Warning: This site is under construction. Some links may cause your computer to burst into flame.
Update 02/12/09: Holy crap, the PCB LAYOUTS are now DOWNLOADABLE HERE!
Update 22/10/09: 10,000+ article hits per month and growing! Thanks everyone for your support.
Jiri has successfully replicated the welder design based on the schematic, with his own AWESOME modifications. He's posted the details onto his website (with source code included!)
As mentioned in the previous article, I only get a couple of hours a week MAX to update this entire site. As part of my income stems from the products I sell here, I'm forced to prioritise store updates and order shipping - Coupled with my day job at [censored], order shipping, studies and private work, I get absolutely swamped.
Hooray! Writing this means I've finally managed to complete the battery tab welding portion of my capacitive discharge design. In case you missed Part 1 of this write-up, check it out here. It'll give you a basic run-down of what the project is about as well as an overview of the hardware involved.
A couple of notes before we begin, skip everything else if you must, but please read the following few paragraphs.
Firstly Fritz9111 (Website here, Youtube channel here) was my initial inspiration behind this project. I watched his spot-welding video on Youtube a few months back and immediately fell in love with its design; He's recently uploaded the schematics / board artwork, and it's definitely worth checking out as both our designs are fundamentally different - It's only fair that he gets a plug for coming up with the idea initially.
Secondly, I've yet to decide whether or not to release a full Firmware image for use by the general public. I'm not being selfish or making money off this design. I've received alot, and I mean ALOT of emails from complete amateurs looking to build this project (alot haven't even made a PCB before!) - This is a dangerous advanced project, I don't want anyone getting injured, and my current firmware is just buggy enough to cause that to happen.
Finally (angry mode *on*). I've taken the time to create the Schematics, revised PCB artwork and a labour-intensive Bill of Materials for you - In return I ask you not to be an addition to the five or so absolute wankers to abuse me using the contact form - I'm sure alot of you have encountered such beings elsewhere, in short they have absolutely no respect for anyones time but their own. To them, free/open designs should be "bug free" and work exactly to their expectations so they can use it for their thesis, otherwise it "sucks" and the author is a washed up hack. Dead-set, this isn't a joke, I've received quite a few emails with that exact scenario.
... And now without futher ado, here are the shematics / sources of the design which you've all repeatedly requested! Currently only the Schematic, BOM and Artwork have been completed, the firmware will probably never be released at this rate.
 Schematic diagram: PDF Format, 340KiB |
 Bill of Materials: PDF Format, 101KiB |
Note that all the part numbers in the bill of materials are hyperlinked to the suppliers product page (most are Australian sources, sorry guys!) - I created this rapidly using leftover parts from previous projects, so it's by no means the cheapest or most efficient use of components, and probably a terrible design.
Update: Thanks Jiri for pointing out an error with the IRFP2907 Source/Drain configuration!
Update 02/12/09: Holy crap, the PCB LAYOUTS are now DOWNLOADABLE HERE! - Now stop harassing me you bastards! ;D
On an honest note, all further development for this project has been cancelled, I cannot provide any support (except for simple questions) due to time constraints. Thank you VERY much for all your support and feedback guys, both the good and bad. I'm not getting paid well enough through neither the site or my dayjob to persue any current/future ventures (lots of expenses here, eating takes precedence over projects); until that changes, you probably won't hear from me for a while in this section.
To clarify some questions I've been getting via email VERY often:
Now that that's out of the way, I strongly recommend looking into Jiri's firmware (see his website) and also Fritz's new design (website here) if you'd like to build something similar. Hope this helps
All the best!
-PodeCoet
Need to get in-touch?
NB: Please, no more questions about posting the artwork/source/etc! I'm absolutely swamped, I can't always reply to such queries, will get to it as soon as I have time.