Welding, powered by a generator.. good ? bad ?

Ok.. so a while back i got myself a Lincoln 140 wire feed welder, i got gas too ( snicker ), but i lack the power line to feed it...

After much debate, i would like to buy a generator to power this thing instead of running it from the house power, i'm already drawing quite a load on the house panel and 200 amp entrance with plenty of sensitive electronics that i don't want to fry in the process of learning how to weld... and i'd like to get a generator anyways...

the Question is this, how big of a generator do i need to power this thing properly ?

Do i need a Honda Inverter generator ( at double the price of cheapies ) .. or will something like this do just fine :
http://moncton.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-tools-equipment-Generator-Powerful-7500-with-electric-start-and-wheel-kit-W0QQAdIdZ279976347

If the honda does it better, i'm ok with that, but if the King type works fine it's alot of moolah saved.

edit : I think i may have asked this before but canot remember what the general consensus was, i searched but no findy.. i'm at the buying stage right now so it's either invest in some heavy cable and sub-panel for the garage, or just buy a damn generator lol..

I've got a Lincoln SP 100 which will draw the same watts as the 140 and have used it with my cheapo $280 Jiang Dong ( ) 3000w generator with no problems.

However I'd save your money and just use it with your house's wiring. Heck, it won't even draw 20a. Don't you use surge protectors on your computer and whatnot?

House is heated with electric forced air that already makes the lights dim when it kicks in, i have everything plugged into power bars but no real surge protection there, i do plan to buy a big power conditioner for the home theatre but regardless i'm wanting to get a generator, may as well get one big enough to do the job right..

The lincoln trips the 15 amp breaker right now within 3 seconds of welding, a 20 amp breaker would hold, but i still want a generator lol..

Buy a generator if you like, but run your welder on house power. Generator will just make a lot of noise.

30 amps of 220? or 110. Even if you need 30 amps of 220, that size would do you. The welder won't draw all 6000 watts continuously unless you are really good and are welding long seams.

For dang sure, nothing wrong with one of those laying around, and an extra 5 gal of gas when the grid goes down. I was sure glad when we had 4 days of rolling blackouts to have my little 3000 watt unit. But it would have been great to have the big one like your link.

You'd want the honda, if you took that thing out to weld on site for a living, but I'd say for casual use a china cheapie would do fine. Maybe buy the extended warantee, if you have a brick and mortar outlet nearby even though that's normally a rip off.

Why not run it off the house? Well you can if the house has a really good panel. We used to run a large electric kiln off a crappy mobile home power meter on a pole. Had to replace the whole thing repeatedly. So worrying about the house stuff is justified if you draw huge current on top of what the house was designed for.

Edit. looked up the welder. It's 110. You could just look into a good stout plug for the welder added to your shop wiring. I did the same thing in my garage, as soon as I moved in, I had one space in the panel open, so I coud add a nice circuit that went about 4 feet of distance to a single plug. Saws, compressors, etc can run on that plug without sharing the circuit.

I think the welder would run fine on a 4000 watt generator if you still want to go that route. Mine has a 30 amp 110 outlet, with an RV style plug.

Hehe.. i was at canadian tire tonight, on sale, 299$ for a Champion, cheap, loud, but ... cheap.... so this weekend i can play with my welder !!

The garage will eventually be wired properly, but i needed a " right now " solution !

Ypedal,
What are you doing? Is your welder 110V ? Go buy a Wire Size (AWG) 10/3 extension cord. How far do you need to go? 10', 25', 50' ? See cords here:
http://www.mcmaster.com/param/asp/PSearch2.asp?reqTyp=parametric&act=psearch&FAM=extensioncords&FT_158=211100&FT_5207=212495&FT_5193=211606&session=extensioncords;158=211100;5207=212495;5193=211606&ScreenWidth=1920&McMMainWidth=1646

marty said:

Ypedal,
What are you doing? Is your welder 110V ? Go buy a Wire Size (AWG) 10/3 extension cord. How far do you need to go? 10', 25', 50' ? See cords here:
http://www.mcmaster.com/param/asp/PSearch2.asp?reqTyp=parametric&act=psearch&FAM=extensioncords&FT_158=211100&FT_5207=212495&FT_5193=211606&session=extensioncords;158=211100;5207=212495;5193=211606&ScreenWidth=1920&McMMainWidth=1646

Click to expand...

I have a 10/3 extension already, the problem is the panel only has 15 amp breakers installed at the moment, no 20's.. I have a fresh run in the living room but it trips after only a few seconds on the trigger..

Lots of empty slots on the panel for this in the near future, but not right now.

