# Simulated welding effects?



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

*Industrial welding effects generator*
_Who makes a good one?_

I'm planning to have welding effects glare through the windows of a repair shop.
I've seen a few YouTube vids by Evan Design, Bakatronics, and Phantom Hobbies, but nothing really impressed me.
I'm looking for a full blown arc welding effect that's absolutely stunning when it glares through the windows of a structure, but I haven't yet seen it.
I suppose multiple units might bring up the intensity level, but that'd be more costly.

Anyone know of a good unit?


----------



## Severn (May 13, 2016)

There was a guy over on ogr that used to post about little electronic gizmos of his own design that were often very cool. The one I remember we're some leds cycled very fast at the ends of exhaust pipes in airplane model which really looked great... Something like that maybe. You could do it with an arduino or maybe just some discreet parts even ... Grj might have some insight... I think his uid was stan possibly with a number after it...


----------



## Severn (May 13, 2016)

Ok found this. About midway through.






And his uid is stan2004

This thread although not quite what I was remembering above is similar.







Subway track spark simulation


Hi all - Hope this is posted in the right forum. I am trying to figure out how to replicate subway track sparks shown on this YouTube video: http://youtu.be/9riiQdb8UUk On his comments, he states its similar to signal block detection where a 10"...




ogrforum.ogaugerr.com





And prob others of a like title can be searched for....


----------



## Severn (May 13, 2016)

If you go down to stan2004s post that starts off as "Now that the inventor has confirmed how he did it, I was inspired to experiment with this special-effect even though I don't run subways!"

There's a short vid posted with his implementation.

So flashing leds off in room or shed... And wired to the dc track in a similar way to actuate when the train rolls might not be too hard to pull off...


----------



## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Viessmann Welder Worker


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

MichaelE said:


> Viessmann Welder Worker


Video looks okay, thanks, but I'm looking for something to blast the inside of the structure, so it resembles a large scale operation... maybe similar to automated welders on thick steel plates, almost like a shipyard.
The structure manufactures prefab bridge girders.


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

FWIW, in the O.P. my autocorrect changed 'prefab shop' to "repair shop".


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)




----------



## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

Click the "Demo" button for video.









Simulated Arc Welding flash effects - Micro Miniatures


MRLE-00273




www.microminiatures.co.uk


----------



## Don F (Dec 5, 2015)

What about one of the combination laser bright light pointers? Also reach out to Gunrunner John of this forum; he is an electronics whiz. He may be the person referred to from the OGR forum, as he is a member there also.


----------



## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

There are "welding simulators" made from an Arduino and addressable RGB light strings. Our just using a single RGB Led. This sounds like it might be what you after as you could put several welding sims along a string of these lights. If you don't want to mess with programming an Arduino, then your sort of stuck with finding someone that has this all assembled and programmed, but it won't what your really after as you have something specific in mind. Try googling Arduino, neopixel and welding sim. If you do try your hand at doing this, you will probably wonder why you did do all your model lighting this way, as you generate any color, brightness, blinking or what ever on individual LED's in a long string of 50 LEDS placed where ever you and all run by a single bit output of the Arduino, you'll have loads of fun tweaking the lighting up! As an example here is a link to some Christmas lights that can be driven by an Arduino (these are a little big and waterproof) but its a string of 50 https://www.amazon.com/Rextin-WS281...locphy=9012383&hvtargid=pla-800127855034&th=1

If you ever wondered about those fancy light displays that have colors doing a theater chase up and around the house, that's how its done as each of the lights on this string has its own 24 bit command that sets its color and brightness and its sent a new command at a rate greater than the eye can see.


----------



## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I've done something like this on arduino before. The basics of it are of course using random timings to have short and long bursts where the lights are off, but you also want to use a PWM output to give random dim/bright variances at the beginning and end of each "on" cycle, and also some variances in brightness during the middle of the cycle. Just turning a light on and off will not have the desired effect.

For the output, stick with super-bright cool white LEDs (actually just one should be enough for a single structure). if you really want to make it special, add one each of regular-intensity blue and red LEDs and include those in each cycle (more blue at the beginning with flashes throughout, occasional flashes of red but have it come on at the end of the cycle and fade out after the white/blue lights are off. Just make sure all of the LEDs are hidden behind a shield so you can only see the indirect light from them. The combination of colors and flashing can create a very realistic output.


