I've been modifying a mig wire feeder, to work on my tig welder. The thinking is, this unit will be universal so, usable on any tig I have in the future. If it works well enough I won't need a mig welder as such in the future. Remote wire feeders are awesome, you can really get in some tight spots.
I got the wire feeder from an auction site $(80nzd), it wasn't local so a friend picked it, I got it 3months later at Xmas. It sat around until I got to it. Then I needed some bits and pieces. About $60 later, I got some plugs a DC motor controller with LCD display, and a suitable power pack.
I ripped the guts out of the old control box, installed the dc motor controller, and re-used the momentary switch for inching (now speed controlled, by supplying switched power coming from before the motor controller, which because the negative is still connected to the motor controllet has the odd effect of being speed controlled) and installed two relays.
Both relays are tripped by the hand piece trigger. One relay allows the dc motor to spin (completes power connection after the motor controller) the second relay shorts the two pin remote on the tig welder, per normal. Basically the motors power source was localized into the migs torch trigger, and used to control the switching of two 12v 40amp car relays the motor is only 18.3 volt, dc, at 5.3 ramps, so the 19v dc, at 6.3 ramps, coming from the universal laptop power supply isnt too far out of range, or two much for the relays or the migs trigger switch, since that might be seeing 19v dc, but its only switching the two micro coils in the relays, tiny amounts of actual current.
Works nicely. Job done. This was such a pain to figure out at first, I had to walk away for a day and come back better slept, with a clearer head. Stuff something like this up and the welders ruined, or you die, painfully, to be found as a smoking charred corpse.
Images posted below.
I got the wire feeder from an auction site $(80nzd), it wasn't local so a friend picked it, I got it 3months later at Xmas. It sat around until I got to it. Then I needed some bits and pieces. About $60 later, I got some plugs a DC motor controller with LCD display, and a suitable power pack.
I ripped the guts out of the old control box, installed the dc motor controller, and re-used the momentary switch for inching (now speed controlled, by supplying switched power coming from before the motor controller, which because the negative is still connected to the motor controllet has the odd effect of being speed controlled) and installed two relays.
Both relays are tripped by the hand piece trigger. One relay allows the dc motor to spin (completes power connection after the motor controller) the second relay shorts the two pin remote on the tig welder, per normal. Basically the motors power source was localized into the migs torch trigger, and used to control the switching of two 12v 40amp car relays the motor is only 18.3 volt, dc, at 5.3 ramps, so the 19v dc, at 6.3 ramps, coming from the universal laptop power supply isnt too far out of range, or two much for the relays or the migs trigger switch, since that might be seeing 19v dc, but its only switching the two micro coils in the relays, tiny amounts of actual current.
Works nicely. Job done. This was such a pain to figure out at first, I had to walk away for a day and come back better slept, with a clearer head. Stuff something like this up and the welders ruined, or you die, painfully, to be found as a smoking charred corpse.
Images posted below.