 'proper' rods as such but currently have a '54 ragtop Beetle in pieces and a replica 356A speedster that's also off the road at the moment. The Speedster was my daily for 6+ years which didn't do it much good, then after getting a sensible daily driver i kinda lost interest a bit after being spoilt with things like aircon and heated leather seats Making parts for people happy to spend vast amounts on their cars doesn't help the enthusiasm either

 

[mikejack]

is that the chesil speedster , need to get that rag back on the road too , any pics of your toys in the relevant section? just currently working through all the pics I have of the bug rebuild to put some up on here , building it for the gf and got audi tt leather heated seats to go in , so she wants them wired up ! wouldn't say that if I had a electric seat in the house !