----------



## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

@Lemonhawk & @Shdwdrgn , would you recommend one of the $40 "starter kits" to learn your way around arduino programming, or are they of the same ilk as "train sets"?










Amazon.com: ELEGOO UNO Project Super Starter Kit with Tutorial and UNO R3 Compatible with Arduino IDE: Industrial & Scientific


Amazon.com: ELEGOO UNO Project Super Starter Kit with Tutorial and UNO R3 Compatible with Arduino IDE: Industrial & Scientific



smile.amazon.com


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

*Transway Inc.*_
Prefab steel bridges.
(Walthers "Machine Shop" kit)._

Has side rail access.
Interior has been light-sealed with black paint. Roof & corner joints have been sealed with black epoxy.

I want periodic (not constant) arc-weld lightning to blast through the windows and door openings.


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

I'm thinking of partitioning the interior exactly in half... to divide and spread the effect.

[Edit]: Will then require 2 units.


----------



## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

@Stumpy - depends on your level of electronics experience. You can download the Arduino IDE for free and they have a full website with tutorials online to get you started, the only question is in getting your first arduino powered up and connected to the USB port. I stick with $4 units from ebay that have USB built into them, and it's easy to wire up the outputs to your LEDs and resistors. But if you're a newbie to electronics then yeah, one of those starter kits can be very helpful to get you going.

@LateStarter - see if you did this with an arduino you could have a single chip running multiple buildings.


----------



## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

@Shdwdrgn - Thanks for the input. Been in IT my entire life. While my forte is business systems (Cobol, yeah I'm a dinosaur) I've had quite a bit of exposure to SCADA systems and PLCs. Of course you get exposed to "electronics" whether you want to or not.  I'll check out the r-dwee-no site.


----------



## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

OK I dug deep for this one. This thread goes to 2010 when I assembled the board. The info is no longer online so I found the paper file. SInce then I have had at least three hard drive replacements.

The original article was written by Ken Stone, 1999. The board was out of production and I winged my own.

My thread went through the process to make one. After, commercial boards hit the market.


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

*Bakatronics TRIPLE Welder kit*
_$20... ($30 assembled).
Eureka?_

I missed this the first time I looked.
I'm thinking this _might_ do the trick...
Disbursed evenly within the length of the structure's interior, given the overall size, (slightly over a foot long) the three separate units might provide the right effect and amount of light.
The three energize at a different sequence, which would be realistic, and precisely what I want.

Wha'd'ya'all think?

[Edit]: Will the 5mm LED option produce more intense light than the included 3mm?

VIDEO: (Product Link Below)





PRODUCT LINK:


BK-115 Triple Welder Kit


----------



## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

The Bak thing looks reasonable, especially if you do not want to mess around with the Arduino. you give up the programmability that the Arduino gives you. One of the things the Arduino welding sim can do is also simulate the yellow grinding wheel sparks, then a slight delay and the actual arcing of the welding occurring. The same string can also do the building lighting and because you can adjust the color you can generate any color temperature for the lights and have full control over the dimming as its each individual light does PWM of the LED's.
He's another place to get addressable LED's is Pololu - LEDs This shows arrays of square panel, strips, rings and individual 5 and 8 mm LED's. If you look closely at the addressable individual LED's you see each LED has 4 leads, they are power, data in, data out and ground. To make a "string" from these individual addressable LED's you connect the power to each one, the ground to each one and then go from the data out pin of the first LED to the data in pin of the next one in line and continue this daisy chain thru the entire string. The Arduino then uses a single data out pin to send the data stream to the first LED's data in pin. You can also get the LED's and the Arduino from places like Banggood, They also have various individual, strips and panels along with the Arduino arduino nano - Buy arduino nano with free shipping | Banggood Shopping USA. I have no connection to either of these companies, but have bought stuff from them before.


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

But what about the 5mm LED option?


----------



## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

Oh well.


----------



## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

The size probable makes little difference.


----------



## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

When you set it up, you may want to play around with foil or something to reflex it. Maybe a dome from a flashlight would work.


----------

