In this Video I review a spot welder from Harbor Freight / Princess Auto Pro Point , I explain how I use it everyday as a fabricator and why it works so well and what metals it can spot weld together you will be surprised .
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Thank you for your review! I almost bought one several days ago, but decided to watch reviews first.
Your welcome James thanks for watching
I have their 110V version in my shop. It is an amperage hog for sure. It frequently (but not always) trips my 20 amp circuit breaker the instant I try to use it. However it runs just fine in my 110v 30 amp circuit. It probably pulls at least 16 or 17 amps. With a longer pulse duration I have welded steel a lot thicker (can we say 2x or 3x?) than in your demonstration with no problems. All spot welds produce an area of weaker metal surrounding the weld spot. For any application where the joint will experience stress, more than one weld spot is recommended. If you are bold with proper safety equipment and precautions and are a little inventive one can easily get carbon steel hot enough (as in white hot) to temper in a bucket of oil a second later with this implement especially if you are willing to cut the end with the weld spot off afterwards. That technique is much faster than my furnace. LoL
Rob, Thanks for taking the time to do that review, I would feel comfortable buying one now after seeing that it actually appeared to work quite well. TP
T P thanks
Also looking at going the 220v route vs buying the 120v on sale for $70 less. What I really need being a Journeyman sheet metal worker is a full on spot welder with long arms, water cooling and air clamp assist. But that's $1500 used minimum. Still paying off my 10' 16g brake, 3' rolls, 3' bar folder, sheer and Pittsburgh machine. So I think this is a decent stop gap. Can fab filter racks, sq to rounds, reducers, boxes and saddles. Severely limited thou by the length of the arms. Also, file your tips to a nice point. Make sure they are aligned. The trick to spot welding is to limit the amount of heat generated melting your copper tips by concentrating all the amperage into the smallest area possible for the shortest amount of time. Focusing your heat not only produces a much stronger weld, it saves your tips, reduces heat internally for your spot welder with much shorter weld times, and your actual spot weld will look 10x cleaner compared to a weld done with fat tips.
Thanks for the great tips
z kiss Another great video. Keep it up. Placing 2 thin sheets of steel on top of the 2 aluminum sheets & increasing the diameter of the welding tips to 1/4" you can make good quality spot welds. A timer is also a must for good quality spot welds.
Oh this was golden. I really wish the 110v would do the trick on aluminum. I'm limited to 110v in my apartment, both hobby welders are 110. Loving the information here...
aluminium has an oxide coating that prevents it form conducting electricity. since a spot welder has to conduct through 4 surfaces of metal to work, aluminium is not ideal. i assume if you clean each surface right before welding you might get a good result (haven't tried, about to buy one). i have also seen people sandwich aluminium between steel to spot weld, but i'm not entirely sure how that works.
You have this backward. The reason aluminium is hard to spot weld is because it is such a good conductor. I have seen aluminium spot welded in a special aerospace application. The aluminium sheet was treated to give more resistance and the weld tips had to be cleaned every two welds. It was a very inefficient process.
Hey Rob, I was just looking at picking one of these up at the Dixie Rd Princess Auto, question for you, I'm trying to do some spot welds on a 22g (possibly bit thinner) steel plate to an 11g s/s plate. On the bottom side of the weld, I'm wondering if there is a way to minimize or prevent marking on the bottom side of the weld, I just emailed a company in India about a single sided spot welder (just a gun basically) that have some vids on KZhead, couple things, shipping may take a long time, the actual machine aside from the hand held gun looks massive, I imagine it would cost a mint to ship aside from the actual cost of the unit is probably pretty high! also concerned about quality / craftsmanship going that route, so I saw your video and thought I'd ask your thoughts on the bottom side weld marks, thanks I appreciate your time.
A tip for aluminium is to sandwich it between a piece of stainless when spotting
Thanks I’ll try that
See this video by Lazze. kzhead.info/sun/msegc5eOap-hlq8/bejne.html
That is correct technic, aluminum has very low resistance, and takes a lot current to melt the two pieces together, 220V spot welder is the best choice, 110V wont do the job,
I love how honest he is during the separation of metal to test .
