<font color="blue">Gene, sounds like you have a great set-up. I have read this thread with interest. I don't weld now, nor have any equipment....but a dream of mine to someday get started.
Your cart combo sounds good. I always thought it would be great to have a "welding trailer", where one could be portable. It would include one of those big generator/ stick welder combos....an air compressor, mig welder, and plasma cutter...and place for tanks. Sounds like you have a mini version of that. Could a guy fit all that on one of those small 4X8 trailers?
How's that for a pipe dream....albeit an expensive one. </font>
You just described exactly what I've got! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Being a little crazy according to some, I've spent way too much on welding equipment over the years, considering it is just a hobby. I finally got tired of having to extract a machine from the tangle of cables, maybe hook up the gas cylinder, weld, and then put it all away later. I had an old tent trailer and stripped it down to the frame. Turned out it was exactly 4'x8' and a 3/4" piece of plywood made a perfect deck for it. I tried a few different placements of all the stuff and came up with an arrangement that is nicely balanced with about 30lbs hitch weight so I can pull it with my quad. Everything is bolted or strapped down and I made a common ground from a length of 3/4" copper water pipe with a ground cable soldered into one end. All the grounds from the machines just clamp to the pipe thus leaving a single common ground clamp for the whole mess.
Total inventory sitting on the trailer is as follows:
-10,000 watt generator - 220V and 110V output, 3 welder receptacles wired up.
-Full size oxy-acetylene tanks
-5 gallon air compressor with blower nozzle and hose for plasma cutter.
-Lincoln Pro-Cut 25 plasma cutter
-Lincoln SP170T MIG welder with gas bottle & regulator
-Lincoln 175A AC/DC TIG/Stick welder with gas bottle & regulator
-usually an angle grinder, gloves, goggles, helmets, vice grips, etc. strewn about
I arranged everything so all the "business ends" are on the same side of the trailer and everything is operated from that side. I keep it parked in the garage as close to the wall as I can so everything is useable at a moment's notice. If I need to go portable, just hook up the quad and out to the field or the neighbors or wherever. The 10Kwatt generator does a reasonable job although the TIG machine makes it work and can pop a breaker if you aren't careful. No real problem though. The biggest problem is that I don't think the axle is rated for the 1200 or so pounds sitting on the frame and it's bowed a bit in the middle. I don't take it on the road anyway, so I'm not too worried.
I don't have a good picture of the setup right now, but I'll try to remember to take a couple in the next day or so and post them here.
