stick welder question

[muddstopper]

Mud, could you re-state this sentence. It is confusing to me. The way it possibly reads is that I'm connecting the neutral to a positive busbar which is opposite to the existing positive busbar? Then run a ground wire from the shop box ground where the ground used to be to a grounding rod? Correct? I already have two 30 amp breakers in the house connected to the 10 wire out to the garage. (why did the guy put in two 30 amp breakers and not one if its 115v)

Quote Originally Posted by muddstopper View Post
In you shop breaker box, you would take the Neutral (white wire) off the ground busbar and connect to the opposite (Positive) busbar than the one the Positive, (black wire) is hooked to.
Just to clear up what I wrote earlier, not to make an argument that this is the correct way to do this.

Your current wire setup is #10 wire buried to your shop. You wire has a black wire, a white wire, and a bare ground wire. In you current setup, your white wire is being used as a neutral wire and is connected to the ground strip in your house as well as your shop breakerbox. If your breaker box is setup to accept 220v, it should have 2 strips for positive current and a ground strip. By removeing the white wire from the ground strip in your house breaker box, as well as the shop breakerbox, you can then attach each end of the white wire to the second positive bar in each breaker box and make the white wire a positive wire instead of a neutral. The black wire should already be attached to the other positive bar. There is the possibility that inside your shop breaker box, the 2 positive strips are connected with a jumper so both bars are positive, but still only 110v current. If this is the case, the jumper wire must be removed before connecting the white wire to the positive terminal, otherwise you would create a serious short. Now once you have removed the white wire from the ground bar, you would connect another bare wire to the ground strip and connect the other end to a ground rod driven into the soil outside the shop. I suppose to get around the code requirement, you could always just run a extra insulated wire for neutral from your house to the shop

Disclaimer
I know this method will work to supply 220v to your shop, I havent had any problems in my shop wired this way for 30years. Still, codes are written and changed for a reason, so if you chose to do this, you do so at your own risk and I cannot be held responsible in the event something does happen. There seems to be a few folks here with quite a bit more knowledge on this subject than I have. I didnt wire my shop the way it is wired, it was that way when I bought the house.

 

[muddstopper]

Hopefully I can clarify the neutral vs. ground thing -

The NEC is sometimes hard to understand, and this subject is no exception -

First, you can't have a complete electrical circuit without a complete path for the electricity to flow thru, so

A 120 volt circuit's complete path is from the "hot" 120 volt (black wire) through the device, then back to ground through the NEUTRAL wire ONLY. The third, (green) wire is a SAFETY ground, which should draw ZERO current unless there is a FAULT in the device being powered, or in the wiring.

NEC uses two "suffixes" to sort this out - groundING is used to denote the SAFETY ground, and groundED (neutral) means that, although that conductor is attached to the SAME LUG in the panel as the GROUNDING (safety) wire, the groundED (neutral) wire is the ONLY wire that should be carrying current.

All the above is for a 120 volt circuit.

240 volt -

Your electrical panel has two "buses" - the two rails that connect each breaker to the incoming power.

Both of these "buses" will measure 120 volts to ground, but, since we're dealing with sine wave AC power, one bus will be at its NEGATIVE peak at the same time the OTHER bus is at it's POSITIVE peak voltage. In "tech speak", the two busses are 180 degrees out of phase.

This means that if you connect a meter or device between BOTH of these buses, you will get 240 volts AC.

It ALSO means that, with NO OTHER WIRES, you would have a COMPLETE CIRCUIT for your 240 volt device, and IT WOULD WORK.

Soooo, for a 240 volt circuit, the only use for the third wire is the same as a 120 volt circuit's GREEN wire - SAFETY. Or to put it another way, a 240 volt circuit has ZERO wires that are both groundED and still (normally) carry current.

Newer code, among other things, takes into account newer (smarter) devices such as smart stoves, which need 240 volts for adequate power but ALSO have electronics that want 120 volts - this brings up the 4-wire 240 volt part -

Instead of just two "hots" for 240 volts and GROUND for safety, it also supplies a SEPARATE NEUTRAL for a SEPARATE return. This new NEUTRAL is used as a return for any 120 volt parts of your "smart stove" - typically electronic controls, etc.

