LN-7 wiring???

[acain29]

I recently purchased a used LN-7 Lincoln welder. I am not new to welding just to wiring an LN-7. It has no plug on it and I do not know how to wire it. Input voltage is 115 volts, 50/60hz, 2.0amps. I looked on the Lincoln website for a user manual, but I did not understand the wiring diagrams that I found. Do I need a power supply? Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
acain29

[smithboy]

Yep, You only have half a mig welder right now. You will need a cv power source. You should have something like 5 or more wires that come out of the LN7 that goes to the power source. 3 are for power (150v) 2 for contactor. The wiring diagram should have the colors listed for each wire. I havent hooked one of these up personally, but many cv feeders work identically (they just have different input voltages, 150-120v and 24v seem to be the most common). This feeder will work with practically any brand welder, but NOT every model. You cant use this feeder with a CC (Constant Current) power source. Many of the older transformer based stick welders are CC...they are a NO-GO. As far as I know, this is a CV-ONLY feeder. If you go to the lincoln website, they should have some compatibility listings for all their feeders.

[acain29]

Thanks for the information. How much should I pay for a used power source? Any suggestions on type/size/model? Any help you have to offer would be great.
Thanks,
acain29

[smithboy]

That really depends on the type of power source you are after. Since you are asking you probably are not familiar with the various types. You might just take a quick look at ebay and search on CV power source. They differ a great deal both in features, price and portability. I use a feeder with a powcon 300sm. It's not the most modern machine, but it works perfectly fine for what I do. I paid about $450 (well used) with shipping, but they are not currently going that cheap. This is an inverter and is smaller and lighter than the heavy transformer machines...I figure with some prudent shopping you could probably find an acceptable machine for around $500-$700 without a problem. Some of the newer machines will set you back more than $1000-$1500 used, but they have lots more features than a standard powcon. With patience, you can find cheaper ones. The CV transformers I am not as familiar with. They are usually three phase, so they dont work in my shop (single phase). There are some single phase transformer machines out there, I just dont know much about them. If you are running single phase you should only search for single phase machines.