How to plug in my welder? (extension chord, outlet, cord end questions)

[pyro9862]

I just got a Lincoln Thunderbolt welder and I'm trying to figure out how to get power to the thing.

The only 220v in my house is the dryer plug. Fortunatly that's pretty close to the garage. I will have to use an extension cord with the welder but he gave me 55ft of what seems to be some really heavy gauge wire, shouldn't have any problem.

Question 1:
Now the dryer plug is of the type in the picture. I'm assuming it's ok to plug this welder into this type of outlet?

Question 2:
The plug I have is designed to work with solid wires while the wire in the extension cord is a whole bunch of smaller wires coiled up that will never fit in this plug. Is their a plug end I can get to work with this type of wire? If not can I take the old dryer cord, put this end back on it then just use heavy wire caps to attach the solid wire to this coiled wire?


Any help with this is much appreciated.

[Roy Hodges]

if that lincoln is a 225 amp machine , it needs a 50 amp service . all the dryers I've seen are wired only for 30 amps. that means you better not use (draw) more than about 110 amps out when welding . And your extension should be at least 6 gauge wires , for full output .

[MAC702]

Because of the small duty cycles inherent with these machines, you don't need full-size on the wires. MANY of these NEMA 6-50R welder receptacles for those old stick machines were run with #10 wire, just like you'll find in your dryer receptacle. FOR TEMPORARY USE, you could even swap the breaker to a 50A and use your machine at full output through the existing wiring. The machine's duty cycle is less than 20% when wide open, which is already rarely needed.

I don't understand Question 2. What are you calling a plug? A plug is the MALE part of the cord.

How are you planning to adapt from the welder's typical NEMA 6-50P plug to the dryer's 30A receptacle? Is it an older 3-wire or newer 4-wire (NEMA 14-30R?)

[pyro9862]

Forgot the pictures

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/3199/img07596dk.jpg
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2122/img07603pq.jpg
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/6299/img07613if.jpg
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/7871/img07623yi.jpg

[pyro9862]

Because of the small duty cycles inherent with these machines, you don't need full-size on the wires. MANY of these NEMA 6-50R welder receptacles for those old stick machines were run with #10 wire, just like you'll find in your dryer receptacle. FOR TEMPORARY USE, you could even swap the breaker to a 50A and use your machine at full output through the existing wiring. The machine's duty cycle is less than 20% when wide open, which is already rarely needed.

I don't understand Question 2. What are you calling a plug? A plug is the MALE part of the cord.

How are you planning to adapt from the welder's typical NEMA 6-50P plug to the dryer's 30A receptacle? Is it an older 3-wire or newer 4-wire (NEMA 14-30R?)
My extension cord looks like it is 6 gauge if not better so I don't believe I have a problem there.

I'm not sure about the NEMA 6 or other plug information you're putting up there. My welder does not have any male plug on it, just bare wires (see picture). That's my main concern here, trying to get a plug on my welder. Can I stick the plug I posted in the picture on there somehow?

[pyro9862]

I just went down and checked my breakers. The switch says 80 on it. I also have a 100amp breaker he included with the welder I could throw in there.

[pyro9862]

Ok. I've done a little pokeing around and this is what I have so far.

My welder currently has no male end (plug) on the power cord. What I want to do is simply use wire connectors on it and connect it to the extension cord. The cord is 4 or 6 gauge and 55ft long which should be ok to use on this welder even at full power. The end of my extension cord is currently bare wire which is where my questions start to come in.

My dryer has an 80amp breaker for some reason but is most likely only wired for 30 amps. I should probably put a 30amp breaker in there to avoid overloading the circuit on an everyday basis running the dryer correct? For most welding on thinner 1/4in or so matierials this will probably be sufficiant. If I'm going to weld thicker matierials I can put a 50amp breaker in place of the 30amp and just be very mindfull not to weld for too long and let the wires heat up.

As far as plugs themself go my welder (3 wires) most likely had a NEMA 6-50P end on it. My dryer connection is a NEMA 6-30R. Obiously I have a problem here. Is it possible to put a NEMA 6-30P on my welder?

