Any reason not to bolt my ground to my welding table?

[flusher]

Yes, there is. Whenever possible you should attach the work directly to the part being welded. You are relying upon the surface to surface contact of whatever you are welding to provide a current path. That at best is unreliable. Not to say it can't be done in a reliable fashion if due care and diligence is taken, along with routine maintenance/sanding of the top, but surface rust, paint, other forms of corrosion may exist either on the table or the "weldment".

I don't see the problem. His table is permanently attached to his welder ground. If you want a direct connection to the work piece, run a properly sized jumper cable between the table and the work piece.

 

[Ken45101]

What I have done is one clamp to the table and another cable from that clamp with another 15' cable and clamp. That way I have the best of all worlds, a grounded table, a clamp for loose things, and I can also take the table clamp loose and stretch the combined cables outside for welding when needed.

 

[firemanmike69]

I was under the impression that some inverters were fussy about having equal length leads,mark will know better than me

 

[Shield Arc]

I was under the impression that some inverters were fussy about having equal length leads,mark will know better than me

Doesn't matter to any I've owned.

 

[joshuabardwell]

It really does make me wonder why some "experts" insist that a GOOD ground is so important. :confused2:

IMO, a ground needs to be good enough. You try welding with a bad ground and you'll know why in a hurry, especially with short-circuit mode wire-feed processes.

 

[bdog]

Well I got it all connected up and took a couple of pictures in case anyone is interested. It works good.

 

[Midniteoyl]

What we did at work for our grounding cable is use 2 grounds.. One we bolted to the table, the other we clamped.. If you need to weld somthing off the table (say, too big or heavy) we simply used the clamp.

But then, it was a big Lincoln with lugs..

 

[MossRoad]

I know guys that do an awfull lot of welding and their grounding practices are extremely sloppy and it works for them. It's handy to weld on a table and not have the heavy ground clamp and cable moving or hindering your work.

It really does make me wonder why some "experts" insist that a GOOD ground is so important. :confused2:

First you make fun of experts insisting that a good ground is important...

I don't weld enough to know if it is more critical with my old "SEARS" buzz box or my CV 250 Mig.

I just wanted to remind people about the dangers of having a poor welder ground and the ground is found inadvertantly through your shop wiring in some manner, like a metal grounded tool lying on your bench. You will burn up your ground system and there is no fuse or breaker that will blow!

And then you want to remind people the dangers of having a poor ground...

Which side of the fence are you on here???

 

[LD1]

Some posts got deleted :duh: