HV Spot Welder Instructions
- Ishan Garg
The HV spot welder, pictured above, is in the HV room in the SDC. Note that the settings discussed below may not be the best, but they lead to a great weld. There are also a couple manuals beside the spot welder, which may be good to read for safety/to answer any questions you may have about the spot welder.
Steps to operate:
1. If the white tube is not connected to the compressed air supply, then you’ll need to connect it:
2. Open the compressed air supply:
3. Pull down on the knob below the pressure meter (there will be an orange band visible below the meter once you have done this). Turn it until the needle points to ~50psi, as shown in the picture below, then hit the knob back upwards to fix the setting in place (the orange band should now be hidden).
4. Focus on the two pill-shaped holes on the front of the spot welder. Make sure the two screws are at the height shown in the picture. They should be at the third white tick from the bottom. Don’t adjust the orange ticks yet.
If the two screws aren’t at the third white tick from the bottom, then use a wrench/pliers to loosen the two silver nuts on the top, and screw/unscrew until the screws are at the third tick. Then re-tighten the nut.
5. Adjust the height of the spot welder to be above the part to be spot-welded now. Pull up/down on the black cover shown in the following picture (it will be hard to move, and will adjust the orange tick the spot welder is pointing to.) This will tell the spot welder how far above the part it is, in inches. The minimum setting is 0.125”, while the maximum is 1”. The spot welder will travel this distance downward to complete the weld. I’d set this to ~0.4”, so one tick above the 0.5” option, as shown in the following pic (looking at the orange tick marks).
6. Use the two large knobs on the right of the spot welder to adjust the height of the spot welder. Place one hand under the spot welder, loosen both knobs, and place it at the desired height. It will be VERY heavy, so be prepared for it (don’t crush your hand…! Be ready to tighten the knobs again. Keep in mind the distance you said the spot welder is above the part (you can always go back to step 5 to change that though, using the orange ticks).
7. Plug in the spot welder into an outlet.
8. While making sure that your foot isn’t on the pedal, turn it on by pressing the button on the LEFT side of the machine. It will take 1-2 minutes to load up to the screen shown below:
9. Now type in 45Ws (i.e., 45J) for both the first and second pulses. The second pulse option should be on. Check the screens to make sure they have these settings (I don’t know if these settings are necessary, but they give a good weld):
10. Put on the visor for safety.
11. Make sure your part is in place to be spot welded. Then press the RIGHT button on the box with the screen to turn on the welder (it still needs the pedal to actually weld though):
12. Hold the pedal down with your foot for 1 second to weld. It will almost definitely spark, so make sure your visor is on. There is a bucket of sand right behind you (or somewhere in the room) in case of a fire (which would be unlikely anyways).
13. Make sure your foot is off the pedal before moving the part that you’re spot welding (you can also turn off the RIGHT button, if that makes you more confident that you won’t accidentally spot weld with your hands present).
14. Just hit the pedal for 1 second every time you want to spot weld now.
15. When cleaning up, make sure to close the air supply, unplug the spot welder, and clean up the workspace.