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Welder voltages

 
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 2:42 pm    Post subject: Welder voltages Reply with quote

OK, I tried finding this information with no luck and just got tired of trying to figure it out. Welders generally come in two input voltage ranges 115 and 230. How does everyone power thier welders?

I ordered a 230 volt welder and plan to power it off my generator which has an output of 240 VAC. Other then having to wire the correct plug onto the welder will it be ok? To my knowledge 230 volt isn't a normal house connection?

Thanks,
Dean
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Jr Branham
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Joined: 09 Jun 2007
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Location: Georgia

PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You get your 230 volts from using two "hot" wires, both hot wires are 115.
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jegner
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Joined: 30 May 2003
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Location: Texas, USA

PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

220/240v is a standard to heavy duty welder. The 110/115v machines are light duty. For my needs, the 110/115v 'Farmhand' Fluxcore/MIG type welder is fine. I don't do much welding on heavy ga. material, but if I wanted to do a lot of welding, I'd have to upgrade to a 220/240v machine.

Jim
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TK 109
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Joined: 11 May 2007
Posts: 712
Location: Galena, Ohio

PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jegner wrote:
220/240v is a standard to heavy duty welder. The 110/115v machines are light duty. For my needs, the 110/115v 'Farmhand' Fluxcore/MIG type welder is fine. I don't do much welding on heavy ga. material, but if I wanted to do a lot of welding, I'd have to upgrade to a 220/240v machine.

Jim


how much did that run you? just curious...
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:36 pm    Post subject: Wiring Reply with quote

Ok, so I went out and bought a plug to fit my generators 240 30 amp outlet. That is one expensive plug at $20! The welder's power cord has the old three wire setup and my generator has the new 4 wire plug. So I wired up the generator last night and had to wait till today to try it out.

Pulled out the generator and fired that bad boy up. It started up with little effort considering it has not run in about 6 months or so. With the generator running I decided to break out the welder and try a simple test to make sure it works.

After double checking everything and getting over my fear of pending doom I plugged the welder in and turned it on. The power light came on and it looked like things might be fine.

After donning my welders helmet I pulled the trigger to get ready and nothing happened. Never having welded before I thought perhaps when the trigger was pulled the wire would spool out a little bit. Nope, nada.

I eased back and double checked everything and it looked like it might be fine. I opened up the welder to make sure the connections were fine and saw no issues. So everything went back together, plug it all in and tried once more. Still nothing, even when the wire was touched to the steel.

Being discouraged I decided to pack everything up for multiple reasons. 1. I did not want to do something silly without reviewing my information
2. I thought everyone here might be able to help
3. It's AWEFUL hot and I was drenched in sweat from being in full clothing in direct sunlight.

Mid Post thought:
Jr Branham mentioned getting two hot leads for 115. That got me thinking and I was printing out my generator manual looking for the plug wiring. It seems that one of the hot leads is wired correctly and so is the ground. That would explain why the power light comes on and nothing else happens. If my memory is correct I wired the other hot to the neutral side and no power is coming in from there.

I'll go check it and let everyone know what it was.

Welder:
I picked up a reconditioned HF welder for $159. It was only a little bit more then the 115v that was on sale for $119 that I was looking at. Since I had a generator to power it I went with the larger size.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=97503

Dean
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Jr Branham
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Joined: 09 Jun 2007
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Location: Georgia

PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:57 pm    Post subject: 3 wires Reply with quote

Dean,
You will have two hot wires, both will measure 115, and also one neutral wire. 3 wires total. Also make sure you have a good contact on your welding machine's ground clamp.
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 1:15 pm    Post subject: Success, sort of. Reply with quote

Well, after checking the plug wiring one of the hot leads was indeed going to neutral and had to be adjusted. I put back on my long pants and hauled everything out once more to give it a test.

This time everything seemed to work as expected and I was able to make a very very lousy poor weld across some soon to be scrap metal on the first pass.

Now, when I went for the second pass I accidentally jammed the end of the welding wire into the steel and after about a second the welding stopped. I seem to recall that that was a bad thing and I tried to reset everything and no good.

Is it a matter of over heating the welder and it needing more time to cool off then I gave it or will i need to reset something? More advice is once more needed. Smile

Thanks to everyone for respondeding so far.

Dean
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Jr Branham
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Joined: 09 Jun 2007
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Location: Georgia

PostPosted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:16 pm    Post subject: sounds Reply with quote

Dean,
Sounds corny but, when you are welding with your mig welder, you want it to sound like "bacon" cooking, sorta like a sizzling sound. Practice with your voltage and wire speeds on your welder. Remember you are trying to fuse the two pieces of metal together. Couple more tips are make sure the metal is clean, wear gloves and sleeves (bad sunburn), don't weld in wind, also becareful about the fumes.
Your welder will have a "duty" cycle. This is the time frame that it can be run. Off for so many minutes, then on. On those small machines, they can't be run continous. I'm thinking they measure it in ten minute intervals, do a seach and you will find it.
Good luck and enjoy the ride.
Jr.
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Stomper
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Joined: 01 Oct 2005
Posts: 473
Location: Woodburn, Oregon USA

PostPosted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 3:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know this thread is old, but it caught my eye...

You most likely popped an overload circuit breaker or some sort of fusible link that is for over-current protection. I have had to do welds on broken axles (using an ARC welder) out in the woods when I was (for one solid year) a logger. Unless you have a mongo heavy duty generator that can supply at least 60 amps of CONTINUOUS load, you are going to produce (at best) very weak, low quality welds, if not potentially ruin your welder and/or generator.

You may have noticed that the ARC "flickers" when trying to weld a continuous bead, this is caused by the sine wave (or cycle frequency) of the stator & rotor of the generator being slowed down as the generator bogs down under the load of the welder striking and maintaining an ARC... almost ALL AC electrical equipment is designed to operate at a minimum of 50hz (ideally 60hz in the USA) to operate properly... if your generator is bogging down thus slowing the frequency (cycles per second) will only exacerbate the problem.

Generally speaking, the cost of a generator with enough "grunt" to properly power a welder will almost always far outweigh the cost of the proper sized extension cord so you can just plug it into a proper 40-50 amp 220 receptacle powered from your home's electrical service.
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