Need Your Thoughts On A New Welder

[Sberry]

Whats neat about some of it is the thought the welder people put in to it and some I really had to reverse engineer to get a grasp on but its kind of cool and way forward thinking. First,,,, not many think the minimum wire size in the manuals is a great idea, first thought is overheating the wire but thats not really such a great concern asone might think but mostly due to a little performance loos which vcan be recovered with 1 size up,,,, doesnt need to be 3 or 4 jumps but 1 in most cases and the mins are usually for single circuit in pipe. The listings on the devices also not for some of the small wires. It may also limit the circuit to smaller machines.
I have some 10 30 for smaller units but I had the breakers and no reason not to bring the ocpd a bit closer for free. Main reason though to use it is when using smaller wires for smaller welders. The new machines run great from a 12 cable but its not allowed on a 50 and neither is the 14 in pipe for them but the wire is suffecient for the machine but not legal on a larger breaker. The solution is heavier wire and larger breaker to 50A, fine for the small machines and many of the larger ones.
The only time the breaker protects the wire for thermal for these circuits is when there are multiple outlets provided these are machines come factory cord. Also,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, if they do they are not rated for connection to circuits larger than 50 as a general rule. (some 250 feeders may be) but should be installed by the qualified types.

 

[Sberry]

Beauty of the new is dont HAVE to use big fat cable cost 4$ a foot and can use cable cost 50 cents, nice for runs around garages for convenience and one of the great reasons to buy new modern machines, they work well from light cable and cords. m

 

[Sberry]

While at first glance and first reasoning everyone has heard that the breaker protects the wire from overheat is true in some cases its not the only purpose and good reason there is no instructions or provision to use a larger wire and breaker combo for plug connected machines. It is NOT legal to use a 4 wire and 80 breaker to plug 50 A machines in to,,, it is however legal to plug some of them in to 12 wire with 50 breaker.
Now,,, many will not understand this and come up with their own reasoning of all shapes as to why and gonna out think generations of codes, just about like they invented the idea despite not have studied the idea or the book. This may include people with decades of experience, many industrial guys this way, learned hand to mouth and from guys before them didnt really know either and often plant specific.

 

[GeneV]

Well, I got this guy which I'm pretty happy with: Amico ARC-160D, 160 Amp Stick ARC IGBT Inverter DC Welder 115/230 Dual Voltage Welding Soldering - - Amazon.com

I ran a 220v into my shop for it, but you could get by on 110v if you're doing multiple passes. It's mostly just a hassle with the short duty cycle on 110v, and also occasionally you'll pop the breaker if you crank the heat up.

 

[Sberry]

Those are neat and wonder what the bottom line in cost can be. I would like to test one and the 160$ might b worth it just for giggles. It one time 100$ couldnt buy a good machine, about 220$ was as low as it could go but thats been a while and I havnt ran all of them. My Maxstar will run 6011 1/8 and 3/32 7018 steady from a 20A 120V. I did a repair the other day, a bit of fab and in the end I ran 1 extra pass, 4 more rods on a vertical structural joint, a bunch of fussy fit, tack and fab work, a bigger machine would have saved 5 minutes in 3 hrs and burned 2 or 3 gallons of gas.

 

[Sberry]

I ran mine 150 ft 120V on a 12 circuit. Longer than that turn it up will trip the 20, about 75A, at 100 ft will run a toasty 92 no problem. I havnt seen how far out it might run 1/8 7018 on 240 from a 12 but I bet 150 easy and 3/32 to 200ft. Considering AC buzzer allows 80 ft of 12 at rated, like 48A, new machines draw 1/2 that for the same work.
The drawis more linear than a tranny and a Max rated at maybe 24 at 160, a DC buzzer about 40 in the real world at 240 to produce 115a DC out, the inverter under 20 in for the same out.
There is kind of a practical point with all this as you cant jump up another class or size of rods anyway and even if it might buirn it woukld strart to crowd duty cycle in a hurry and with smaller electrodes dont even pay attn.

 

[Sberry]

Its almost hard to hear myself say been at it 40+ years, had this DC north of 35 years which replaced a 180AC which worked well as it was but have bought a few new machines since and really back where I started using it and a small feeder I had since 92 for 98% of the work. These are really so good they are the go too if I have a choice.
The trade I might make with this is a Stickmate with infinate for smaller sticks and light material where a coup[le A means a lot or really in todays world would be a dvi inverter, a little one will do what this will,,, but sure how well it would tolerate a welders handful of 1/8 in a pull welding out a truck bed but the lunchbox will run them

 

[Sberry]

What I have and what I might buy if I was starting over might be 2 slightly different things. This buzzer tolerates running way abo0ve its duty cycle for a long time.

 

[GeneV]

Yeh that's the nice thing about stick welders, you could just run a thinner diameter stick. Actually, from this very message board I learned 100 amps for 1/8" 6011 and 3/32" 7018...and then just adjust with arc length and travel speed. My 20a breaker for my garage outlet doesn't trip on that setting.