Battery Supplied Arc Welder

Pavel Vorel Jan Martiš Petr Huták

Department of Power Electrical and Department of Power Electrical and Department of Power Electrical and
Electronic Engineering Electronic Enginnering Electronic Enginnering
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Electrical Engineering and
Communication, Brno University of Communication, Brno University of Communication, Brno University of
Technology Technology Technology
Brno, Czech Republic Brno, Czech Republic Brno, Czech Republic
vorel@feec.vutbr.cz xmarti54@stud.feec.vutbr.cz hutak@feec.vutbr.cz

Abstract— A portable arc welder with an internal LiFePO4

battery was developed and it is introduced in this paper. Used
DC/DC step-down converter with synchronous rectifier (MOS-
FET transistor instead of the free-wheel diode) is described.
Also the battery pack dimensioning and its thermal design are
included. The BMS (battery monitoring system) circuits and
charger circuits are proposed too. Some theoretical and
practical facts regarding the control strategy of the converter
are mentioned.
Keywords—arc welding, DC/DC converter, MOS-FET, BMS,
LiFePO4 battery, current control loop, power control loop,
charger
I. INTRODUCTION
A handheld light-weight battery-supplied welding
machine would be a beneficial tool for many professional
welders e.g. in building sites where the existence of the
supply cable represents a serious disadvantage and a
potential danger.
High energy densities of lithium-ion batteries and
especially high power densities of LiFePO4 cells (commonly
2.5 kW/kg) enable to replace the mains supply by an internal
battery with relatively low dimensions and weight.
Nowadays the price of these devices being available in the
market is very high and moreover their technical
specifications are often incomplete [1]. These welders allow
only short welding time intervals, often an assistance of the
external charger is necessary [2], [3].
The welder described in this paper enables an interrupted
welding work with a current up to 120 A till the battery is
discharged (no cooling pauses are necessary). The thermal
design of the battery pack is important. Due to the relatively
short discharging time at the full current the thermal capacity
of the cells helps to avoid the over-heating significantly as
documented below. Problems with dust in the common
welding environment disable to use some air-forced cooling.
Passive heatsinks without fans are used.
The core of the welder is created with a DC/DC
chopper with MOS-FETs. Topology of the converter power
circuits and control circuits is introduced in detail. The
control circuits can be set for current control or power
control. Both of these control strategies have specific
properties, advantages and disadvantages in the welding
process which will be explained.
A reliable but simple battery monitoring system (BMS)
was designed. It co-operates with the battery charger. Both
BMS and charger are included in the paper.
II. PARAMETERS OF THE WELDER AND ITS BATTERY PACK
The DC voltage of the welding arc is around 24 V (it
depends on the length of the arc). A nominal voltage of the
battery pack 40 V was selected. It must be higher than the arc
voltage because of the use of the step-down converter and a
reserve was chosen to compensate the battery voltage
decreasing during discharging and other voltage drops on
various parasitic resistances.
The maximum welding current of 120 A was selected.
Then the required power during welding at full current is
approximately 2.9 kW (24 V, 120 A). The battery size
dimensioning must be a compromise between the weight
(price) and possible welding duration without recharging.
LiFePO4 cells of the type ANR26650M1B with a
nominal capacity of 2.5 Ah from the A123 Systems
manufacturer were selected [4]. Four parallel cells were used
in each series block of the pack what means a total battery
capacity of 10 Ah. 12 blocks are connected in series to
achieve the voltage of 40 V (nominal cell voltage ca 3.3 V).
Finally there are 48 cells used in the battery providing the
energy of 396 Wh. The continuous welding time with the full
current (full power) is ca. 8 minutes which is sufficient. In
the real work the welding process is never continuous (there
are pauses for preparation, checking the weld etc.) so the
worker will use the welder for one charge mostly for a much
longer time.
Tab. 1 summarizes the parameters of a single cell and the
whole battery pack. Fig. 1 shows the finished welder without
upper cover. The battery pack is visible inside.
Fig. 1. View of the finished welder (battery cells inside)

