Technical Can you spot weld aluminum in United States?

65-85k for a spot welder?!

 

Shakedown, just went to your profile and saw that your 21 years old. Your on a forum made up ,mostly,of a lot of old guys like me. We can be grumpy, so don’t take it personally! Keep learning, remember there are no stupid questions, keep asking , that’s how you learn. Never believe what one man says 100%, but if 100 say it, you can problaly believe it, and I should underline problaly. Remember almost everyone on here was 21 at one time ,too. Bones

 

What you have is called an 'open delta' connection. It's a way to produce three phase with just two transformers instead of the more-typical three. Delta connections are rarely used anymore, open delta even less so. There's two peculiarities about delta/open delta connections; one, you can only get lower voltage between two of the three phases. With a 120/240 delta, if you measure voltage to ground with each phase (leg), you'll find 120V on two phases but 208V on the third. This is called the 'high leg'. This is one reason why delta connections aren't used anymore, the inability to use all three legs to produce the lower voltage and in effect losing 1/3 of the system capabilities. If you do have both 120 and 240 volt three phase connections, it's also impossible to 'balance' the load. Two, a open delta reduces the power available. A open delta connection can only deliver 57% of the power that a 'full' delta connection using three transformers does. The reason for this is the same as why those 'single phase to three phase convertors' don't deliver 'full' power.

This used to be a way to supply three phase a bit cheaper when you had mostly single phase loads and just a few three phase ones because the utility only needed two transformers instead of three. But there's various safety issues with delta systems and most utilities won't connect to new delta service systems anymore. If you have one, those will usually get grandfathered in, but not always.

 

Better sell mine. I barely use it, and I could use the money.

 

Well, unless you are up against the rash of 70A service panels that I have found peppered across CA suburbia.

 

Europe is 220 single phase for the most part 50 hertz.

Your house here is a single phase center tap transformer.60 hertz. It transforms and splits 1high voltage phase into two opposed phases with a neutral in the middle. This is why anything other than three phase is just single. No common thing as two phase.

 

I love this guy. Takes a confident tradesman to share so much

 

Cool dude, too!

 

Don't believe him!

 

I had to get my ICAR certification updated so that I can weld aluminum, and they were teaching that you cannot spot weld it. He told me that is why they rivet aluminum panels on cars at shops and airplanes, because lack of access to three phase power on our power grid.

On Monday I will bring it up again to get a better answer. Just showing where I got my info, not the one who said it.[/QUOTE]

There are several reasons aircraft are riveted rather than welded during construction.
The hardened aluminum alloys utilized in their construction are not only a chore to weld, but the heating/cooling during a weld process can mess up the strength of the alloy around the welds. You can rivet small or huge panels continuously w/o special welding equipment (TIG) and skills or concern about disturbing the alloy strength. You can also join thin sheet to thick machined billet parts that are of different alloy compositions (challenge to weld). Riveting allows you to spot join panels by spacing the rivets vs. a continuous weld. Riveting also allows you to sandwich (squeeze) several panels together.
Riveting also simplifies inspections and repairs.

 

I drive one and looked it up when I got the truck last year. Ford retooled the line. They took out the spot welders and instead of spot welds, the truck is fastened together with a couple thousand rivets along with some adhesives (bubble gum), some screws and a bit of laser welding.

 

Naw, very common in industrial. Heaters come to mind...think places like Frito Lay,etc..

It's line to line.

 

Don’t believe what 5 window? Bones

 

Now I gotta go buy a spot welder.

 

your shop owner should nt (1) be a shop owner,(2) repeat stupid stuff like that,and(3) theRussian's spot weld aluminum all the time.

 

All of the industrial plants and many shops around here run 3 phase.
As for "not being available" you have to pay to have the three phase lines run in from the transformers on the pole and may have to pay for the transformers to be installed. That equals cost prohibitive for a lot of guys or smaller shops. 35 years ago I had a friend with a 600 acre hay field who put a 200 hp electric pump on his deep well to irrigate. They had to run the power lines about 3/4 of a mile then and the charge for running the three phase to the pump was around 60K in 1979 dollars.
I'm going to say that is the main reason for not having the three phase spot welder in the shop the OP mentioned was. The additional cost to put three phase in and the fact that three phase usually runs on a different price rate than single phase.

 

Joking, my man, no offense. "Never believe what one man says 100%". Thought you'd get it. Sorry.

 

You don't understand what 2 phase power is. It was once used in the US but only in some Eastern states according to this article and few places still use it;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-phase_electric_power



Three phase waveform

 

I'll be darn, I've been running under the wrong assumption then.

Thanks for posting that up.

 

Reversing rotation of a three phase motor is just a matter of swapping any two of the three phase wires. I assume your converter box does this internally with either magnetic or electronic relays.

 

Can we all agree that in Europe 3-phase is is more commonly found at the pole in the back corner of the lot than in the USA? This may result in 3-phase being the more common "welding go to" over there, across the pound. I don't know that..... I'm just asking.

I don't think the Original P is trying to make any statement so much as he is double checking other people's statements. Note the thread title. I'm no welder and I would never butt heads with one but I have seen chickens picking shit in the yard and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. (All meant in friendly, good humor and not a barb at any persons, living or dead.)

 

That's probably true, but likely has more to do with the fact that European countries aren't as 'spread out' as the US and may not have the same zoning laws as here.

Three phase isn't rare here, but it's not commonly used in buildings unless the end user has a need or in large buildings where it can reduce wiring costs.

 

Lol!! Some days I’m just a little slow... you got me. Bones

 

Many people have assumed that, including some electricians I've known.

 

The pole in the roadway that goes past my house has been 3 phase for many years as many farms use it now and residential homes use more power. When I built my house in 1978 I had to argue with the power company to get a 200 amp service. They wanted me to install a 100 amp system. Now, the building code calls for a minimum of 200 amps. Most industrial areas have it as well as large retail stores, schools and gas stations.

 

I wish I had it . Equipment is half the price and way more reliable.

 

https://video.search.yahoo.com/sear...=08b174c44149676ee46e459123f25d8e&action=view I used to spot weld at Boeing the units were huge and the aluminum has to be super clean you wore cotton gloves to keep from getting oil from your hands on the aluminum.

 

I don't know of any residential properties in Europe using 3 phase. It's just a industrial

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