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Thought I'd share my Weldernator

clarkjw24

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start with an older style gm alternator as these are the easiest to convert.
First thing you do is remove the bolts that hold the case together. then seperate the two halfs. i had to use a deadblow and tap on the case till it came apart.


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you will not mod this side so just set it aside for now.

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this is the half where we will do the mods

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We will be removing: top right is the capacitor, the top center and upper left is the exciter diode and components and the lower screw we will remove the plastic insulation.

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I removed the copper winding

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I removed the capicator and exciter diode and its components

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i removed the insulation from the screw

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here is what you end up with

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then you slide the brushes back in the holder and i put a very small drill bit in there to keep them in place whal i put it back together

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after the ase is reassembled then you can remove the bit and the brushes will contact the shaft

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mounted.
You need a master on/off switch for the welder. Since the rotor can draw 4 or 5 Amps easily, a relay is in order. The system I came up with used an 'accessory' supply through a switch. That switch activated a relay that let 12V from the battery go directly to the rotor.
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Now for the business end... Get two lengths of welding cable with ring terminals at one end. Bolt on one ring terminal to the + output of the welder. On the back of the new welder, there is a threaded hole. Use this to bolt on the other ring terminal.
we made up some quick connect leads

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made a bracket to hold the truck side leads.

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we welded the bracket to the core support

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now you just plug the leads in and weld. remember to reverse polarity if welding on your own rig

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Hot damn! I guess I won't need to buy the premier power welder when I can do this for dirt cheap. Saving this to tech files.
 
Why didn't you use your stock alternator bracket? Is it becuase with this system you have to run two alternators? One for the charging system and one for the welder.
 
I'm running two alts. One for charging and the other for the welder. I changed over to the steel bracket serp setup. The one on the bottom is the welder.

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That is awesome, very nice and clean job. Now I want one for sure. I never knew they could weld that clean. I figured it would be jumping arc and sticking on a lot. These needs to go on the sites main page in the tech articles for sure.
 
You said it is an older style alt. so does that mean it does not have to be a high output unit? It is a very cool idea, I havnt seen this before, is it your brainchild?
 
Oddly, I was just about to search for something like this on Pirate... I just uncovered my long-forgotten stash of alternators from parted-out trucks.....

WICKED SWEET!!!
 
Kick ass !!! (subscribed).....I have the exact same alt under my bench !!!!

Time to build some brackets :D:D
 
would it be advantageous to use a 24 volt alternator?

I honestly don't know. This alt is an old school 78 amp I believe. Be careful of the newer style alt because it takes a lot more modding to work. I was going to use a newer style 105 but after some research proved to be more trouble that I wanted to go through. Some say the Ford ones work better. I had this one lying around and gave it a shot. I put a volt meter between the leads and it registered 115volts. So I could make up a outlet and run drills or grinders also, using it like a generator.
 

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