SPARKY

The Little Stick Welder with Big Features.

Welcome to the Sparky Stick Welder project. It's a low cost Chinese built stick welder that's been DiY upgraded to enhance its features. The upgrade is driven by an ESP32 with 16MB FLASH. Several new features are added, including a color touch screen, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) control, DAC voice playback, and high current measuring capabilities.

Features:

• Uses low cost ($60 USD) ZX7-200 type Inverter Welding Machine.
• Color TFT Screen displays welding current, arc voltage, and menus.
• Touch Screen for selecting features. Built-in help screens display useful welding tips too.
• Programmable Pulse current mode for enhanced stick welding.
• Helmet mounted Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Button for remote Amps control.
• Audio for announcing Amps and over-temp alerts.
• Flash memory for saving power-up defaults.
• Low cost components (~$40 USD).
• Non invasive design, no permanent changes to the welder.

Skills Required:

This project is suitable for most advanced electronic circuit builders that are familiar with high voltage safety. Step-by-step wiring instructions and "Heathkit" type pictorial wiring diagrams are not provided. But basic build information is available in the project build log (PDF file): https://github.com/thomastech/Sparky/raw/master/Sparky_Stick_Welder.pdf

Warning:

An inverter welder is a potentially dangerous machine. Lethal primary voltages (>300 volts) are present inside the cabinet, even after power is turned off. The involved currents have more than enough energy to vaporize misplaced wiring (and misguided hand tools) in a dangerously hot explosive flash. Proceed at your own risk.

Demo Video: Click image to play

<img src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/10354989/67135463-e344ba80-f1ce-11e9-84a9-607434299231.jpg" alt="Sparky Project Introduction" width="300" height="180" border="10" />