Welding Tips and Tricks

Jody's video this week features a positioner, with a lathe chuck to hold the part. How does grounding occur in a positioner? I suppose you could ground to the chassis of the positioner as long as there's continuity, but if that's the case does weld current create any problems, maybe heating up a bearing, or warning up / thinning out the grease in the bearing, anything like that?

Artie F. Emm wrote:Jody's video this week features a positioner, with a lathe chuck to hold the part. How does grounding occur in a positioner? I suppose you could ground to the chassis of the positioner as long as there's continuity, but if that's the case does weld current create any problems, maybe heating up a bearing, or warning up / thinning out the grease in the bearing, anything like that?

Although many rotators have internal grounding mechanisms, Jody often takes a long length of bare copper braid, and wraps it several times around the article being welded. It provides a continuous multi-point earth as the part rotates.

Trev

There's a video using this technique here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TqvEXS ... NBsSd5MIdY

Some of the positioners they have in our fab shop have a ground built into them and a dedicated cable or lug you hook too and it's part of the manufacturers design. I think if you look at the vid when he flips that positioner up you can see the factory cable running under it.