I currently have a NEMA 6-30P you can see in the picture. But it needs to be attached to solid wires, not the braided wires in my extension cord or welders wire. My only idea for attaching this to the braided wire is to take a section of the dryer power cord (have it from an old dryer) that has the solid wire. Put the solid wire into the plug. Then take the solid wire and use screw on wire caps to connect the solid wire of the dryer cord to the braided wire on my extension cord. Esentially creating a cord that goes like this:
NEMA 6-30P end - old dryer cord - extension cord - welder

[MAC702]

Okay, this is making much more sense now. Are you sure your dryer circuit is on an 80A breaker? You aren't adding together two 40s are you? Just checking... Yeah, typical dryer circuit is 30A, and you NEED to change it to that if it is on #10 wire, which is typical. Only with the temporary use of a low-duty-cycle machines, like the welder, could you use higher amps in that wire.

Yes, you could certainly put the 30A plug on your machine. Again, even if you had a 50A breaker in there and ran at full output (rare) the duty cycle wouldn't go above the ability of the plug to handle the current. Plugs and receptacles are already usually under-rated. Not exactly a Code-compliant situation so you'd want to make sure anyone with access understood what was being used and how. Point is, it would be safe.

And since you'll never need those 80 or 100A breakers, I'll take them off your hands for you and give them a good home. What panel do you have? Or what is the brand and type of the typical breaker inside? I might have a 30A or 50A I could trade you.

[scsmith42]

The NEMA 6-30P should work just fine on your welder.

Generally any connector designed for solid wire will work fine with stranded wire. If you're concerned, take a soldering iron and "tiin" the end of the stranded wire and then insert it into the connection. I would avoid adding additional screw on wire caps - each one is a potential point of failure.

[awright]

"My dryer has an 80amp breaker for some reason..." pyro9862, any chance the previous owner of your house was a welder? An 80 amp breaker seems awfully high for a 30 amp dryer circuit with #10 wire. Are you sure you are not looking at the breaker at the input of the subpanel? Or are all your circuits coming off the main panel at the service entrance?

As I read my OLD, 1978 NEC, article 630-12, says that overcurrent protection for the welder AND for the conductors should not exceed 200% of the rated input of the welder or 200% of the ampacity of the conductors.Since #10 THHN wire has an ampacity of 40 amps, the 80 amp breaker would apparently be legal, but probably only if the circuit was dedicated to the welder.

I worry that you could say, "The cord is 4 or 6 gauge..." That makes it sound like you are guessing from appearance, not actually identifying the gauge. All type SO (and similar) rubber-covered flexible cord MUST be "durably marked" with its guage and type at intervals not exceeding 24 inches. This is either in print on the surface of the cord or by non-inked impression into the rubber cable sheath. It is sometimes very difficult to see and read the non-inked, impressed lettering. Look closely at the surface of the cable to determine its actual gauge. 4 or 6 AWG is really very large for a flexible cable.

I am NOT an electrician and do not claim to be an expert on welder wiring (although I have struggled with these issues in the past with the aid of an electrician friend). But here's my take. My 1978 (sic) NEC says that, for a welder with a 20% duty cycle, you can multiply the rated input current by the factor 0.45 to determine permissible ampacity of its supply wiring. This gives an effective input current of (47.5 x 0.45) = 21.4 amps.

#12, type SO rubber covered cord has an ampacity of 25 amps if not more than 2 concuctors are carrying current. So, as I interpret this old NEC, you could supply the welder with #12 type SO flexible cord (but I wouldn't do that). So I think that #10 flexible cord would be in compliance, assuming the numbers haven't changed in newer NECs.

There's no problem using the type of plug in your photos with stranded wire. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the plug was not supposed to be used on solid wire due to the possibility of fatigue failure of a solid conductor used in a continually flexing application. I think that soldering stranded conductors for clamping in this type of screw terminal is discouraged by the manufacturers for the same reason. Note that the Thunderbolt XL 300/200 Owner's Manual (OM-316), page 15, shows a minimum conductor size of 12 AWG and a maximum length of 87 feet, so you should be OK with 55 feet of #10 or larger.

If I was in your situation, I would consider running a dedicated 50 or 60 amp circuit to your welder location, preferably using #8 current-carrying conductors and #12 grounding conductor, inside EMT (electrical metallic tubing), or, at least, flexible metallic conduit. EMT offers the best shielding of electrical noise from your welder.