This research work has been carried out in the Centre for Research and
Utilization of Renewable Energy (CVVOZE). Authors gratefully
acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and
Sports of the Czech Republic under NPU I programme (project No.
LO1210).
 TABLE I. CELL AND BATTERY PACK PARAMETERS W 600
CT = = = 72.3 J ⋅ K −1 (3)
Single cell Battery pack ΔT 8.3
Nominal voltage 3.3 V 39.6 V
Knowing the thermal resistance and capacity, the real
Full charge voltage 3.6 V 43.2 V temperature rise during real operation can be analytically
Discharge cut-off voltage 2.5 V 31.2 V expressed. Then the temperature rise during the maximum
operation time top at the full current can be calculated
Nominal capacity 2.5 Ah 10 Ah (8 minutes i.e. 480 seconds):
Maximum discharging current 70 A 280 A

Recommnended charging current 2.5 A 10 A  top


−

Mass 76 g
III. THERMAL DESING OF THE BATTERY
The high discharging current 120 A (i.e. 30 A per each
cell) causes a significant power loss on the internal
resistance. Therefore the thermal design is important.
The thermal resistance between a single cell and ambient
was calculated. The thermal radiation was neglected (only
conduction respected) due to the low maximum allowed
temperature of the cell (max. ca. 60 °C):
1 lef 1 3.7 ⋅ 10 −3
RT = ⋅ = ⋅ = 26.6 K ⋅ W −1
λair S surface 0.0262 53.1 ⋅ 10 −4
where, lef is the boundary layer length in a standing air,
λair is the specific thermal conductivity of air and Ssurface is the
surface area of the cell.
The thermal capacity of single cell was measured. The
power loss P of 2 W was effected by loading the cell with a
constant current of 14 A (cell internal resistance Ri of 10 mΩ)
for a time interval ∆t of 5 minutes. The cell was thermally
insulated from surroundings during this discharging.
Therefore the whole loss energy was stored into the cell
thermal capacity. From that fact it is clear that the measured
temperature growth during discharging was linear, see Fig. 2.
3.65 kg ΔT = RT Ri I 2 1 − e RT CT =
  (4)
 
 −
480

= 26.6 ⋅ 0.01 ⋅ 20 2 1 − e 26.6⋅72.3  = 23.5 °C
 
We can suggest from (4) that the battery pack
temperature does not exceed 60 °C if the ambient
temperature is below 36.5 °C which is sufficient.
Moreover the real situation will be better, because the
welding is rarely continuous (there is more time for cooling)
and the internal resistance of the cells will be probably lower
(the worst case maximum specified by the manufacturer was
(1) considered in the calculation).
IV. DC/DC CONVERTER
The DC/DC converter enables to control the welding
current to be equal to a set desired value in the full output
voltage range from 0 V up to the maximum voltage of ca.
40 V. During starting the arc (short circuit) the voltage is
almost zero (only parasitic resistance voltage drops) and
correspondingly to the growing length of the arc the voltage
increases. No galvanic isolation of the output is required
because the batteries are floating with respect to ground. The
buck (step-down) converter is the simplest one which can be
used in this application. However the converter was modified
for synchronous operation replacing the free-wheel diode
with a second transistor. This is advantageous in battery-
powered HCLV (high current, low voltage) applications (5)
due to the efficiency increasing (the voltage drop on the
turned-on low voltage MOSFET transistor is lower than the
voltage drop on a diode) (6). High-performance ceramic
capacitors were used in the DC-link instead of electrolytic
ones to decrease dimensions and to increase reliability. The
output choke coil was constructed on a ferrite core. The
schematics of the synchronous buck converter power part
can be seen in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2. Cell temperature growt during thermal capacity measurement

