I have a cousin that welds pipe fittings, TIG.
He built a round table on bearings with a round lower portion,rotates the table with his feet as he welds.
 
I've never built one, but it should be relatively easy to do.

But one thing that would be essential is to isolate the bearings and any drive motor from the welding current.

The ground lead would need to be attached to a rotary contactor, possibly something salvaged from a rotating sign, or build your own.
 
Could an Aegis ring be used to isolate the bearings from the current and prevent fluting? This maybe overkill depending on how much it is used.
 
I used an old Cincinatti lathe to build one years ago. I had a bunch of crane house rollers I had to build up, and I got tired of trying to do them manually. My original design used a gear reduction motor driving the input just as it would with the factory motor. By changing the belt position I could get the feeds right for different diameter objects.

Then I got over confident with it and let the carriage hit the stop, and stripped the gears. To get around that I redesigned it using two hydraulic motors doing the driving. With the rotation and feed speeds now independent, it made things a lot easier. It also gave me a reverse. With that, when I hit the end of the piece I was building up, all I had to do was hit reverse to go back the other way.

I had an actual machine torch mounted in a custom, water cooled housing. In turn, that housing mounted to a piece that allowed me to adjust the height off of the part being welded on by simply turning the knob.

I tried several ways of grounding that didn't work. What I finally did was to mount a 3/4" thick disc behind the chuck. I then mounted a BIG carbon brush holder to where the carbon brush/block would ride against the piece, and bolted my ground to the holder. It works just like it would in a BIG electric motor.

Another issue I originally had was getting a welder/power supply capable of running with a 100% duty cycle. I ran Dad's old Millermatic for awhile, but finally settled on a Miller Maxtron 450 with a feeder that would do all I needed to do.

Something else that will help is to run a 98% Argon 2% oxygen mix instead of the standard 75/25 mix. This will allow you to get the arc into spray mode. This allows an increase in feed and speed (and does it at a lower volt/amp range), and even better, creates very little spatter when everything is running right.

Finally, you can run off of a spool, but if your doing a lot, you might think about a drum. I had mine running .052 wire out of a 500 lb drum.

With everything set and running like it should, I could get the rollers I was doing so close to the right size, and so smooth, all Dad had to do was chuck them up in the lathe and take one or two cuts to get them to the final size.

Good luck, and if you have any questions, please feel to ask. My email is open.
 
I have a storm Vulcan 150b. Its basically a welding lathe with movable chucks to line up on bout any centerline.
Its a transformer style welder, dc output wire welder.
50Dcv max at 300amp. I don't know what the duty cycle is on it. Its designed to run for long periods of time non stop.
Its 220 3 phase.
I've had dc output voltage problems since day one. And finally I blew dc rectifier up.
I've looked for replacement parts to no avail.
I converted it from sub arc to gas mig, and I am very pleased, but now into some issues I may have.
This 150, has 3 dc drive motors.
But I'll get to that,,,,
What I want to do, is simply hook up another welder, aka, use its power supply to power the leads for welder.
Being dc, I've looked at a buzz box, with a dc conversion. Which may or may not have a great duty cycle.
I can also just roll my htp 200 over, make a gun mount, and give that a go.
I think my htp is dc output, and I'll find out asap beforehand.
Now, the possible issues,
For my first option, the buzz box route.
The ground on the 150, has the brushes like a starter on the rotation shaft. It would appear that I can just hook up buzz box ground to that pole.
Then hook my positive lead to the normal location.
The 150 is 3phase 220, the buzz box and htp is single phase 220.
Being powered by a second power supply is this going to create a backfeed being dc to dc, not ac,,,
Dc drive motors, there's three.
All 90dcv max, variable speed controlled.
One is rotation.
Second is wire drive.
Third is table that moves with it.
From what I see, the wire drive is fully insulated from chassis, mounted on wood, and the drive shaft to the dc motor is a flex rubber shaft.
I have to really look at the rotation and table motors to see if they are insulated from chassis or not.
It would not be hard at all to insulate them if they are not already.
Another way to get around it is to insulate the work from chucks and hook welder ground to the work.
I guess the question on the buzz box adaptation, is all things the way they are, Will the dc output from buzz, interact with the dc on the 150?
I have all this bout ready to just hook up and become a newspaper headline on idiot burns garage down,,,,
I'm not up fer that.
Hope this ramble made no sence,
I went thru welding in high school, and hands on from that with my htp.
I should go back to school.
 
I saw a video on Youtube a few months ago where a guy built a homemade welding lathe for tig welding. Kinda Rube Goldberg, but it worked.
 
Any MIG setup is going to be DC, constant voltage. To work on a buildup machine it's going to have to have 100% duty cycle unless your not doing large items. Even then you need to stay within the duty cycle of the machine or chance burning it up.

I looked at some other crank welders with the same 150B designation, and at least one of them was using a Lincoln Idealarc dc250 power supply. Based on what I saw, and what your saying, there is nothing to prevent you from using any power supply you may have on hand to do the welding (duty cycle not withstanding). That said, you ought to be able to get parts for your machine from Lincoln, provided it has a Lincoln power supply.

Regardless you ought to be able to power it with another Lincoln Idealarc power supply. Given the value of those crank welders, it would be well worth having it right for a future sale.

That said, as long as you run the ground from the machine your using to the ground on the part, and weld on the part, you shouldn't have to worry about anything else.
If you don't have a manual, it looks like there are plenty of them on Ebay. If you do, and you've got any part numbers for the pieces you need, post them and I'll help you look.
Lincoln parts

Welder with Lincoln Idealarc power supply
 
NCWayne, Yea, that's the newer 160 model, I belive they all had that upgrade. I know a buzz box won't get the job done now. It'll work, but it be less than 120 amp after dc swap. I don't know who made the welder I have in my 150, I've looked for the exact replacement on the welder rectifier, and nothing, I can do a home built bridge rectifier, I'm not exactly sure how to go about that.

How I blown the rectifier, this has a switch, that flips polarity, and I did not know that it was good for only half the available volatge. I over did it's duty cycle n she blew.
As of yesterday, I got to reading about duty cycles, and the 150, is 100 at 175 amp.
My htp 200, is not that good, but now I'm aware of the limits.
I'm not brand Savoy, I've had my htp for a long time, it's been good to me.
I had seen a torture test on you tube, and for what I have in plan, its not going to work it hard.
 

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