That should run like a champ. Cool you have lots of space in the panel. Someday, you'll be looking real smart breaking out that generator, and saving god knows how much money you have in a big freezer eh?

Nothing at all wrong with having a genny. After a decent break in number of hours, change the oil out and put a good synthetic in. Once it stops cranking up on the first pull, clean the spark plug (buy yourself an extra plug to keep on hand). As long as you don't let the gas turn to varnish, the spark plug is about your only maintenance item. I try to run mine every few months if we haven't had an electrical outage. 13 years with only a fouled plug on my cheapie that gets use a few times a year, knock on wood.

For the welder, they operate much better when fed by a good connection, so once you get tired of listening to the genny, put at least a 50amp breaker in one of those open breaker slots just for the welder.

Having a generator is good insurance for a lot of unforseen events.

Wish I could say I never get to use mine. Power knocked out every time there is lightning within 5 miles, getting tired of it. I break out my gennie at least 2-3 times a year. I want my power if it's going to be off for 3-4 hours. Even more shorter outages, you'd think this was India.

They are getting ready to do some grid upgrades that will help a lot. Right now it's more like a too long extension cord to my part of town. No cross connectivity yet till they run another high power line into the area. Then one gets struck, we still get power another route.

Nice though, when the power goes off on a hot summer afternoon, to have the only AC running for miles. 8) Came in handy at the death race too of course.

Exactly, no matter what, this will come in handy for all sorts of stuff down the road !!..


I can imagine loading the ebikes in a trailer for an off-road trip at some point, handy way to top them off out in the middle of nowhere !.

a generator is always a good investment for a house. blackout and what not :wink: loose power in the winter it can save you thousands on plumbing repairs..

just stay away from the 2 strokes there a paint in the A$$ to start..

Ypedal said:

Exactly, no matter what, this will come in handy for all sorts of stuff down the road !!..


I can imagine loading the ebikes in a trailer for an off-road trip at some point, handy way to top them off out in the middle of nowhere !.

Click to expand...

Be careful when powering the house during a power outage. I found out it is illegal to power your house without either an idiot proof manual disconnect or an automatic one. One of the neighbours saw my light on and came over to inform me of the law. I now power up the house and use a propane lamp for show.

It's illegal because you can potentially kill someone doing that. Not likely to happen but I wouldn't take that chance.

Your generator can't push the load attached to the incoming power line, so the connection to the outside is immediately obvious and must be cut to run the genny plugged to your house at all.

BTW, no one has mentioned the most important use of a generator for prolonged outages...ie ebike charging.

One of my favorite generator related activities is going to get gas on my ebike. There's just something I like about Ebike helping ICE to help Ebike. 8)

I burnt the wiring out in my workshop yesterday YPedal MaN
Turned the new welder up a smidgeon to much for the power board
to handle, for some reason the safety cutt off didn't work, smoke everywhere in my workshop thought i had caught myself on fire....again Have an electrician booked for mid next week to fit a dedicated 220v 15amp cable to my workshop from the main board at the house, sad he would do it for ~200 bucks dunno if that's cheap or expensive, he did give me a break down of parts on the phone then ~100 bucks labor?

That genie should rock the welder and the minimum needs of the house on a power out i.e computer some small heating too keep you and the dog warm, not sure how all this house plumbing works in the cold in Canada, FrankG used to tell me something about pipes freezing and having to keep the heat on 24/7 in the winter months! DAMN! steep electricity bill prolly not alot different to us Aussies electric bill for summer with all the aircons blazing 24/7 haha...good luck with the genie and the welding YPedal MaN


KiM

Yeah, just plugging into whole the house requires a disconnect. Your power would try to energize the whole grid without the disconnect. Then the guy fixing your grid gets a zap perhaps.

That's why grid tie solar doesn't work when the power goes off, to prevent that kind of accident. When I lose power, Usually in the summer, I just run an extension cord into the house from outside and plug stuff into that. AC, microwave, etc.

This winter,we had the big one, that freeze damaged all the local power generation stations. We were on rolling blackouts for days and days. My generator ran two 1500 watt heaters for the duration, and I was one of very few people with no freeze damaged pipes. Going for more gas got interesting, you had to find a section of town with power to get some.

Ok, so i got it together, added oil and fired it up, easy starting, nice..

Let it run for a while, shut it down and let it cool, fired it up again and tested with a 1500w heat gun, the motor rpm drops for a moment and all is well, keeps on ticking..

So i setup a piece of metal in the vice and tried a weld, pop, trips the 20 amp breaker...

Checked the Lincoln manual and it says the unit needs a 25 amp breaker, damit..

