So.... how bad is it?

 

Depends, are you using a battery powerd welder, i.e car battery power? That doesent work too well but if your talking regular old wall power there is no reason to unhook your battery.

 

doesn't make the exhaust any easier to weld with or without the negative cable connected

 

maybe i should clarify...


ive been told to disconenct my negative battery cable when welding on the car...


i have a 120v Mig welder and i didnt disconnect my car battery....

 

I've never disconnected for any welding, and I use a mig. Things welded are SFCs, exhaust, and nerf bars on my truck.

 

i've welded on just about everything with wheels or tracks and never disconnected anything and hod no problems

 

Yes you can get away with it most times, but just once in a while you can fry some bit of electronics. Its all a matter of weighing up the relative pain of killing the power while doing the job, or the pain of replacing some part....

The sort of electical pulses that welders put onto the car power rails will damage all electronic equipment. It may not kill them immediately but it will shorten their life.

Take the negative terminal off the battery and clamp it to the positive terminal. It ain't too much hassle on most cars and compared with having to replace ???? (think of the worst possible electronic part that you could replace, and thats the bit that will go!!! )

Si. :lala:

"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean to say they're not out to get me!!!!"

 

I would say it depends on how close to things you are. If your welding clamp is 3 inches from the spot your welding. The power isn't going through the whole car. Its taking the shortest path, which is 3 inches away. I think the problem comes when people stick the ground clamp in a general spot on the frame or what not and then weld all over the under side of the car. So the juice would be flowing all over n through the body n frame.

 

Since that time I fried an alternator while welding an extra bar to the roll bar in the Suzuki Samurai , I always disconnect the battery...

 

Can someone please explain to me how you would go about shorting an electrical component? Granted, you may have a chance at it if you ground at the opposite end of the car and maybe have it running, but otherwise how? It's not like the electrical current is just going to randomly decide to take a quick side trip throughout your electrical system.

 

electrons actually flow from negative to positive in a DC electric circuit, Just because your welder has a grounder doesn't mean that the welders electric arc is pulling electrons from the grounder it also pulls it from the battery if its hooked up, and since the battery with both cables hooked up is a circuit it can cause a power overload and fry electronics, mostly the dioeds in electronics since dioeds keep current from flowing backwards. So yes it is cheap insurance to disconnect the negative battery cable, like said above 99/100 you are alright, but the 1/100 is normally expensive like a computer or more.