Thank u! Glad you got it going again.. 😊

Awesome! Glad to help 😎😎

Wow, thanks!

Glad it helped... That's excellent that you were able to get one going..😊

Sweet! You're welcome and thanks for the great feedback..😊

TYSM!

@@JLPicard440 yes sir!

Thank U! I'm glad it helped.... :-)

Yes, excellent! That would definitely work... :-)

It worked, thanks again

Glad I could help! You're welcome..😊

Yep, I'm still using that one!... :-). You're welcome..

Sweet! I appreciate the great feedback.. 🙂

Awesome! Yea, Harbor Freight doesn't seem to be sending out coupons like they used to.. They might be cutting their throats, cheapo people like me wait for a coupon...

Excellent! I'm glad you're feeling better, and glad you were able to get the helmet working... 🙂

@@JLPicard440 ? I happened to pick up some CR2032 from HF and I can't seems to get the solder to stick to the battery when tinning. Any suggestions, or but another brand?

Went with a gift cert I had and got a new soldering iron and solder. All good!

@@kennlang1521 Great! I was going to suggest a battery holder with 2 wires and mount the battery holder inside the helmet somewhere and run the wires back to the dimming circuit..

@@kennlang1521 Sometimes you need to lightly scratch the surface of the battery with some fine sandpaper to clean off oxidation. Bright, shiny metal is best for soldering. Works on the tabs and wires as well.

Thanks!

IKR. I don't understand it either. I guess they want you to throw it away and get a new one.

Yeah it's pathetic. This should be a simple slip in battery.

Thanks for the great comment.. :-)

@@JLPicard440 Dear TAB, got the helmet open. Only has one battery on left side. panasonic 3v vl2330 which read 2.3 volts. Replaced with a new cr2032 3v showing 3.20v. and does not darken when I test it with a spark striker, or hold it up to a light bulb. Its a hf chameleon model approx 15 to 20 years ago. Circuit board looks clean (no corrosion) and wires look to be intact. Does it need to be first exposed to sunlight, as its been unused in garage for many years? I am testing it without soldering tabs but relying on tabs making contact with battery by holding case together tight. Any suggestions and guidance would be appreciated. Thanks.

HI Stewart, if you have a volt meter. Follow the tabs back to the circuit board and check at the circuit board that there's voltage there. The helmet should work right away unless the light sensor in the front is really dirty, but I doubt it. IF you're getting voltage on the circuit board, it's probably got something wrong with the board itself... 😞😞

@@JLPicard440 Hello TAB, and thanks for the input back. I get 3.26v at circuit board where tabs come from the battery. Don't know where else to trace it back, but I tested for voltage where 2 wires from circuit board go to lcd screen; and no voltage there. Perhaps the time has come to move on to a new one? Anyway thanks for your help, and I wish the best for you, family, and friends this holiday season!!!

@@stewartbruce2409 I wish you the best too... does your helmet have a switch? Mine does, if u have a switch, make sure its still working...

Thank you very much! 😀

Excellent! Thank U... :-)

Good to hear! Since the video, someone suggested to me to use an external battery holder and run the wires back to the circuit board. I thought that was a good idea so you don't have to take it apart the next time the batteries go caput!..

Excellent!😊

You're welcome!

Glad it was helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad it helped.. 😊

Oh nice... Next time I do this, I'm going to get an external battery holder and I'll mount it in the helmet somewhere. That'll make it easier to change the batteries..

Great! Glad you got it going again. Next time my batteries quit, i'm going to get an external battery holder and mount it in the helmet some where and run the wires back to the old location of the batteries. It'll make it easier to replace them again.. 😊

Thank you! Glad I could help..

Awesome! Glad I could help... 😀

You're welcome!😊😊

That's actually a great idea! There's plenty of room in the helmet for that. Thanks for the tip.

I would stay with the lithium batteries due to the low power requirement of the chips and they do last longer than conventional ones.

@@JLPicard440 You can also get the button cell battery holders and do the same thing, there's a KZfaq tutorial on how he did it. Think I'd stick with button cells, they last a long enough time and are much lighter in my opinion.

Awesome, thank you!

You're welcome!

Thanks for the info... 😀

@@JLPicard440 thanks for the video. My eyes been hurting and my welds have been chicken sscratch.

@@killhacker5776 Oh no! That doesn't sound good... 😟

They're still working... I don't remember how old the video is, but they're holding up well. I don't weld everyday though..

@@JLPicard440 Thats good to know. It says you posted the video in January 2019. I dont weld everyday either. Mine seemed to work fine during daylight hours in my garage close to the door with a good amount of sunshine. Later in the evening or at night is when I was having the issues. I only had 1 bad battery too and replaced both. I'll probably order a couple of holders with leads and mount them externally on the cover next time for fast replacement. Again great video! Thanks for replying!

