weld aluminium without a welder! Making plans for a alu based grow light to support heavy weigts.

Hello.

I had planned to build a new grow light using a aluminium sheet and I have looked up driver and LED's and everything, I can't recall all the names right now but it is based primarily on EBgen2 stripes, but The project stalled due to me not finding a suitable or satisfactory way of actually making changes to the alu sheet/plate.

But then yesterday I found out about this really awesome technique for welding aluminium(and other metals) without a welder, I can't recall when I last was this excited by anything really.

It appears to generally be called brazing(wikipedia) and there are many products to be found all over the place to do this. did you know that it is possible to solder to stainless steel? I for sure thought that to be impossible but there are special sorts of fluxes that allows this, of course if we are talking about using an ordinary soldering iron then the metal peace's has to be very small, if larger peace's of metals are to be joined then a blow-torch of your choice is required.

In order to weld larger metal objects the only thing you have to achieve is raising the temperature of the metals to be welded above the melting-point of the rods.

Just look at this 3 minute video.
Or check this out if you have any doubts as to whether or not these joints are tough or not, if you don't want to watch the hole video you can jump to the time 6:20 which is when he demonstrates how the weld holds up.

I know that the members of this forum is primarily from the US and as such this link isn't going to be relevant for someone in the US to be buying from but it is a nice site that showcases what I am talking about, they have a very small inventory but all of there products fascinate me at least, here's a kit that contains everything except the propane-tank. That kits pretty much contains there whole inventory apart from the fluxes that can be used to solder easily to aluminium or stainless steel.


This post is getting a bit long but I first just wanted to tell you about this cool easily accessible way for welding aluminium, I am going to use this to weld a frame and alu sheet to make a grow light, the thing is I am using a small 60*60*170 cm tent so space is at a premium so I intend to build my grow light sturdy enough as to allow me to place my humidifier on top of the grow light, my humidifier have a 4,5 litre tank and some time in the future I am going to want to also place a dehumidifier on top of the grow light(I am slowly step by step building a fully automated environment controller including CO2 and more) so I am aiming for as a minimum 10 kg, probably 15 kg as the weight that the frame is required to support.

Not that I am able to actually calculate how to build such a thing but I'll simply make the frame as sturdy as I can and then test it out with weights before I weld on the aluminium sheet to which the LEDs will be mounted.

I will probably come back here to throw some ideas around as to how to construct such a sturdy frame as cheaply as possible, but I suppose I'll already know that is involves hollow square alu tubes or T or H shaped beams... or whatever those are called in English.

Regards

You talking about aluminum brazing rods? They don't require flux. They do require a mapp gas torch however.


Also check rivits... They can attach to any metal or plastic!..... Sorry, just had to be a little sarcastic

Well I was talking about two different things, the first one was soldering with solder iron, ordinary solder and special flux, the other was the using brazing rods, I realize that many people probably already knows about this stuff but I didn't and there might be others whom like me didn't know.

Even though you where sarcastic I just like to add that from my perspective rivets are very problematic if you are building a grow light that are very space conservative and the LEDs take up all the space of the alu sheet, with brazing rods you can reinforce the sheet and still have the complete alu sheet surface free to mount diodes and stripes.

I have only 60 * 60 cm(or a little less) space for my grow light that are going to use 56cm EBgen2 strips plus a bunch of single LED star boards(to add IR and some other colors) and thus far I haven't been able to think out a way of using rivets or bolts-nuts to reinforce the sheet without loosing precious space. And in such a situation brazing rods are amazing.

I can assure you that that aluminum brazing is not as easy as those ytube videos! Aluminum brazing rods are not easy to use, I speak from actual experience. It depends on the situation, type of joint, and your understanding of aluminum and brazing.

Also, brazing and welding are two different things. And whats wrong with bolts?

I TIG welded my frame, only because it's water cooled and water tight connections were required.