The total energy W changed into heat during the

discharging was:

tend
(2)
W=  p(t )dt = P ⋅ Δt = 2 ⋅ 300 = 600 J
0

Then the thermal capacity was calculated: Fig. 3. Power circuit of the synchronous buck converter
 Although the free-wheel diodes were replaced with the
low-side transistors the diodes are always present in the
schematics. This is necessary because of the operation during
the dead-time. A photo of the finished converter including
the control circuits (upper board) is in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Photo of the finished converter during laboratory settings
V. CONTROL STRATEGY AND CONTROL CIRCUITS
In the simplest solution the current control loop can be
used for an arc welder. Then the output voltage is changing
correspondingly to the actual length of the arc, while the
current is kept on a constant set value. This is why the arc
burns smoothly although the length of the arc is changing
because of the worker´s hand movements. When increasing
or decreasing the length of the arc by the worker the voltage
is changing too and therefore the welding power is changing
(constant current times changing voltage). This way the
worker can control the power according to his requirements
and experiences. The block diagram of the current control
loop is in Fig. 5.
IR + L
e PI conv.
PWM
– circuit. This way a rectangle signal is created with a height
I sensor
adjust I
Fig. 5. Current control loop
The power control loop is more advantageous for
welding of thin materials. When the arc length is varying, the
power is kept constant. It means at a lower arc length (lower
voltage) the current will be higher and vice versa. Therefore
electrode sticking is avoided when touching the material with
the electrode. Also burning-through is avoided when
increasing the arc length by the worker.
In the case of power control loop, a cascade control
structure should be used because of stability reasons (7).
There is an outer (master) loop for the power and an inner
(slave) loop for the current. The block diagram is in Fig. 6.
PR +
e IR + e L UOUT
PI PI PWM conv.
– –
current
limit
I sensor
I
adjust P
X
U sensor
U
Fig. 6. Power control – cascade control structure with a master power loop
and slave current loop
The schematics of the designed control circuits is shown
in Fig. 7 for illustration. Supporting protective circuits,
supply circuits and also the circuits creating the control
signal for the low-side transistor are not included. However
we can see the two-stage shunt amplifier, current controller
together with the pulse width modulator (PWM) in the
integrated circuit UC3843 (so called current-mode PWM
system) and the master power PI controller with the
operational amplifier IC2B.
Fig. 7. Control circuits of the developed welder
The worker can switch between the power control or
simple current control by the switch S2. The potentiometer
R17 serves to set the desired value of welding current or
power (according to the position of the switch S2). A simple
reference voltage source with the integrated circuit TL431 is
used.
The value of the actual output power necessary for the
power control loop is obtained in following way: The signal
of the actual current (behind the shunt amplifier IC4P) comes
to a sample circuit created with the resistor R18 and
UOUT transistor T9. This transistor is turned-on and turned-off
synchronously with the low-side transistor of the power
corresponding to the actual current and duty cycle
corresponding to the same duty cycle of the power circuit.
From principle the output voltage of the power circuit is
proportional to this duty cycle. The following low-pass filter
R19 and C23 filters the average value from that rectangle
signal which is a product of the height and duty cycle.
Therefore this average value represents the actual power in
fact (height = current, duty cycle = voltage).
VI. BATTERY MONITORING SYSTEM AND CHARGER
The sensitivity of LiFePO4 cells (as well as other Li-ion
cells) to overcharging and deep discharging is very high. The
voltage of each cell must be monitored accurately and the
charging and discharging process must be controlled with
respect to the cell voltage.
The block diagram of the used battery monitoring
system (BMS) is shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. Control circuits of the developed welder

If the voltage of any series cell reaches during charging

its defined maximum value, the optocoupler in the
Fig. 10. Central BMS module
corresponding BMS circuit provides the information to the
charger to decrease the charging current. Therefore the cell
voltage is maintained at the maximum allowable value while
the charging current is decreasing as the cells charge (CC/CV
charging method ensured).
If the voltage of any cell reaches defined minimum value
during discharging, the DC/DC converter of the welder is cut
off.
The galvanic isolation of signals via optocouplers is
necessary because of different voltage potentials of
individual series cells.
The schematic of the single optocoupler module (for one Fig. 11. EMC filter
cell) is in Fig. 9.
The schematics of the charger power circuit (non-
traditional fly-back DC/DC converter) is in Fig. 12.