@@pauldashiell4525 You're welcome! 😊

HI Josh, yes that would probably work for a while, but in all honesty I don't think I'd trust my eyes to a friction connection to the battery. You know how sometimes you have to shake a remote control, or bang it against your knee to get it working again. Same thing with a flashlight that's been sitting for a while. This is because over time that connection breaks down and needs a little jostle to get it working again. The same thing could happen here, and it'd be my luck it would happen in the middle of a weld.. Just my 2 cents, its a good idea, but I don't think it would be for me.

Hmmm... what filter?

@@JLPicard440 The darkening filter on the front of the helmet, just point a remote at the front of your helmet and push the power button.

@@bodeine454 Oh cool! Didn't realize that'll work. You can also do that on a camera and most of the time you can see the remote flashing..

@@JLPicard440 You mean take a video of the remote and push a button and you can see the light on camera? I'm going to research how a welding helmet detects a remote because I looked at it and pushed the power button and I can't see any light with my eyes, it's odd...

@@JLPicard440 I just tried the IR TV remote on camera and it worked, I can see it through the camera but not with my naked eyes, that's amazing how that works.

Lol... Thank you. I've actually got a new one coming out on this where i'm using an external battery mount, so it's easy to access the batteries... 😀

Awesome! Thanks for the idea.

Thanks for the info!

You are welcome

Good point... I don't remember how they are wired.

Arrrgh... I don't know without taking this one back apart again..

I had trouble finding them. Or I didn't want to order from China and wait a long time, I don't remember now.

@@JLPicard440 Exactly, it's always a slow boat from China. I just put tape round the edge and foam taped the contacts to the battery to give it some pressure.

QQTrick1QQ screw buying anything from China anymore!

My first guess is there's something wrong with the control board

I think I did try to recharge.. but no luck. The helmet is probably between 4 and 6 years old.. so that's right in the lifespan. Thanks for the info....

I wondered if that panel at the top was a solar panel but I thought you had to use rechargeable type button cells to be able to charge them. I'm wondering if the solar panel runs it when there's ample light and just switches over to battery when it's needed? Not sure

@@bodeine454 I think that panel at the top is a light sensor that triggers the helmet to go dark...

Excellent! Glad you got it going again... 😀

Lol.. I don't remember what I did!

Lol..

It kinda sounds like it, especially if you've swapped the modules and still no joy! Did u check the batteries with a volt meter to make sure they're still good?

Yes no problem on batterie, for example, I have 2 lenses A and B, of which B is broken, I swap modules from B to A, it turns out that on lens A I change the module no problem, only on lens B that doesn't work, is there a problem with the panel itself, because it can't auto from light to dark

Do both modules work on A? If both modules work on A, then both modules shouldn't work on B if B is a bad panel. I'm not totally clear on what you've swapped.

yes, right you mean, in panel A both modules can work, if installed in panel B it won't work, this is what I mean maybe the damage from the solar panel itself, is there a way if the solar panel doesn't work

If panel A is working, then why not just use that and discard panel B?

Yes that's a great idea, some other viewers made the same suggestion... Should work perfectly..

Yea you pretty much got it! Those solar cells are for sensing the weld, not for recharging and they built the helmet in such a way, most people will just assume its junk and time for a new one when the batteries die.. I know, stupid right.. But yea your remote battery holder should work great. I am still using the 2032 batteries that I installed in the video. I don't weld very much so that's why they're holding up. When they die again, I'll go do a external holder..

Take a Bath, I was trying to describe to my wife what my helmet was doing to me, But instead I showed her the beginning of your video while laughing non stop, Great job! BTW my helmet is up and running, Thanks a million!

@@stclairstclair LOL! Glad you got it going..

Thanks for the tip!

Lol... You're welcome.. 😊

Yes, that was the problem I ran into... finding the battery with the clips. So I figured instead of fooling with all that, I'll just solder on my own clip and as long as the battery isn't over heated,.. it'll work for a good while... Thanks for the info.

Yes the replaceable batteries would be nice... 🙂

Thanks for the info!

Possibly not hot enough. You have to be careful overheating these batteries. You may be better off to get a battery holder and run wires back to the board. Just mount the battery holder with some 2 sided tape or something like that to hold it...

Cool... yes those should work pretty good. Another viewer had a great tip. Put the battery in an external battery holder and attach it somewhere inside the helmet and run the wires back to the board. Then you can change the batteries anytime you want without much trouble...

