Modifying Welding Pedal for a Miller 6-Pin Connector (ArcCaptain Pedal)

I bought a Miller 161 STH welder which has a little hand remote control included, and found it was more difficult to use. I wanted to try a welding pedal but the miller ones are much more expensive than other brands, like ArcCaptain, and I found the ArcCaptain one sturdy enough. This post is how you can adapt other welding pedals to the Miller 6-pin connector. I made a video about the process, this post has the reference material:

The most important part is the connector. The Miller OEM ones appear to be iConn iMate series, specifically iMate 23 size I think. But these don’t show up on digikey or similar – luckily they mention that it’s similar or compatible with another connector, the Mini-Con-X by Conxall.

The compatible part number seems to be 6282-6PG-528 . This is available from Digikey (digikey PN SC3463-ND) as a stocked item, but also other distributors. This specific version uses “solder cups” which are easier to work with if you don’t have special tooling.

Here is the pinout of the Miller connector with the functions mapped:

Simply map that to your appropriate pedal. For example, the ArcCaptain manual had the colours listed, but double-check them as in the video:

It doesn’t tell you which “side” of the resistor to use – you need to make sure the resistance starts low with the pedal “off” and then increases in the same fashion as the hand control. Here is how I did the conversion, listing the colours of the connector:

Note the resistance is difference – 10K vs 1K. It seemed to work fine, I’d expect the circuitry has a high enough input impedance it still works with 10K. Older welders might use something with a real load, but the 161 STH is just going to be sampling this voltage.

See the video for details of the cable assembly!

I also confirmed the ArcCaptain had capacitors internally (100nF – the value I saw on the hand control from Miller). They aren’t on the ArcCaptain schematic but are there. Here is the Miller schematic for reference:

I didn’t see the manual for my control online, so also scanned it as a reference here: