The Harbor Freight autodarkening welding helmet with the solar cell
actually has two coin cell batteries inside, and when they get weak,
the autodarkening ceases to function Some times this happens in a
little over a year.

A fellow student in my evening welding class took his apart and
documented the repair in the following web page:

http://www.pskl.us/wp/?p=648

I've also printed this page as a pdf file and uploaded it to the
metalworking dropbox since that's a longer term storage site and the
instructions will be around two years from now when somebody needs
them.

RWL

GeoLane at PTD dot NET wrote:

The Harbor Freight autodarkening welding helmet with the solar cell
actually has two coin cell batteries inside, and when they get weak,
the autodarkening ceases to function Some times this happens in a
little over a year.

A fellow student in my evening welding class took his apart and
documented the repair in the following web page:

http://www.pskl.us/wp/?p=648

Very nice writeup!

Thanks, R.

--Winston

On 2011-09-27, GeoLane at PTD dot NET GeoLane wrote:

The Harbor Freight autodarkening welding helmet with the solar cell
actually has two coin cell batteries inside, and when they get weak,
the autodarkening ceases to function Some times this happens in a
little over a year.

A fellow student in my evening welding class took his apart and
documented the repair in the following web page:

http://www.pskl.us/wp/?p=648

I've also printed this page as a pdf file and uploaded it to the
metalworking dropbox since that's a longer term storage site and the
instructions will be around two years from now when somebody needs
them.

Downloaded the file and read it.

The name it has in the dropbox, BTW, is:

Harbor_Freight_Autodark_Welding_Helmet_repair.pdf

to save some searching.

Note that there are holders for coin cells which could have been
soldered in there in place of the coin cells with the solder tails which
you found there. This would allow future replacement of the coin cells
without having extra wires and battery boxes inside the hood. Probably
a 2032 cell to get the ones without the solder tails for this purpose.

Thanks,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 28 Sep 2011 04:33:56 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2011-09-27, GeoLane at PTD dot NET GeoLane wrote:

The Harbor Freight autodarkening welding helmet with the solar cell
actually has two coin cell batteries inside, and when they get weak,
the autodarkening ceases to function Some times this happens in a
little over a year.

A fellow student in my evening welding class took his apart and
documented the repair in the following web page:

http://www.pskl.us/wp/?p=648

I've also printed this page as a pdf file and uploaded it to the
metalworking dropbox since that's a longer term storage site and the
instructions will be around two years from now when somebody needs
them.

Downloaded the file and read it.

The name it has in the dropbox, BTW, is:

Harbor_Freight_Autodark_Welding_Helmet_repair.pdf

to save some searching.

Excellent.


Note that there are holders for coin cells which could have been
soldered in there in place of the coin cells with the solder tails which
you found there. This would allow future replacement of the coin cells
without having extra wires and battery boxes inside the hood. Probably
a 2032 cell to get the ones without the solder tails for this purpose.

I didn't see how the cells were electrically oriented from the
article. Are they 2 separate 3v circuits, in serial for 6v, or in
parallel for a higher ampacity 3v circuit?

--
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:23:29 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On 28 Sep 2011 04:33:56 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2011-09-27, GeoLane at PTD dot NET GeoLane wrote:

The Harbor Freight autodarkening welding helmet with the solar cell
actually has two coin cell batteries inside, and when they get weak,
the autodarkening ceases to function Some times this happens in a
little over a year.



The name it has in the dropbox, BTW, is:

Harbor_Freight_Autodark_Welding_Helmet_repair.pdf



I didn't see how the cells were electrically oriented from the
article. Are they 2 separate 3v circuits, in serial for 6v, or in
parallel for a higher ampacity 3v circuit?

There are two separate circuits.

If the case were easier to open / could be opened and closed easily,
just replacing the coin cells would be the easiest fix, but since the
case wasn't meant to be opened, it's best to buy AAA battery holders
and run wires through the case to the contacts.

RWL