I'm thinking of picking up a cheap welder to use for a little home-brewed electrochemical machining (aka electro-etching). Has anyone tried this? Which would be more appropriate for this application, a CC or a CV machine?
Thanks. Bert
I believe that a transformer-based CV machine is basically a transformer with a big capacitor bank. At any rate, my wirefeed has a bunch of honkers in it. CC stick machines I believe have transformers that are wound to maximize inductance. But either would work fine if you aren't suddenly varying the load. The reason stick machines are CC is that if the weldor varies the arc the current will try to stay as much as possible the same so the weld doesn't vary as much. For a fairly constant load, I'd imagine either would work OK. What kind of current and voltage are you looking for?
GWE
Unless you mean "Electrical Discharge Machining", or EDM, you've been seriously disinformed. Electro-etching takes milliamperes at less than ten volts. You could do it with a couple of flashlight batteries. If you're really talking about electro-etching, then I might suggest that you might do a little studying on the subject.
" The ECM process requires low voltage DC. Voltages from 5v to 15 v are usually used but may go as high as 30 v in certain cases. Currents from 100 to 20,000 amp are being used with even higher currents being considered for the future.
A welder would have a higher voltage than you need, but might work for doing some experimenting. You might also consider Microwave Oven transformers with a rewound secondary.
Dan
At this point, I would guess somewhere between 10 and 50 V, and probably 5-10A as a minimum, possibly much more depending on how much area needs to be etched (and how patient I am). I expect some experimentation will be involved. I may end up needing a step down transformer to get the voltage in the right range.
Bert
Those numbers seem in line with the info I've run across so far. The industrial machines run with very small (sub-mm) gaps between electrode and work. My setup will be a bit cruder with a substantially larger gap, so I imagine I'll need to bump up the voltage quite a bit. And I'll be working at lower currents, at least initially -- until I get a handle on the process -- but I should still end up with much higher material removal rates than during my earlier experiments with a 12V/6A battery charger. I'll keep the microwave transformer in mind in case the welder doesn't work out. Thanks.
Bert
replying to Bert, Nick wrote: Hi, just wondering how your trials worked out?
replying to Bert, Nick wrote: Hi, just wondering how your trials worked out?
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