If your budget is limited, older industrial equipment is usually a good choice, and you can even add some advanced features yourself. [Brett] of [Practical in theory] was completed with his old MIG welding machine, and advanced control functions were added with the help of Arduino.

[Brett] The main functions afterwards are pre-flow, post-flow and spot welding timers. The pre-flow starts the flow of the shielding gas immediately before energizing the filler wire, and the post-flow keeps the gas flowing after the welding is completed. This reduces the chance of oxygen contamination of the weld. The spot welding timer will automatically limit the welding time to achieve consistent and repeatable spot welding.

The Miller S-22A wire feeder can have these functions, but it requires a control unit that is expensive and difficult to find. All it did was activate the time of the relay that controls the gas flow, power, and wire feeder, so [Brett] decided to switch to Arduino. The welding machine control circuit runs at 24V, so the optical isolator receives the trigger signal, and the relay is used for output. Potentiometers are added to the original control panel, and all wiring is neatly installed behind it. The upgrade worked perfectly and allowed [Brett] to improve his welding quality. For complete details, please watch the video after the break.

If you are willing to accept the trade-offs, you can buy an inverter welding machine at an ridiculously low price. We have also seen some other DIY welding machine upgrades on small and large machines.

Super cool hacker! I appreciate all the details.

I have an old mig welder and I got the parts, which gave me a good idea to replace the driver board with an arduino. tks hack-a-day and author.

Very specific to the welder, but gave me some ideas.

For welding aluminum, I want to choose to feed the welding wire 10 mm after the voltage is cut off, so that it does not stick to the nozzle.

A good article to remember about pulses and other waveform-related modifications this season.

The same goes for more sophisticated CC and CV method hackers.

I have a s54e wire feeder and xmt 350 cc/cv. Is there any way to add an ipm table? Trying to find an IPM meter for the s2212p suitcase welder to see if it works. Miller 092-962 says no longer available

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