Have fun. Looks like a nice machine.

awright

[pyro9862]

The breaker is an 80amp and the line is 10 I'm pretty sure no previous owner had a welder hooked up to this line either, not sure why their would be an 80 in there. I put a 30 in this morning so that's fixed now.

Thei circuit is dedicated to the dryer which means it would be dedicated to the welder.

The cord is four gauge I just went and checked. It is inked, I just didn't want to go out and check it last night.

The plug is where my problem comes in. The plug was on solid wire, I took it off a dryer before throwing it out. The stranded wire I have physically will not fit into the plugs connectors, it is too thick. Is their another type of plug I can get which will accept larger wires or can I expect them all to be like this? What are my options here, solder solid wire on the end or use electric caps, than't about it isn't it? I'm not buying a lighter gauge extension cord because I think the guy paid almost $200 for the one I have now.

I would run a dedicated line if my box wasn't full. I'm not about to install a larger breaker box for the welder though.

[Sandy]

The way I would do it if I waned to retain the large awg cord investment would be to make it a cord for the (a) welder with adapters for what ever plug-in location you decide to use it at. Spendy but the cord would work anywhere set up for a welder and the adapters wouold handle all other locations.

Put a 6-50p on the welder, put a 6-50p & 6-50r on each end of the cord. Make a short three foot adapter with an additional 6-50r and a X-XXp for the dryer plug. Lots of hardware, lots of money but my cord is my welder cord forever and will not need screwed with no matter where I go.

If that is just way too cost prohibitive, get a nice weather resistant box with retaining collars for your 4awg extension cord and 3 ft section of 10awg SO cord. Do your splice in there. Twisted and soldered as a #4 #10 are a poor mating (IMO) and use wire nuts as insulating caps. This would require a 6-50p for the welder, a 6-50r for one end of the cord, a X-XXp for the other end of your cord to mate with the dryer receptacle.

I can't recall what plug you had in the picture was. If it will work on the end of the #10 and fit in the dryer receptacle fine. If not then throw that corroded thing away. Don't design around it.

Maybe MAC will chime in here later with something less costly than my proposals. ;)

Edit to say the 6-50 series should handle 4awg wire. Sometimes it's a real hassle, but can be done.

[ctardi]

You can't splice wires together for an extension cord. Not sure about a bigger plug though.

[Sandy]

You can't splice wires together for an extension cord. Not sure about a bigger plug though.

No way to argue with that. :) ;)

[MAC702]

WELL, a perfectly safe and completely NON-compliant way to do it, since you are already way overkill on the size of the conductors, would be to cut half the strands off to fit the other half under the screws. Now, another electrician might berate me for suggesting that, but oh well.

[pyro9862]

WELL, a perfectly safe and completely NON-compliant way to do it, since you are already way overkill on the size of the conductors, would be to cut half the strands off to fit the other half under the screws. Now, another electrician might berate me for suggesting that, but oh well.
I went to home depot and got a new NEMA 6-30P which with some difficulty I got attached to the end of the cord. I then connected the welders cord to the extension cord with wire caps (not the best idea I know) and it worked fine. I didn't go nuts because I don't like the idea of the caps very much. The cord isn't 55ft like I thought it was it's closer to 40 and a bit too short for me although it is workable.

Two things now though.
1. I'd like the cord to be ten or fifteen feet longer. If I could go 70ft or so it would be great.
2. I have to loose those twist connectors.

I'd like to do one of two things.
1. Replace the welders cord with a longer one and leave it at that. I'm thinking what if I just forget about the 4 gauge wire I have. Then go to home depot, buy a 100ft 10 gauge 110v extension cord, cut it down to 70 or 80ft, wire it directly into the welder and stick the dryer end on the cord. Would that work or would I need to go to 8 gauge wire for that?

2. Wire that 4 gauge wire right into the welder then have a shorter cord plug into it then go to the dryer.

Either way would probably cost about the same thing. With the first I have to buy extra wire but with the 2nd I have to buy extra plugs. Would I be better off going with the first option and just putting that 4 gauge away for when my garage finally does get it's own breaker and I can run a larger welder?

