Welding Tips and Tricks

At some point I believe that the weld lens will intelligently darken the arc and as you get further away it'll begin to lighten, thus giving a level of light (brightness) that is consistent throughout the FOV (field of view)

Doesn't opt rep make a helmet that does something similar. It darkens it self based in the lighting and intensity of the arc?

Sort of like the lens' people have in their glasses that darken when you go outside.

I'm sure reliability and durability would be an issue, but an option of full video display would be interesting. Especially if you could tune the color spectra to best suite each individuals view of colors.I'm a little weak on some like blue, and strong on others like red. Zoom features for fine welding and panoramic view for looking around, fitting, tacking, etc. would be something too. Maybe even a removable cam feature instead of mirrors for obscure nooks and crannies.

That would be something I'd like to try.

The optrel e684 already does this, so I guess the future is already here.

If you increase arc brightness (as the lens "sees" it), whether it be from increased amperage or closer positioning of the helmet from the arc, it will darken/lighten on-the-fly. It can't know where the increased brightness is coming from, it just senses it and adjusts to it. You should get yourself one.

I saw a footage some years ago from some Russian scientists using two cameras with different filters and real-time image processing. The view thru the "lens" was like looking thru clear glass while welding.

Oscar wrote:The optrel e684 already does this, so I guess the future is already here.

If you increase arc brightness (as the lens "sees" it), whether it be from increased amperage or closer positioning of the helmet from the arc, it will darken/lighten on-the-fly. It can't know where the increased brightness is coming from, it just senses it and adjusts to it. You should get yourself one.

Well I guess that it's at least half way there, what I thinking of is defiantly future tech.

I would like to try that hood Oscar

AndersK wrote:I saw a footage some years ago from some Russian scientists using two cameras with different filters and real-time image processing. The view thru the "lens" was like looking thru clear glass while welding.

That would be something to see, if you ever find a link please post it here, thanks

LtBadd wrote:

Oscar wrote:The optrel e684 already does this, so I guess the future is already here.

If you increase arc brightness (as the lens "sees" it), whether it be from increased amperage or closer positioning of the helmet from the arc, it will darken/lighten on-the-fly. It can't know where the increased brightness is coming from, it just senses it and adjusts to it. You should get yourself one.

Well I guess that it's at least half way there, what I thinking of is defiantly future tech.

I would like to try that hood Oscar

Interesting. So what else would it do then?

It would do as stated in my first post, maybe my explanation wasn't so good.

Do you mean to say a lens that can both dim the arc while keeping the remaining view brightly lit?
With photo/video cameras this is called dynamic range.
Cameras with a wide/high dynamic range can simultaneously record the darkest and brightest areas with far more information. They are also super expensive like $20,000... $30,000? Consumer cameras have far less dynamic range which is why our photos and videos do not look like what we see in the cinema.
The workaround to this problem with cheaper cameras is to try avoid scenes that have both bright and dark areas and be more selective with either mostly bright or mostly dark. With welding this would mean trying to make your welding area very bright.

AndersK wrote:I saw a footage some years ago from some Russian scientists using two cameras with different filters and real-time image processing. The view thru the "lens" was like looking thru clear glass while welding.

Interested to see this too. Sounds like they were using one camera to expose for dark areas and the other to expose for bright. Blending the two in real time is pretty impressive though!

These days this has become much more feasible with the bucketloads of CPU power available in small packages (just look at your average smartphone). Even with a regular camera/CCD you can now effectively take HDR (High Dynamic Range) video that's capable of showing both very bright AND very dark areas in a shot without needing special hardware but a bunch of post-processing.

All it basically does is take 3 or more 'exposures' for each frame where it changes the white balance/sensitivity through the range on the camera and then recombines these into a post-processed frame that shows all the detail.

The camera hardware can often take plenty frames/sec exposures and the CPU/GPU processing can do it in real-time to give you a smooth video.

Would not surprise me if some (but not all) welding helmets will evolve more towards a sort of augmented reality system where it combines cameras and a head-mounted display to always give you the best/cleanest and true-colour picture you want. Could be useful for some specialised operations.

Combine it with (FL)IR sensor/camera data and you could even overlay surface temperature data or warnings which might be useful in various applications either to make sure the (pre)heat of an object is still sufficient or if you're not overheating the base material like in Titanium.

At the moment it's all already technically quite possible and I suspect already used in some very specialised and custom applications. It's just a matter of time before component and manufacturing costs get low enough for such things to become economically viable and turned into (mass-market) products.

Bye, Arno.

I think its probably possible with current tech too. In fact the VR with my samsung note 5 phone and the free goggles they sent was outstanding for what it was. Put a leather shroud around it, add a second camera for depth and field of view and piss off all the phone stuff and you have probably enough cpu/gpu power to pull it off and filter it however you like in real time.

But like Arno said a VR of whats actually in front of you would be amazing. You could weld as if there was no arc at all and have it looking like daylight. Acutally you'd need a bit of arc showing to see what was going on but you get my drift.

I was wondering how people like Jody film arcs so well. I know of companies selling WDR cameras and from the looks of them they must be expensive. However I wonder how much of Jody's arc shots are shot like that or done in post.

I had posted this in another thread a while back. The post above about the HDR cameras reminded me of this. Take a look at the video linked below. This is from 2012 so there have been LOTS of improvements to the technology that makes this work. There are probably a million cheap cellphone cameras capable of this sort of thing now.

