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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 1
The marine style batteries with threaded top posts allow you to add extra electrical widgets with ease. Another bonus of the Odyssey is use of lead coated brass terminals and buss bars making for a stronger, more reliable package.
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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 2
Some old welding cable, crimp ends, 4 battery terminals, a ground clamp of some sort and a welding rod holder are all that’s needed. Not shown, a welding helmet or goggles and a pair of gloves to round out the setup.
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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 3
Although I prefer the brass battery terminals, for the amount I hope to use this setup, these cheapy parts store lead ones will do just fine.
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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 4
Here you can clearly see how to connect the batteries. The jumper between the positive of one battery and the negative of the other gives you a series circuit with 24 volts of welding power.
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Welding 5
Make sure to pack a wide array of welding rod diameters because you don’t know what trail repairs you may need to make. Eagle rods are packages in these nice, small tubes to allow for easy storage and keep the rods dry when not in use.
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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 6
How you connect your welding rig can have an effect on the final product. With the Eagle 882 rod, I tried connecting the batteries in straight and reversed polarity and found that using a revised polarity setup (welding rod connected to the positive side of the batteries) I got more heat into the work piece.
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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 7
Enough of my goofing around, it was time to call in a pro welder and get his opinion. It just so happens; my dad is the family metal-man.
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Welding 8
Normally after putting this much heat through a rod, you burn the flux off of it. The 882’s surprisingly kept going.
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Welding 9
The final results are not pretty, and the arc is hard to keep going, but you can make yourself a trailside repair that may just save your bacon. And like cooking bacon, practice, practice, practice!
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Bryan Irons photos
Welding 10
Final verdict by the pro; grind it out and make a proper repair when you get home. And don’t be bragging to your friends if all the welds on your rig look like these. As you can see above, that nasty 3-inch booger weld is holding strong enough to bend the 3/16th plate instead of break the weld. After all this, the little ghetto welding kit is going to join me for the next trail ride.
Story and photos by Bryan Irons - Welding skills provided by Greg Irons
Point and shoot welding setups for home use are easily accessible to the masses now a day and can make a hack like me look like a pro. That’s great for in the shop, but what happens when you need to do a trail fix? By connecting two 12-volt automotive batteries in series you have the ability to create an arc stable enough to weld and get you off the trail alive. Battery welding is a down and dirty, last resort kind of trail fix, but done properly, it could save your hide.
With the limited stick welding I’ve done in the past, I wanted to see what kind of results I could get from a simple, easy to pack setup for use on the trail. Canada’s own Eagle Alloys was queried about what they recommend for this application. They came back suggesting Eagle 882 rods for a dummy like me. The 882’s are good for thin to thick metal, reversed or straight polarity, AC or DC Current. Perfect.
Battery welding doesn’t allow the ability to adjust the heat range like a normal stick welding machine. In order to “adjust” the welding power, different size rods were picked up and ultimately, taken with us on the trail. Depending on the thickness of the metal that needs to stick back together will determine what diameter rod will be used.
Two high-end sealed AGM batteries from Odyssey were subjected to the tests here, and they didn’t miss a beat. With an 850 CCA group 34M unit with top posts and studs, and a massive 950 CCA group 65 battery wired in series, we started melting metal. After we were done burning through a dozen or so rods, we put the 850 CCA Odyssey on the tester, and it still showed 75% capacity. Plenty of power left to stick back in the trail rig and head home.
Odyssey Batteries - www.odysseybatteries.com
Eagle Alloys LTD. - www.eaglealloys.ca, 10077-166 Street NW, Edmonton, AB - (780) 481-8082