This arrangement satisfies ALL requirements - you still have a ZERO current GROUND for SAFETY (for both 120 and 240 volt stuff), and a groundED neutral return for 120 volt circuits, which DOES have current flow.

And yes, both ground wires and neutral wires connect to the same lug at one point (in the panel) - but ONLY THE NEUTRAL should be flowing current, or you have a PROBLEM.

Hopefully I covered things understandably - but since these types of threads usually go on forever, I'm sure that eventually it'll get sorted out :thumbsup: ... Steve

I think I understand that. If you are running 240v and 120v off the same panel, you must use a insulated Neutral wire to carry the 120 current back to the ground and since you do have current running back thru to ground, you cant use an uninsulated wire. Where as the bare wire isnt carrying any current unless something shorts out where as then it would run straight to the ground by the bare wire. Makes sense now that I see it in writing.

 

[arrow]

Bukit, I really appreciate your explanation. If you had to tell this to a 7 year old, how would you say it? Just kidding…I have at least an 8 year old reading comprehension. This is why i stunk at school and why I spent most of my life in the woods and took 7 yrs to get through college. Fortunately I went to an art school college or it could have taken longer. My brain gets so jumbled with this sort of stuff you can't believe it. I think I have a dangling wire in my head that isn't grounded. If wires were train tracks I might get it. My problem not yours. Thank you for your efforts.

 

[arrow]

Arrow have you tried 7014 rod, it strikes and maintains and arc pretty easily.. or maybe 6013, also and easy starter.

I have James about 5 years ago and it was like magic. Then one day two weeks ago, i couldn't get the rod lit at all and it was only 1/16. I had to muddle through tacking up a bucket fork set up with 6013. Took forever. I think my 30 year old 100 amp (ha) welder might be down to 50 or 60 amps. Spending its life in an uninsulated garage being hardly used has taken its toll on the poor box.

 

[Willie B]

Hopefully I can clarify the neutral vs. ground thing -

The NEC is sometimes hard to understand, and this subject is no exception -

First, you can't have a complete electrical circuit without a complete path for the electricity to flow thru, so

A 120 volt circuit's complete path is from the "hot" 120 volt (black wire) through the device, then back to ground through the NEUTRAL wire ONLY. The third, (green) wire is a SAFETY ground, which should draw ZERO current unless there is a FAULT in the device being powered, or in the wiring.

NEC uses two "suffixes" to sort this out - groundING is used to denote the SAFETY ground, and groundED (neutral) means that, although that conductor is attached to the SAME LUG in the panel as the GROUNDING (safety) wire, the groundED (neutral) wire is the ONLY wire that should be carrying current.

All the above is for a 120 volt circuit.

240 volt -

Your electrical panel has two "buses" - the two rails that connect each breaker to the incoming power.

Both of these "buses" will measure 120 volts to ground, but, since we're dealing with sine wave AC power, one bus will be at its NEGATIVE peak at the same time the OTHER bus is at it's POSITIVE peak voltage. In "tech speak", the two busses are 180 degrees out of phase.

This means that if you connect a meter or device between BOTH of these buses, you will get 240 volts AC.

It ALSO means that, with NO OTHER WIRES, you would have a COMPLETE CIRCUIT for your 240 volt device, and IT WOULD WORK.

Soooo, for a 240 volt circuit, the only use for the third wire is the same as a 120 volt circuit's GREEN wire - SAFETY. Or to put it another way, a 240 volt circuit has ZERO wires that are both groundED and still (normally) carry current.

Newer code, among other things, takes into account newer (smarter) devices such as smart stoves, which need 240 volts for adequate power but ALSO have electronics that want 120 volts - this brings up the 4-wire 240 volt part -

Instead of just two "hots" for 240 volts and GROUND for safety, it also supplies a SEPARATE NEUTRAL for a SEPARATE return. This new NEUTRAL is used as a return for any 120 volt parts of your "smart stove" - typically electronic controls, etc.