This is some interesting video about just this sort of thing, "augmented reality" and "high dynamic range" video for welding. The explanations can feel a bit slow going at the beginning but stick with it, some cool stuff here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygcm0AQXX9k

I'm actually a bit surprised that there is not something like this available on the market already.

clavius wrote:I had posted this in another thread a while back. The post above about the HDR cameras reminded me of this. Take a look at the video linked below. This is from 2012 so there have been LOTS of improvements to the technology that makes this work. There are probably a million cheap cellphone cameras capable of this sort of thing now.

This is some interesting video about just this sort of thing, "augmented reality" and "high dynamic range" video for welding. The explanations can feel a bit slow going at the beginning but stick with it, some cool stuff here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygcm0AQXX9k

I'm actually a bit surprised that there is not something like this available on the market already.

I can see durability being a problem. Smoke gets into everything eventually. And the general beating that things can take in an industrial environment. It would definitely have to have the ability to work au naturalle in the event of a failure of the electronic components.

Then there's cost. Some hoods are already in the $6-700.00 range. I can just imagine that at this point, all of the bells and whistles would add up to a couple of thousand $$$. If the technical stuff got worked out and they became available, I think the augmented reality would be a hoot! (you know someone would figure out how to look at girly vids in that thing though).

PeteM wrote: I can see durability being a problem. Smoke gets into everything eventually. And the general beating that things can take in an industrial environment. It would definitely have to have the ability to work au naturalle in the event of a failure of the electronic components.

Yup.. Indeed..

That's always the hardest part of new technology. Getting it to a point where it's fully developed into a mass-market product that's cheap to manufacture and durable enough to be sufficient. (everything is 'lifed' these days.. no longer are products over-built like they were in the past.. pity, but that's how it is..)

Thinking of an idea and making some working prototype takes a lot of time, cleverness and effort, but when you look at actual on the shelf products there's usually a massive amount of (re)development work needed to bring an idea/prototype into a state where it can be manufactured easily and cheaply using the available factory equipment.

And a lot of ideas/prototypes fail at this hurdle as it often turns out they use something or some principle where we don't have good mass-production capabilities yet or the per-product cost simply remains too high to be economically feasible.

Electronic devices are a clear/good example of this and easy to see the process in action as their life-cycle is so short, but often a new device that comes onto the market will start out to be very expensive and probably break quite quickly but may draw in early adopters as it's 'new'.

If it does take off (enough) then any further iteration will improve production yields at reduced cost and see the price drop (usually massively) and the quality improve although the process may also change the actual product while still performing the same 'task'.

Flat-screen TV's are a prime example. Starting out commercially with plasma units these (slowly) gained traction and they got better/cheaper over time. Initial ones often had big problems and were hugely expensive in both cost to buy and in power draw.

But then others started exploring different routes like LCD and improving that and it turned out to be a lot easier/cheaper to build on a massive scale and prices plummeted until now they are dirt cheap and the 'new kid' are the oLED displays that are starting to show a similar trend.

We still see a flat panel display, but the technology behind an early plasma and a current oLED is radically and fundamentally different.

So in these cases things like augmented reality welding helmets will likely be fragile, complex and very, very expensive initially but over time may well end up at a price point a little over a normal auto-darkening one.

Although those products may well technically operate quite differently from the original version, but get/produce the same result. Something you'd need a crystal ball to know beforehand..

Probably won't be sold any cheaper as it's something 'extra' that people are likely willing to pay a little more for. (but that discussion moves into the realm of economics and profit margins )

Bye, Arno.

The augmented reality stuff would be awesome for learning to weld, instant feedback, though would probably drive anyone who is already good at this crazy as those with developed skills make those adjustments without conscious thought. The HDR part looks awesome to me, as "seeing the puddle" and being able to read it is a big part of what makes good welders good. This makes seeing the puddle easy.

The tech to to do this, at least the HDR part, is all currently readily available and cheap. Pretty much every mid-grade cell phone has two HDR capable cameras built into it and a startling amount of computing horsepower. No question that ruggedness and durability will be a challenge, but that is stuff that is all well understood and just needs some good engineering to be applied properly. I'd bet that if any of the big names that sell welding gear were to apply a suitable budget to the development, something along these lines would be available in a year or two at a price competitive with any top-of-the-line welding hood. I'd be surprised if there is not at least some version of this being worked on by the big players in the business.

It was not that many years ago that auto-dark lenses were exotic, small, and crazy expensive. You can get low end ones for 40 bucks now, and really nice ones for a bit more than 200 bucks. Amazing time we live in.

Perhaps a LED light built into a hood or a small adjustable LED attached to the outside of a hood with velcro would help.

clavius wrote:I had posted this in another thread a while back. The post above about the HDR cameras reminded me of this. Take a look at the video linked below. This is from 2012 so there have been LOTS of improvements to the technology that makes this work. There are probably a million cheap cellphone cameras capable of this sort of thing now.

This is some interesting video about just this sort of thing, "augmented reality" and "high dynamic range" video for welding. The explanations can feel a bit slow going at the beginning but stick with it, some cool stuff here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygcm0AQXX9k

I'm actually a bit surprised that there is not something like this available on the market already.

Never seen that before thanks for sharing really cool!

clavius wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygcm0AQXX9k

I'm actually a bit surprised that there is not something like this available on the market already.

That's what I was thinking, it's closer then I thought. Thanks for that link

Yes Optrel e684 already has automatic shade adjustment. Best TIG welding helmet in market, especially for aluminum.

Meanwhile it's still 90% operator, 10% equiptment. Buy a cheap fixed shade hood and go burn rod, wire, whatever is your preference. No hood makes an expert out of novice. You can't buy experience and PRACTICE.