[vorgath]

Got myself a 110/220 volt 250 Amp stick welder, comes with a few things, but one needs to setup the power.

My question is this ... how ??

I think for now I'll just use 110 volt, do I just buy the plug and run the two copper wires and the third wire to it .. and plug it all into the wall ??

In the manual it says something about hooking it up to a power distributor etc etc

Money's real short now ... so...

Folks, I knew how to rig power outlets, extension cords, lamps etc when I was using 220 volt back in Europe .. but I've never dealt with our domestic power setup here in the States, especially not involving surge protector etc etc

 

[vorgath]

basically

I don't want to blow my welder .. ok

 

[jerrylo]

What does the wiring schematic say? Is there notes on l1, l2, etc. I did not know that they made a 110/220 volt welder. If you had a picture of the schematic it would help.

 

[cboy]

do I just buy the plug and run the two copper wires and the third wire to it .. and plug it all into the wall ??

In the manual it says something about hooking it up to a power distributor etc etc

I'm not familiar with your specific welder but I would think there are four wires involved...a red "hot", a black "hot", a white neutral and an uninsulated ground. Wiring for 110 would include the black, white, and uninsulated ground and wiring for 220 would involved all 4 wires. So you definitely don't want to wire both the red and the black wires into a 110 plug. I would think the unit should have some very specific wiring diagrams to keep you from making your hair stand on end.

 

[vorgath]

uhmmmmm

The user manual is really tiny .. lol .. it pretty much mentions hooking it all up to a power distributor ... and also to get a ground wire that's at least 14 mm thick ... and now that is THICK

I'll look at the manual again.. and type in here what it says

1. Ground
a. There is a ground terminal under the shell board. Please ground with wire over 14mm.
b. Please arrange the expert or electrician to ground.


2. Power connection
((for my model, it says size of output cable.. twice .. but different size lol.. plus air switch current of 75A))
Each welder need to be equipped with a distributor box with switch and over-current protection device. Please lead the power from the distributor box to input terminal of welder by cable. The capacity of distributor box and cross-sectional area of cable refer to below table.
((which would be what I already posted above, how big the cable is .. *shrugs*))


And that's exactly what it says in the tiny manual

 

[vorgath]

Wire colors

*lol* light blue wire ... yellowish wire ... and a green/yellow wire (with the metal end on it)

 

[cboy]

Yikes, I'd hate to even make any suggestions based on what little that manual says and how little it seems to correspond to normal wiring of 110 or 220.

Hopefully someone else has some experience on one of these welders and can give some direction.

 

[vorgath]

More details

The welder has a switch on it, for selecting 110 or 220 volt .. with a safety screw blocking it so one can't select 220 by accident when one wants to use 110 volt.

here's a link to it

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46413&item=4331345769&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

 

[jerrylo]

Could you take the cover off where the wiring needs installed and take a picture?

 

[oldred]

250 amps from a 110 outlet?? I think I would be VERY concerned about current draw here as breaker size and wiring size would have to be enormous or at least that is the way it seems to me. Any electricians out there?

 

[vorgath]

no no

It's not 250 Amp from a 110 volt outlet ... that is when you use 220 volt ... when using 110 volt one will get hmmm i don't know ... 100-110 probably

Yeah I'll try to get some pics taken if I can find the camera around here

 

[vorgath]

AHA !!

Did a search on Altavista ... took a while to find it.. but here it is ... like I suspected, the welder works on 110 or 220 volt, depending on what you set the selector switch on, however .... the wires are color coded the European way:

European colors

* The live conductor must be brown
* The neutral is blue
* The earth ('safety ground') must be green/yellow


So basically ... brown-hot .. blue-neutral .. green/yellow-ground

 

[cboy]

Do you have two browns (live conductor wires)?

 

[vorgath]

Hooked up and .. running .. uhmm almost

OK, got myself a plug .. hooked up all wires to it ... used an extension cord with a surge protector and switch as a "power distributor with surge protector and switch".

The 14mm wire must be meant as 14 gauge wire ... since 14 mm is just huge.

Anyway ... I get a spark when I touch the object I want to weld, i.e. the object to which the working object ground cable is hooked up to.

BUT ... the stick gets stuck to the metal .. and when I keep it there for 2 seconds ... the power surge protector kicks in.. and shuts down the welder.


So .. obviously I must be doing something wrong ... ideas ??

 

[vorgath]

uhmmmmm

And now I blew the fuse in the garage .. so the garage door won't work.. no lights.. nothing...

glad i don't have a running vehicle in the garage

roflmao

 

[cboy]

A) When you tried to run the welder, was it set at 110 or 220?

B) If you used the 220 setting, did you have 220 wiring to the welder plug...did you have a red wire, a black wire, a white wire and an uninsulated wire to the plug?

C) If you were trying to run at 220 are you coming off a 220 breaker in your box (basically just two normal breakers hooked in tandem)? What is the amperage of the 220 breaker and what size wiring are you using to your plug? Also, how much amperage do you have running into your main fuse box and what is the rating on the main fuse (breaker)?

D) If you were trying 220, does the plug wire coming out of your welder and going into the plug have 4 wires (one wire to the blue neutral on our welder, one to the green/yellow ground, and two live conductors connected to two brown wires in you welder?

E) If you had the welder set at 110 for your fatal test run, what size breaker are you running from in your fuse box and what size wire do you have from your fuse box to the plug?

F) If you were set at 110, how were you wired from your welder to your plug?

Again, pics would help - and a detailed description of how your breaker box and your wiring is set up (sizes etc.).

 

[vorgath]

110

110 volt ... blue, brown and yellow/green wires ... into a plug.. and then into an extension cord with a surge protector on it.

I'll have to look at the breaker etc

 

[cboy]

Are you using one of those surge protector extension cords like they plug computer stuff into? My guess is that has a pretty low resistance breaker and will pop pretty quickly. I'd try plugging the welder directly into the wall socket...providing you have the proper breaker in your fuse box for the wiring to the socket. Or is that what you did when you blew out all the lights?

 

[vorgath]

Yes and no

I tried it first with the extension cord ... it shut down all the time.. as soon as I got the metal stick to get stuck on the metal (due to no arc) .. it blew

I got used to resetting it

Then I tried getting away from getting the stick stuck .. so I decided to do the "scratching" .. sliding sideways thingy with the stick against the metal... in order to get the arc going ... last time i did it .. that's when the lights went down ..

 

[oldred]

vorgarh-What size rod are you using? What power setting?
I looked at the description that you posted and the rod size limit is only 3/32" which is quite small but about the limit for a 110 volt machine, anything bigger will pop a breaker almost instantly and at the power setting required to burn even a rod that size the machine will have a very short duty cycle. That rod size limit also confirms what I already suspected that the 65 to 250 amp claim is wildly exaggerated with 30 to 90 amps being closer to reality with a short duty cycle on 110 volt but somewhat better on 220 volts. I assume that this machine is also AC only which will make it a bit harder to weld with but used within limitations it should work just fine. The proper type electrode(rod) is very important as some types are extremely difficult to use with AC so I would suggest a 1/16" E7014 or 1/16" E6013 for ease of use, the E7014 being the best in my opinion.