this is my homemade stick welder

you can easily make one yourself

at a scale from one to 5
(5=hardest 1=easyest)

this project is a 2.5

you need to know somthing about electronics but other than that its easy stuff

you can see it at my site

edit
(my site is now down)

take the secondary out of an old microwave transformer and replace it with 12 gauage thhn wire, connect 2-3 transformer and wire the output togeather to form an output of at least 70 amps

sorry for the bad pic

it was taken with my old camera

Moody, is it mig or stick ?

stick

Wish that I had the electrical skills to do something like that.

What size of rod will it burn?

Id bet it would burn about a 3/32nd.....

it will burn a 1/16 rod nice

but i have 10 pds of 3/32 waiting to be tested

its a 70 amp welder and 3/32 says to burn at 75 - 105 amps so it looks like im cutting it close on the amps

right now im working on adding a small transformer to the mix to try and pump out more amps


once my angle grinders cutoff wheels come in the mail i can start modifying the other transformer

ill keep everyone updated

be sure to check out the site from time to time as i will be showing the steps on there

sorry for that long delay

it will only burn 1/16" rods running on a 20A outlet

of corse it will only burn a 1/16 rod. Did you forget about ocv? A clarke 95e has the amps needed to burn a 3/32 rod but the open circut voltage will not start the rod. Same rules apply to this welder. Cool little project....could sell some on ebay for a pretty good profit if you can get broken microwaves or something.

Makes me feel "Old" !

I used to stick-weld with car batteries & jumper cables.

It didn't work WELL, but it WORKED!