I went to the hardware store this morning for a 5/8" hole saw. I needed a 5/8" hole to mount my buttons in the new, metal enclosure. On the plastic enclosure, I used a spade bit, but I didn't think those could be used on metal. Well, the hardware store didn't have a 5/8" hole saw, but the helpful clerk said that a spade bit could be used on aluminum no problem, so I gave it a go, and it worked okay.
Basically, now I am back where I was 3 weeks ago, but this time with a PCB, a nice metal enclosure, properly-mounted board, spring terminals instead of solder joints that are going to break, and so on.
I have done some rudimentary checks of the PCB, and it is working fine so far. Knobs, buttons, and lights are working fine. I found that I forgot a smoothing capacitor on the PCB, but I soldered it between two of the leads so no problem there. Hopefully, that turns out to be my one mistake for this PCB.
Once I have confirmed that the PCB is correct, I'm going to continue working to refine the interface circuit with the welder. I implemented a small change in the PCB that is supposed to improve the performance of the optocouplers a smidge over what I had with my prototype board. I also pulled the input line to the interface circuit out to one of the un-used spring terminals so that I could come up with a wholly new circuit on a daughter-board if I wanted to. I have some high-speed optocouplers that I may give a try to. I have passed them over so far because they require 4.5v minimum on the welder's side of the circuit. The welder puts out 5v to the remote when it's on 220v power, but only 2.7v when it's on 110v power, so it's possible the high-speed optocouplers wouldn't work on 110v power.
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