Fig. 9. Optocoupler module for one cell

All the modules from Fig. 9 (from all cells) are connected
to the central BMS circuit shown in Fig. 10.
A charger with a maximum power of ca. 500 W was
designed for the welder. A switching power supply was used
to minimize the dimensions. The charger is supplied from the
standard 1 phase network 230 V / 50 Hz. There is an input
rectifier and a DC/DC converter. A non-traditional topology
of a fly-back converter with a pulse transformer is used. The
connection of the primary side enables to avoid voltage
overshoots of the transistor voltage collector-emitter caused
normally with the non-zero leakage of the pulse transformer.
The schematics of the input rectifier including the EMC
filter (electromagnetic compatibility) is in Fig. 11. The NTC
thermistor R22 is used to eliminate the initial charging
overcurrent peaks of the electrolytic capacitor in the DC link.
Fig. 12. Power circuit of the charger
The charger control circuits are in Fig. 13. They are
based on the integrated circuit UC3845 providing the current
control and PWM. As there is a progressive silicon-carbide
transistor (SiC) used in the power circuit it was necessary to
construct a special driver for it providing the turning-on
voltage of ca 20 V and turning-off voltage of ca – 5 V. The
driver circuitry is visible around the transistor T3 in Fig. 13.
A current transformer is used to sense the primary
transistor current, see Fig. 12. The secondary circuits of this
measurement transformer are present in Fig. 13 in the lower
left corner. The BMS circuits of the battery pack affect the
charging current as mentioned above (signal “External
Current Limit” in Fig. 13).

Fig. 13. Control circuits of the charger
VII. PROTOTYPE OF THE CHARGER
The whole device was completely constructed,
practically tested and verified. The control signals for the
switching transistors of the DC/DC converter are visible in
Fig. 14. The necessary dead-time insertion can be seen here.
Fig. 14. Control signals for transistors of the DC/DC converter
Fig. 15. Control signals for transistors of the DC/DC converter
The output voltage of the DC/DC converter branch at the
full output current is in Fig. 15. Also the gate-source signal
of the low-side transistor is in this figure.
VIII. CONCLUSION
A portable battery-supplied arc welder was developed
and practically tested in real welding process. No supply grid
cable is present in this welder which means an obvious
practical advantage. The battery-supplied welders with
parameters similar to the developed device are not
commonly available in the market.
The cascade control structure with the master power loop
and slave current loop was tested in this device. The
suitability of this control system for welding of thin materials
was practically verified. Also the simple current control can
be selected in the welder for welding thicker materials with
higher power (current).
The practical tests showed the only problem with the
developed welder – the voltage of the battery pack could be
slightly higher to allow simpler keeping of the arc by the
hand of the welder.
The ideas, schematics and also battery pack design were
briefly introduced in this article to inspire researchers and
engineers working in the field of power electronics.
REFERENCES
[1] Orion Solutions, LLC, Tactical Welder. http://www.tactical-
welding.com/
[2] Fronius Accupocket https://www.fronius.com/en/welding-
technology/products/manual-welding/mma/accupocket
[3] Dewalt DCW100K. http://www.toolup.com/DeWalt-DCW100K-
PORTABLE-STICK-TIG-WELDER-KIT
[4] A123 Systems ANR26650M1B Cell Datasheet. Date last accessed:
September 10, 2018.
http://www.a123systems.com/Collateral/Documents/English-
US/A123%20Systems%20ANR26650%20Data%20Sheet.pdf
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capacity synchronous buck converter for highly efficient and
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Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering
(ECCE), Cox's Bazar, 2017, pp. 392-395.
[6] Z. Iqbal, U. Nasir, M. T. Rasheed and K. Munir, "A comparative
analysis of synchronous buck, isolated buck and buck converter,"
2015 IEEE 15th International Conference on Environment and
Electrical Engineering (EEEIC), Rome, 2015, pp. 992-996.
[7] Jun Seo-Moon, Gyu-Sik Kim, Jae-Mun Kim, Chung-Yuen Won,
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