Help getting welder wired in!

[gemini5362]

I was never worried about damage to the breaker. My concern is exactly what is being discussed now. If you have a mouse chew through a wire and short accross it then you have the potential for more current through the wire than it is designed to handle before the breaker trips. UL may have listed welders as a situation where you can have a wire with a lower amp rating than the breaker that feeds it is designed to handle. I am amazed that the NEC would allow that and for my own personal preference it is not something I would ever allow in anything that I worked on.

 

[SnowRidge]

I was never worried about damage to the breaker. My concern is exactly what is being discussed now. If you have a mouse chew through a wire and short accross it then you have the potential for more current through the wire than it is designed to handle before the breaker trips. UL may have listed welders as a situation where you can have a wire with a lower amp rating than the breaker that feeds it is designed to handle. I am amazed that the NEC would allow that and for my own personal preference it is not something I would ever allow in anything that I worked on.

Mice are not rated even close to 25 amps, let alone 50. If a mouse chews on your welder circuit, he (and not be sexist) or she will briefly be a carbon arc lamp, but your wiring will not melt or catch fire, and the size of the breaker will have made no difference.

No garantees about the smell, though.

The real danger, as someone already pointed out, is the possibilty that the circuit later gets used for something other than a welder, such as an air compressor, or worse yet, a 220 volt heater.

I would wire it with something a little heftier than 12 gauge.

 

[mopacman]

Wow thats over 3200 horsepower. I would think the mouse would blow before the breaker......Larry

 

[Defective]

I would think the mouse would blow before the breaker.

Yup...

BOOM!!!

Little mouse bits spread far & wide.

(smoking all the way...)





Sorry, couldn't stop myself...

 

[mopacman]

I have a 220 volt plug on my on my 225 amp welder and plug my 5 HP 2 stage compreser into it and have never kicked a breaker. I think I used 5 GA wire on it with no problem....Larry

 

[gemini5362]

actually mice chewing on a wire and catching on fire is not that uncommon an occurance. There have been more than one house burned down because of that. I was using the mouse as an example. Let me see if I can think of a better example. What if the welder main transformer had a wire that had not been adequately insulated after the welder had gotten used a few times the spot shorted out. This would not make a dead short however a shorted turn transformer has some pretty high current in it. If the current did not exceed 50 plus amps ( a circuit breaker has to have a lot more current than the rated value for instantaneous trip) You could be in a situation that allows considerably more than the value of the wire. This is a dangerous situation to be in. There could be more examples but this one should illustrate the point. I agree with other posters that there seems to be a lot of people that make fun of being safe. If your welder says that is safe to do and you want to do it that way it is your buisness. I personally do not feel that it is safe to do. I also feel that the posters that point out if you use something that is more than 25 amp draw and plug it into your welder receptacle you are overloading that circuit.

 

[fishpick]

Thanks all - since the welder outlet will be all of 10' from the panel - and it will be dedicated to the welder (as I have wired the rest of the barn for other things) - I'm gonna use some of the remaing AWG 10 I have.

 

[sandman2234]

Well, if your bound and determined to do it, just use a 30amp breaker on it. What your discribing is how my tombstone 225 ac welder is wired, with a 30 amp breaker. It does fine unless I start exceeding the rated duty cycle with 5/32 rod and at 150 amp setting or more. Just use 1/8" rods, and keep it below 135 and you won't ever know it, and when your dead and gone, somebody won't make a mistake about what you have done and burn the barn down by using the 50amp breaker with wiring not made to handle it.
Think how bad they will talk about you and your wiring it that happens, not that it will matter to you.
David from jax

 

[Highbeam]

"when your dead and gone, somebody won't make a mistake about what you have done and burn the barn down by using the 50amp breaker with wiring not made to handle it.
Think how bad they will talk about you and your wiring it that happens, not that it will matter to you."

This is the biggest part of the deabte. It is huge and goes beyond the rules. If I bought a house with a 50 amp circuit and a 50 amp plug I would not hesitate to plug a 50 amp load into it which could be a disaster.

 

[SnowRidge]

This is the biggest part of the deabte. It is huge and goes beyond the rules. If I bought a house with a 50 amp circuit and a 50 amp plug I would not hesitate to plug a 50 amp load into it which could be a disaster.

My shop building already had a welder receptacle when we bought the place. I think I'll double check on the wiring.