The Gennie has a Twist Lock Max 30 amp socket, requires special cable ( not included ) . i checked the canadian tire website and they want 30$ for the cable, i went on ebay and found one for 7$ and 4$ shipping, so that should arrive in about a week.

I hope this does the trick.

edit, AJ, my dog loves the cold, if the house could be kept at -10 celcius all year long she'd be happy as a pig in shit.. ! :wink:

Ypedal said:

Ok, so i got it together, added oil and fired it up, easy starting, nice..

Let it run for a while, shut it down and let it cool, fired it up again and tested with a 1500w heat gun, the motor rpm drops for a moment and all is well, keeps on ticking..

So i setup a piece of metal in the vice and tried a weld, pop, trips the 20 amp breaker...

Checked the Lincoln manual and it says the unit needs a 25 amp breaker, damit..

The Gennie has a Twist Lock Max 30 amp socket, requires special cable ( not included ) . i checked the canadian tire website and they want 30$ for the cable, i went on ebay and found one for 7$ and 4$ shipping, so that should arrive in about a week.

I hope this does the trick.
edit, AJ, my dog loves the cold, if the house could be kept at -10 celcius all year long she'd be happy as a pig in shit.. ! :wink:

Click to expand...

It will probably do the trick but I still suggest you put a 50 amp breaker on your house panel and use an extension cord with #6 wire if you plan on doing any thick welding. That welder will work so much better with a heavy feed than with 25amp feed and light extension cords. We have proved this with several friends welders which did not work well at their home but weld perfectly when plugged into my 50 amp service. I go to the recycle depot and get cords off clothes driers and use them on all my shop tools; 1.5hp table saw, air compressor, welders, etc.

Argg. Would have been nice if the thing just plugged into the 220 socket on the generator if that's the case.

I ended up doing the same thing with my generator, Rigging a 30 amp RV plug, to a 20 amp duplex outlet in a metal box. I use that to run two 1500 watt oil filled radiators, or two window air conditioners, each on it's own 12 guage extension cord.

Pretty harsh on the 20 amp plug, but so far no melt down, and if it does it's out in the yard.

For you, maybe just put the RV 30 amp plug on your welders AC cord?

For the house, definitely going to have to make that new plug a strong one, Same RV 30 amp socket, big fat wire, etc.

I took Gordo's advice the first time he mentioned a while back to feel the welder with enough current. Right off the bat my cheapie stick welder was working much better. The genny is a great addition to the household, but not really for welding except in an emergency.

dogman said:

Yeah, just plugging into whole the house requires a disconnect. Your power would try to energize the whole grid without the disconnect. Then the guy fixing your grid gets a zap perhaps. ...

Click to expand...

Can this be done by dropping the main breaker (or pulling the main fuses) ? .. or is there some other connection that must be disconnected ? ?

Hillhater said:

dogman said:

Yeah, just plugging into whole the house requires a disconnect. Your power would try to energize the whole grid without the disconnect. Then the guy fixing your grid gets a zap perhaps. ...

Click to expand...

Can this be done by dropping the main breaker (or pulling the main fuses) ? .. or is there some other connection that must be disconnected ? ?

Click to expand...

The main breaker works fine if your house has one. I wired my previous house with a big scissor switch and a nice big plug for the genny. When the electricity went out I rolled the genny out (pointing the exhaust noise at the neighbors), crank it up, and throw the big switch to put the entire house on backup power typically in less than a minute, and was impossible to screw up. We did have to occasionally go check for lights at other houses, because we had no way of knowing that grid power was back on.

Hillhater said:

dogman said:

Yeah, just plugging into whole the house requires a disconnect. Your power would try to energize the whole grid without the disconnect. Then the guy fixing your grid gets a zap perhaps. ...

Click to expand...

Can this be done by dropping the main breaker (or pulling the main fuses) ? .. or is there some other connection that must be disconnected ? ?

Click to expand...

Yes it can but it is illegal because human error can cause screw-ups. Whoever suggested running an extension cord into the house and connecting what you must have powered, to it, has the best suggestion. Absolutely safe and legal. As far as a lineman getting zapped, not a chance. I have a "D" ticket and have done 100's of hot taps onto the 220 rails. When area power goes out, it normally kicks the 16KV breakers. There is no protection/breakers on the 220/440/600V. Nothing to reset or screw with. No one ever touches the 16KV, except with a hot stick from an isolated bucket. All plant is always treated as hot. Anyone who doesn't and survives, gets a long holiday, without pay.
On a pole with my hands full, I did stick a cablevision line in my mouth for a second. 50VAC for a line extender amp is more than enough to guarantee you won't do it a second time.