Battery isolation, for welding?

is there any tricks to disconnecting the battery while welding on the jeep?
in the last 2 months, ive probably disconnected/reconnected my battery 60 times, i'd love to speed it up! im tired of losing wing nuts off my battery terminals =)


so, could you put in an automotive master battery kill switch, and just switch it off for welding? im not trying to give my renix any more problems then what its got!

OR... do you guys even disconnect the battery?
also, would a +9v radio preset saver work in this situation? i lose presets everyday. and yes, its annoying.

thanks for reading!

http://www.tooldiscounter.com/ItemDisplay.cfm?lookup=OTC3386&source=froogle&kw=OTC3386

Muffler shops use them all the time....

I don't disconnect the battery unless I am welding close to the computer or other electrical components.

you can control where the current flows based on where you put your ground vs where you're welding. if you have them close together and no wires between, you're good to go. i've done this a bunch of times. sometimes there's no way around it and you just have to disco the battery, but a lot of times it can be avoided by a strategic placement of the ground.

you could always run one of these for disconecting the battery quickly I have installed a couple of these since my rigs sit till they get wheeled...



http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=97853

xcm said:

so, could you put in an automotive master battery kill switch, and just switch it off for welding? im not trying to give my renix any more problems then what its got!

Click to expand...

That'll disconnect the battery but that might not be what you want.

xcm said:

OR... do you guys even disconnect the battery?

Click to expand...

Like asp387 I don't disconnect my battery unless I have to.

xcm said:

also, would a +9v radio preset saver work in this situation? i lose presets everyday. and yes, its annoying.

Click to expand...

Yep, that should help. Radio requires almost nothing to keep the memory alive.

I don't bother disconnecting the battery usually like I said... if you keep the ground clamp very close to where you're working and no electronics are connected to the piece of metal you're welding in, it should be fine. TIG can cause problems even with this method because of the high frequency AC arc-start it uses, not much to be done about that except unplugging the electronics. For TIG I would unplug the TCU, ECU, MAP sensor, ICM, airbag module, battery, and ABS module to be 100% sure of not damaging something... though that would leave the instrument cluster exposed. The problem with TIG is that the arc start induces a lot of voltage in any nearby wires (more than MIG or flux core) which can cause damage to semiconductors. The wires themselves and stuff like the TPS and fuel pump + injectors are unlikely to be damaged.

Disconnecting all that is probably overkill, but it's what I would do.

thanks for all the replies, i think i'll just stop disconnecting period!
problems solved eh? =)