Friday, April 16, 2010
New Version3 MicroProcessor
I have been working very hard on a Version 3 Microprocessor for this welder. Version 3 will change this welder from timed pulses to energy pulses. Energy pulses will give you more control of your weld by calculating and adjusting the pulse width automatically to the resistance that you are welding, preventing burned holes due to the wrong probe pressure and a change of resistance. This processor will also have features showing the capacitance of your capacitor and a feature to change the max voltage to 24V.
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Sounds like a very nice upgrade. Thanks for all your hard work Fritz!! :) Now its time to purchase some 24v pc grade caps. ShawnC
ReplyDeleteIf you know Fritz, you know he will take a great product and try to make it better! These upgrades sound really cool!! Thanks for the great work, Fritz. JackP
ReplyDeleteHey thanks Shawn and Jack. I was moving all my files, projects and programs to a new windows 7 computer this weekend, what a job. It took me until 3AM this morning to get my programing package to work with Mplabs. I'm back writing code after the delay and will keep you guys updated.
ReplyDeleteSounds really good Fritz.
ReplyDeleteHi Fritz, I finally got the welder build. It works fine except for one problem. At times when I power it on it doesn't fully start up. Only the top half of the screen comes on or some time just a dim backlight. When I power it off, after about a seconds it says "starting up" then shuts down. I always wait about 30s until the board completely discharged before I power it back on. I'm getting the 5V needed at the processor. I checked everything that I could possible think of.
ReplyDeleteI tried both processors; I noticed it does this a lot more often with one than the other. Is this normal? I'm not sure if I did something wrong or installed a faulty component. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Damian, send me an email and I can help you without clogging the blog up.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a voltage spike. You may want to try a snubber like I had to with a 110v fan.
ReplyDeleteThanks fritz and shawn. I'll try a cap on the 5V at the Processor.
ReplyDeleteHi Fritz,what is the status of Version 3 MicroProcessor at this moment?
ReplyDeleteChris, that's a good question. I spent lots of hours working on it and there were many problems that I had to solve. I needed a second faster processor because to do analog to digital conversations, calculations, check and convert and charge the capacitors, run a LCD etc and calculate and stop a 1Ws pulse in less than a microsecond was really hard to do with just one processor. I made a second board with a dedicated processor that did the analog to digital conversion and fired and stopped the pulse at 1Ws. This made this welder way to complicated and I am not even going to try to make it available. The results was not that impressive either, It was more accurate with very fine and small welds but for battery packs made no difference.
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