...
Schematic - Push Button Fire
...
The Build
I ended up using a Sonoff SV since it had everything I needed. Instead of having to use a transistor to switch the 12v, I used the build in relay. The Sonoff SV also has 3 GPIOs available which I used for a RGB LED. It also exposes the GPIO-0 (button) which I used for the foot pedal. The foot pedal made things so much easier.
I originally powered the SONOFF SV off of the battery but found that it would cause the SONOFF to reboot sometimes. So, I ended up powered it with a dedicated 12V 2A power supply.
I programmed the SONOFF micro-controller (ESP8266) to open the relay for a number of microseconds in order to perform the weld.
The time required to weld really depends on your battery source. I noticed that when the battery was running low, it took more time to get a good weld.
Originally I programmed the micro-controller to perform the following tasks:
- welding would be performed using 1 of 4 durations (25, 50, 75, 100ms)
- pressing the foot pedal quickly would send 12v to the solenoid for the currently set duration.
- pressing the foot pedal for at least 2s would switch to the next duration.
- each duration had an associated color (LED):
- blue - 25ms
- green - 50ms
- orange - 75ms
- red - 100ms
Revised Build
Later, I made I revised the build to allow the weld time to be configurable via the a web ui .
...
running on the microcontroller.
Observations
With my batter fully charged, a 25ms 30 ms weld did a good job most of the time. For some welds, I increased the weld time to 50ms.