This arrangement satisfies ALL requirements - you still have a ZERO current GROUND for SAFETY (for both 120 and 240 volt stuff), and a groundED neutral return for 120 volt circuits, which DOES have current flow.

And yes, both ground wires and neutral wires connect to the same lug at one point (in the panel) - but ONLY THE NEUTRAL should be flowing current, or you have a PROBLEM.

Hopefully I covered things understandably - but since these types of threads usually go on forever, I'm sure that eventually it'll get sorted out :thumbsup: ... Steve

I've been going to code school periodically for 45 years. On two occasions I have spent a weekend re learning grounding and bonding. Some of the people with masters licenses and years of experience leave these sessions confused. A simple concept, we want to prevent tragedy. In the how to it gets more complicated. Understand that when code changes, most often it is the aftermath of a lawsuit. Code making panels are usually made up of groups of brilliant people, they aren't always very good at phrasing in laymen's terms.Then they send it off to the lawyers. I don't remember who first said that a camel is the result of an attempt by a committee of experts to design a horse.
Essentially, we want all of the electricity to stay inside the circuit. Should any escape, we use the grounding system to complete the circuit, overload the breaker and trip it. Bonding is to provide a better path for fault current than through people or animals.
Our utilities connect the center of the secondary winding to earth, and the neutral, or "grounded" (white) in our breaker panels. The "grounding" system also connects to earth, by driven rods, underground water pipes, well casings, and connection to foundation steel. Since we don't want electricity to flow on this system we only bond "grounded" to "grounding" at one point in each building. In some circumstances we don't bond at all.

 

[BukitCase]

Mudd, sounds like you've got it - only in a LOT less words than me, which is typical

Arrow, try reading it thru a few more times, it may help - if not, I'll give my old standby approach a try, it usually helps non-electricians get the idea.

Willie, couldn't agree more - I'd bet at least 2/3 of my required CE courses were on grounding/bonding. I finally retired last year, and don't miss those classes at all. (Now, I've been doing a LOT more welding and getting a decent handle on hydraulics - guess masochism must be habit-forming :laughing: ...Steve

 

[eastexan]

One thing that I've never understood is why 120v needs to return via a neutral, and 240v don't?
Does 240v just go off into infinity after being used? :dance1:

 

[arrow]

Since I m a "visual" learner, allow me to proceed. Here you see the box at the house going to the garage. The two 30 amp breakers are connected to the #10 wire going to the garage being fed from the main with a 50 amp breaker acting as a service disconnect. Why is this not 220 already? The box in the garage is all 110 volt with 20 and 15 amp outlets connected. If indeed I have 220 going out to the garage, isn't it simply a matter of putting in a 220 30 amp breaker at the garage with a wire lead dedicated to the welder outlet?

 

[k0ua]

One thing that I've never understood is why 120v needs to return via a neutral, and 240v don't?
Does 240v just go off into infinity after being used? :dance1:

No. The two legs are out of phase. and the electrons that flow one direction in one leg flow the other direction in the other leg at any given point in time.
The sine wave waveform goes 120 volts above 0 and 120 volts below 0 sixty times a second. the other leg is doing the same thing, only 180 degrees out of phase. Your welder is hooked up between the two legs (phases) and the average (mean) is about 240 volts.

 

[k0ua]

Since I m a "visual" learner, allow me to proceed. Here you see the box at the house going to the garage. The 2 30 amp breakers are connected to the #10 wire going to the garage being fed from the main with a 50 amp breaker acting as a service disconnect. Why is this not 220 already? The box in the garage is all 110 volt with 20 and 15 amp outlets connected. If indeed I have 220 going out to the garage, isn't it simply a matter of putting in a 220 30 amp breaker at the garage with a wire lead dedicated to the welder outlet?

Arrow, go out to the garage, and open the electrical box. Take your voltmeter set on an AC scale over 240 volts. Measure between the 2 wires coming into the box from the house. If they are between 220 and 240 volts you have your answer. If they are between 110 and 120 volts, you still have your answer, just not the one you wanted to see.