[awright]

WOW! #4 AWG extension cord! That's pure gold. But now you are going to plug it into a 30 amp circuit using #10 wire? Kind of like connecting a fire hose to your kitchen faucet.

Have you looked in your breaker box to see the types of breakers presently installed? Often original installations have a 1" wide breaker for each circuit, with a number of branch circuits for lighting and receptacles. You can gain additional circuit space perfectly legally and safely by substituting dual breakers that incorporate two breakers in the 1" width. If you do have at least four 1", 15 or 20-amp breakers and can substitute two duals, you will gain space to install your ganged, dual, 80 amp breaker for a 230 volt circuit dedicated to your welder.

If you have only two 1" breakers left in your box, you can get a 4-breaker combination 2" wide that has ganged high current breakers on the outside for your 230 volt welder circuit and two independent 15 or 20 amp breakers on the inside for the original circuits in the slots you are occupying. I know you can get these in 50 amps because I did just that to gain circuit space for a range. I think I have even seen these combinations with high current ganged breakers on the outside and a 15 and a 20 amp breaker on the inside. So you can deal with just about any situation if you still have some 1" breakers in your box.

Then you can weld in complete comfort that you don't have to worry about overloading your dryer circuit or switching breakers back and forth (which would be a hassle, wear things out, and be neglected after the first few times, if you are like most of us).

Lucky guy!

awright

[MAC702]

I usually see these tandem breakers with the large current 2-pole circuit in the middle and unganged (or sometimes ganged) lower current circuits on the outside. But yeah, they are major time and money savers when it comes to electrical remodelling. I use them on almost every job. I now have a large collection of full-size breakers from replacing them with the tandems.

[awright]

I was writing my previous comment while pyro9862 was posting his comment, so was unaware of those comments.

Wire nuts are perfectly OK if properly applied. That is, they are used only on the specific wire combinations that they are approved for (look on the package for all permissible combinations), they are inside an enclosure, and they are not carrying strain, as they would floating in the middle of an extension cord. If they are in the middle of your extension cord, at the very least tie-wrap or bind the bodies of the cables to each other to take strain off the wire nuts. You should also enclose the wire nuts inside an enclosure like a plastic electrical box (not legal if floating, but a lot safer than unenclosed). In this case, the box provides the strain relief.

If it was my situation, I would install the tandem breakers, run a dedicated circuit to your welder location using #4 or #6 wire inside EMT, provide a NEMA 6-50R receptacle, and install a NEMA 6-50P plug on your welder cord. Then you are ready for whatever welder your good fortune throws at you and you are very safe.

Full disclosure: My friends accuse me of overdoing everything.

awright

[pyro9862]

I still need to go from the house to a detached garage (50ft run). The garage has power but there is an apartment above it and they get pissy when I plug things in even when I offered to split their electric bill (not that I use more than $5 worth of power a month anyway). When this one moves out I'm going to throw a couple 220 breakers in there for a compressor and welder and make sure it's in the lease that I'm going to use the power and compensate them for it.

As far as the breaker box goes I think I just struck gold. I have six 15 amp breakers right next to each other. Right there I have room to install a 220.
What I also realized was their are four 220v breakers in my box and only 2 220v outlets in my house (AC and Dryer, we have a gas stove). The only thing I can think of is that they're for the central air which the units are still there but the ducting has been removed and they havn't been run in 20+ years. I'm kind of concerend about them being in the ON position if that's indeed what they're for so I'm going to go do some wire tracing tonight.

[pyro9862]

Ok, I'm over my head with what they tried to do with the wireing down there. The wireing job really needs to be looked at by an electrition who knows exactly what they're looking at so he can figure out what this guy was trying to accomplish and bring it up to code or at least somthing close to code. You don't have to be a genious to realize some of the stuff down there isn't legal and some of it is downright dangerous (IE 80amp breakers on #10 wire).

I think for now my best bet is to swap in two of those duel switch breakers in for four 1in ones, put my breaker in that hole and wire from there. At some other point I'll send someone else down there to figure out exactly what's going on.

[awright]

Ahah! More information on your situation trickles out.

As a "landlord," also (I prefer the term, "Owner"), I question the wisdom of getting into a shared power arrangement, no matter how you phrase the lease/rental agreement. You'd probably end up paying for way more than your share of power, just to avoid hassles (which will come, anyway).