Arrrgh... sorry to hear that..

Yes, I like the idea of using an external battery. Some other viewers said the same thing. If I would have though of that, I would have done that too. My batteries are actually still working, but I don't weld very much.

Sorry about that, but mine came right out. I think there's fingers on the backside of the helmet that grip the darken assy... Just pry the fingers back and it comes right out. (I'm going by memory, I don't have it in front of me.)

@JLPicard440 I finally got it! Lol. It took some finagling🤣. The helmet is about 10 or 11 years old, been out in the shed for a minute. 🤣

Excellent! Glad you got it loose... 😀

That's awful! I think if the battery were dead, it would just appear to be off, but light enough you can see through it.

@@JLPicard440 it did fell before it went dark

@@danidjojo They'll usually take a pretty good fall. You could have damaged the part you see through for the welding..

Thank you!

Yes, I think they had that one at the time of the video, but seemed like it was hard to get or the shipping was going to take a while, I don't remember now, but I elected to just pass on it. Maybe that's changed and it's more available now...

Got a link? I'm not too confident in soldering to a battery.

@@TheDarthhair I don't have a link, but there's a few on amazon in the cr2032 with tabs. One of the tabs is going the wrong way, so you'll have to solder on a jumper wire to go back over to the board.

Thanks, I just ordered a different helmet from Amazon. I'll pass this one on to a theater or film company to use a prop.

I know... the way they got it sealed up is dumb. I guess it's their way of trying to force getting a new one.. but some people will get mad and buy another brand.

Yea that definitely sounds like a problem with the helmet, especially if you've already changed the batteries. Those solar cells aren't meant to charge the batteries, they are the light sensor that signals the helmet to go dark.

@@JLPicard440 yes i just learned that the small sensors are for IR detection and the solar cell for UV,, i did what you showed in the vid and changed the coin batteries for my tig helmet but i am not sure if it did the trick, ill have to wait to test it but the old batteries seem to still be good, i had them tested with my amp meter and it showed the same charge on them as the new ones i installed so idk anymore i guess the board or the lcd lens is just no longer working ,luckily i have a new tig helmet still in the box i never used all these years so hopefully that works well and ill just have to find a cheap one for mig welding ,,btw it was a pain in the ass trying to solder the leads to those batteries ,solder would not stick despite me using sand paper to rough up the metal on the batteries but after many pain staking tries i finally got them soldered, the solder would break once i assembled it a few times so like i said a real pain in the ass taking it apart and doing it over, they might come apart again while im working or if the helmet gets smacked hard enough , so the batteries are there to operate the board right,, are they only on when the helmet is working and not draining all this time i hope?

@@ARCSTREAMS Yes, they are only being drained if the helmet switch is on. Question though.. I don't understand why u want a different hat for TIG VS. MIG? Just my curiosity.

@@JLPicard440only my mig helmet has a switch button but i do not have a switch on my tig helmet so i assume the batteries are only being used or drained when the lens is darkening right? the reason i have two helmets for each process is because i like to keep my tig helmet clean of spatter that i get mostly when mig welding so i got one for mig that gets dirty and spattered which i do not mind as much as if it happens to my tig where i need good clarity to work so my tig helmet stays nice and clean most of the time ,just works for me

@@ARCSTREAMS Gotcha... logical. I tried a miller Econo-tig one time. I wasn't great at it, so i sold it.. probably should have stuck with it. No switch.. yes id say if the batteries last a good while that's the only explanation. not sure I like it going from a dormant mode to dark mode when it senses a weld in milliseconds after sitting who knows how long,.. but I guess it works!

Im sure those are better, but for someone who welds once in a while these actually work pretty good. Thanks for the info.

Hopefully not.. 😩

I know, but a battery is 4 bucks! I still use the helmet, and it works great. You're right, it needs to be turned off.

Set it to grinding mode. It disables the panel.

@@JLPicard440 how to turn it off? I have 2 cintrila inside and knob with 10,11, and 12 on outside

@@MC-hs4mf I'm not sure which one you have, but the one here has a knob, like a volume knob, and it turns all the way to the left until it clicks. Then it's off.

@@JLPicard440 solid black without the blue decal. I dont think the shade knob clicks

That would be stealing.

@@JLPicard440 who cares? I'm definitely not buying a new one or doing this. Maybe they will learn a lesson and make a better product with accessible batteries instead of this joke.

@@joeycottontailakajoeschmo3366 OK

Not sure how much heat the darkening part can put up with.. 😀

I used to have a expensive helmet. I can't say it was any better than this one..

Sounds like you have one or else you wouldn't be here .

Lol... I wasn't going to say anything!.. 😀