Planet Tomato said:

Well I was talking about two different things, the first one was soldering with solder iron, ordinary solder and special flux, the other was the using brazing rods, I realize that many people probably already knows about this stuff but I didn't and there might be others whom like me didn't know.

Even though you where sarcastic I just like to add that from my perspective rivets are very problematic if you are building a grow light that are very space conservative and the LEDs take up all the space of the alu sheet, with brazing rods you can reinforce the sheet and still have the complete alu sheet surface free to mount diodes and stripes.

I have only 60 * 60 cm(or a little less) space for my grow light that are going to use 56cm EBgen2 strips plus a bunch of single LED star boards(to add IR and some other colors) and thus far I haven't been able to think out a way of using rivets or bolts-nuts to reinforce the sheet without loosing precious space. And in such a situation brazing rods are amazing.

Click to expand...

Ah, ok. I see your problem. Might I suggest another option.

In the auto world that is panel bonding adhesive. Most new cars the body panels are glued together. That glue is forever. It is the strongest stuff known to man. The braces can be glued to your sheet and would hold up a truck! Btw, it is way stronger than JB weld, but that work work too!

1212ham said:

can assure you that that aluminum brazing is not as easy as those ytube videos! Aluminum brazing rods are not easy to use, I speak from actual experience

Click to expand...

Your right there! I use them too. Hard to use on thin sheet. Also don't let it drip on you while using..... I've got a sweet scar tho!

I always feel very impolite or not appreciative when I make a thread, get answers and then don't reply for such a long time but I have a hard time managing ADD and I can't really control when I'll return my attention to this particular problem.

I didn't know that brazing would be such a challenge but I am quite handy, but the closest experience I have is soldering every possible electronic component but I don't mind acquiring the tools for brazing and start learning, though I figured from the start that even if brazing was simple it will probably be a challenge to use brazing to attach such large peaces of aluminium.

I don't only want to reinforce the sheet to constitute a good surface to mount LED's but I would if possible also like to be able to place upon the grow light a humidifier(ultrasonic humidifier with a 4,5L tank) and if I am to build such a strong construction I might as well plan to also place a de-humidifier on there as well(I don't even know if those two units will fit on there but I figure that if I assume a load of 10kg then I know I'll be alright).

Even when the humidifier wasn't going to be placed on the panel I for one reason or another that I am not aware of feel that bolts/nuts is difficult to work with, I would much rather use a process that results in a completely smooth surface to place the various LED stripes and star PCB's on.
I feel that it would be a very complex exercise to plan out where to mount the structural support for the sheet as well as where to mount the LED's, the LEDs will be mounted using bolts/nuts but if I don't "contaminate" the mounting area of the sheet with bolts/nuts that holds the structural support I can simply drill whatever holes I would need to place the LED's.

Mechanicalbuds said:

Ah, ok. I see your problem. Might I suggest another option.

In the auto world that is panel bonding adhesive. Most new cars the body panels are glued together. That glue is forever. It is the strongest stuff known to man. The braces can be glued to your sheet and would hold up a truck! Btw, it is way stronger than JB weld, but that work work too!

Click to expand...

Do you have any example of a product name I can look for?

I haven't even figured out what sort of structure I need to put together to be able to hold up 10kg without flexing but I imagine that it would be a little more complex beam than just an L shape, I'll probably use bolts to bolt together a frame and then use that auto industry adhesive(assuming I can find some) to bond that frame to the sheet.
I am really keen to hear if anyone have any suggestions or experience, or tip about how I would even begin to research what sort of structure I would require.

I have tried out many different glues/adhesives/epoxy that I can find in stores in the city I live in order to find something silly strong to use for all sorts of purposes but I have been very disappointed by them all. I really feel that where I live in north-western Europe there are no really heavy duty products and everything that's called "super glue" is in reality super crappy. I would be thrilled to find a product that if used to put two things together then they would have to be considered as one single thing forever.

3m panel bond

3m hvb tape works pretty well.