The 220v model in Canada needs to be hardwired into 220v no plug available
I’ve found that aluminum needs more time because of the high conductivity. Spot welding works because of the large difference in the very high conductivity of copper when compared to that of ferrous metals, which aren’t very conductive. The difference between copper and aluminum isn’t that much. Also, aluminum leaves aluminum on the tips, and needs to be removed or the tips will stick to your welds. I’ve never needed argon gas for this. It’s also hard to give consistent times with your finger and I’ve made a timer for it.
Any thoughts about whether it's possible to modify the arms and make a setup for welding projection style weld nuts? The machines for attaching these nuts have copper threaded cylinders that attach to the arms. Once assembled they pass the current to the base material and the nut in a ring shape and the lower ring has a non conductive cone that aligns the two parts. I'm thinking you could make it out of copper plumbing fittings brazed to the arms.
I think that may work
can weld in any position?
Can you give me link for buy this tool 🙏
Any idea how you'd change this to run off a foot peddle?
The aluminum will weld strong if you brush the surfaces you're sticking with a stainless steel brush. Aluminum forms a thin protective oxide layer, aluminum oxide AKA sapphire. You can also use an AC welder which breaks through that layer.
Awesome I’ll try that thanks
@@BonifabcustomRobBonifacio Woops! I was wrong. I looked into it and am pretty sure that welder you have is running AC, and turns out the issue has something to do with aluminum having too similar electrical resistance to the copper or something like that. You should be able to solve this by sandwiching the pieces between two pieces of steel. The steel should just twist off and you should have a solid weld! Probably don't even need to brush it.
to do aluminium best to put a carbon steel on top and bottom as a sanwitch and it will work properly
will it weld automotive body panels - rocker panels -wheel well arches etc...
Yes it will
The electrical conductivity of aluminum is similar to that of copper; it is and much higher than steel or iron. Hence, there is not much heat developed in the case of aluminum.
It also runs on 120
Could you weld a 1/4-20 hex nut to a flat washer?
Would have to try it
@@BonifabcustomRobBonifacio I just picked up the 240V unit from Harbor Freight. I have to buy the correct plug for it tomorrow and then try it. Thank you for your quick response!
@@stevekorper8392 let me know how it works out
@@BonifabcustomRobBonifacio I'll let you know tomorrow. Hopefully this will do the trick. The 3D printed version is too weak.
@@BonifabcustomRobBonifacio It doesn't get hot enough to weld a nut to a washer. I'm sure I can use the welder for something in the future.
can I use a bigger electrode ?
I think you can i have made them longer in the past and it worked
I want this one how many price 220 Pakistan
Seems to work okay. Can you hold the workpiece will spot welding without getting shocked
Yes you can
Hello please can you send help me lm looking for the machine
Very nice video PS bring back the old hat lol
Black Smith thanks , hopefully when winter comes I’ll need the old cap to warm up my head lol
I've worked with automotive spot welding and from what I saw these welds were crap. If this was a good spot weld the samples should have been completely deformed in the process of pulling them apart and the nugget should have been pulled out of the base metal.
Do you have a website? If you do what is it?
Working on the website but i can be contacted by email
This is a good machine for serious metal workers, but it’s too big for young men to use. There should be projects which use light gauge sheet metal, airplane snips, a little press brake, and a cheap spot welder. That way, boys can learn the entire process and make tackle boxes, enclosures, whatever. It might be possible to make a cheap 110v spot welder which is shaped like a hammer, with a point on the end. So you’d hit the sheet metal with the hammer to produce the spot weld. The objective is to keep everything cheap.
If I'm spot welding 26 gauge galvanized sheet metal, should I use the 120v or 220v?
Maybe the 220v
pila dong
Like for used 🧤
Made in china?😳 Jman