I’ve been playing around with some Arduino microcontrollers, mainly the Arduino Mega 2560. They are fairly inexpensive controllers, that when programmed, can handle a large variety of tasks. These vary from simple leds being turned on, servos activated, audio played, or basically anything you can think of. In this simple setup, I wanted to use a blue led to simulate a welder for a few seconds. I added a push button to start the loop. Check out the full video inside.

Welder.sketch

// Welder with push button
// Author: Michael Peters Bond - Merrimack Valley Railroad


int LED = 12;
int BUTTON = 4;

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(LED, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(BUTTON, INPUT);
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
  if(digitalRead(BUTTON) == HIGH)
  {
    int i,count;
     //count=random(10,60);
     for (i=0;i<100;i++)
     {
      digitalWrite(LED, HIGH); // set the LED on
      delay(random(60));
      digitalWrite(LED, LOW); // set the LED off
      delay(random(200));
     }
  }
  else
  {
    digitalWrite(LED, LOW);
  }
}

Here is the Fritzing design I created to match the circuit.

The welder breadboard with the Arduino Mega.

Get the Arduino Mega 2560 for yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Inland-Arduino-Mega-2560/dp/B01MZGWC2E/