In fact, I am involved in a shared water arrangement with a tenant whose business uses a lot of water. The situation was unavoidable because it is very costly ($ many thousands) for them to make a new water hookup in my city. We have not had any arguments, but it is a monthly PITA to read the meters, calculate their share, get a check from them for their share, etc. My advice is to keep it clean and separate and sidestep any issues about who used how much power when.

Several years ago I helped my niece and her husband run power underground to a new 125 amp load center in their detached garage that previously had one hanging ceiling lamp. It was not that costly or difficult (although I didn't have to do any of the digging - they had friends over for beer, barbecue, and digging parties). They thought I overdesigned it, too, especially when they moved to a new house in a safer neighborhood, having only installed a few light fixtures instead of the studio/workshop that was originally planned.

You dig a trench (at least 18" deep, I think), from the house crawl space to the garage. Install PVC conduit of generous size for the largest conceivable wires you will ever want to run. Install a 125-amp load center in the garage. Pull wires from a breaker at the main panel to the load center in the garage. Drive a ground rod near the garage load center (you should have that for your welder, anyway). Now you've got power to fulfill all your fantasies of a machine shop, wood shop, welding shop, pottery kiln, metal casting studio, full lighting, or whatever you might want to do in your garage with absolutely no concern about voltage drop, no arguments about how much power is used, etc. Sure, there are many details you MUST take care of to be safe and legal, but reading AND a little expert advice should handle that. I think the total cash outlay for their garage power run was less than $200 for all materials. Their garage was, however, only about 25 feet from the house.

You can possibly get by a little cheaper by using direct burial cable covered by a guard board of pressure-treated wood in lieu of the PVC conduit, but I don't think the saving is all that significant. I didn't check that out because I am partial to having conduit in place for whatever wiring needs arise in the future.

Think about it. (It sure is fun planning ways to spend other people's money.)

awright

[pyro9862]

I did a little wire following this evening. The old dryer plug I was refering to does run into the box but the cord is snipped off inside the box I guess that explains why their is no power. Anyway I pulled that wire out and removed the empty box (I guess I just saved $2 on a box out of the deal).

As for the two mystery 220v recepitcals one is a 20amp and for the refrigerator, don't know why I didn't think of that before.

The other is a 30 amp and was for the old central air (disconnected 20+ years ago). I assumed the power to them was removed but I guess I was wrong. I shut the breaker off for now as I don't believe it is safe to have power to a unit that old which hasn't been run for that period of time. Who knows when it's going to short out and catch fire or kick on and create an asbestos dust storm in the house. When I get around to wireing my plug I'm going to just coil up that wire and tuck it away so if I ever do want to install central air again I don't have to snake any wire. Anyway, I have my spot for a 220.

The plan so far:
Install an 80amp breaker
Run 8-3 wire to the corner near the garage and install a 50amp receptical
Either
a. Wire 8-3 directly into the welder with a 60ft cord and put a 50amp end on it
b. Wire 8-3 directly into the welder with a 20ft cord and a 50amp plug on the end and create an extention cord from my 4 gauge wire with 50amp ends

Which option seems to be better and is their any flaw in my gaugeing, plug ends, etc


And for running my own power to the garage I can't go underground because that 50ft streach is all driveway. If the driveway is ever repaved then I'll give it some serious though and definatly install a wire if nothing else just so it's there.

[RubenZ]

I just bought a 50' 8/3 Extension cord on Ebay for 100 bucks.


From the house to the garage I have 50ft of 6/3 underground in PVC and completely sealed to a NEMA 6-50R . Its all on a 50amp breaker. I've had my AC welder up to 200+ to cut some pipe and no problems. I may be putting an actual breaker in the garage.

Just wanted to give you an idea on what I did and it works.

[pyro9862]

I'm guessing you bought this one? That doesn't seem like a bad deal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HEAVY-DUTY-50-AMP-8-3-MIG-TIG-WELDER-EXTENSION-CORD-50_W0QQitemZ7613979389QQcategoryZ67042QQssPageName ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[RubenZ]

Ya, I bought it from them. Considering the price of cable, plugs, etc that was an ok deal for me. They are a good place to buy from. I bought it early morning and it was shipped same day like a few hours after.