Primeweld AC/DC Tig 225X

[ceejaye]

hi all,
bought a primeweld tig225 but having trouble connect the device to power supply. i live in europe and we have 230v, 16A here in standard outlets but according to primeweld 16A is not enough. in the user manual there is only mention of "rated input current" of 33.3 Ampere @230V but no mention of a current range for the input for the machine to work. the primeweld employee i emailed refused to answer the question multiple times so i am turning you to you wonderful beings.
so my question is: what is the lowest current of power supply @230V that worked for you?

[mechanic416]

230 volts 33.5 amps minimum if you want to use all 225 amps of output. On a 16 amp service you will only be able to use about 1/2 the output or about 120 amps.

[G-ManBart]

hi all,
bought a primeweld tig225 but having trouble connect the device to power supply. i live in europe and we have 230v, 16A here in standard outlets but according to primeweld 16A is not enough. in the user manual there is only mention of "rated input current" of 33.3 Ampere @230V but no mention of a current range for the input for the machine to work. the primeweld employee i emailed refused to answer the question multiple times so i am turning you to you wonderful beings.
so my question is: what is the lowest current of power supply @230V that worked for you?

I wouldn't expect a company to answer that sort of question, for a number of reasons. They base their specifications on a certain input power and all of their charts and performance specs are based upon that. They may not have even tested a machine at half rated amperage to see what happens...no real reason to I can think of. Here in the U.S. the lowest amperage 230V circuit you will normally see is 30A. In many cases you can get rated output power with a circuit breaker quite a bit smaller than the specs call for, but how much will vary on a number of factors....actual voltage, quality of the circuit breaker, size of the wires, etc.

There's a good chance you'll get somewhat more than 50% output amperage on 16A input, but until you hook it up and try it, there's no way to know.

[ceejaye]

I wouldn't expect a company to answer that sort of question, for a number of reasons. They base their specifications on a certain input power and all of their charts and performance specs are based upon that. They may not have even tested a machine at half rated amperage to see what happens...no real reason to I can think of. Here in the U.S. the lowest amperage 230V circuit you will normally see is 30A.

thank you for your answer. the fact that the lowest amperage of a 230V circuit in america is 30A gives me some idea of assumptions made.
would love to know if anybody has tested the welder at 25A, an local electrician told me that creating anything above 25A would cost an arm and a leg.

In many cases you can get rated output power with a circuit breaker quite a bit smaller than the specs call for, but how much will vary on a number of factors....actual voltage, quality of the circuit breaker, size of the wires, etc.

how would that work? i am not following you.

I wouldn't expect a company to answer that sort of question, for a number of reasons. They base their specifications on a certain input power and all of their charts and performance specs are based upon that. They may not have even tested a machine at half rated amperage to see what happens...no real reason to I can think of.

i personally do not know a company besides primeweld that does not specify the assumptions for power supply in their own specs AND plainly refuses to answer the question what current range is needed for a device to work. as of the reason why to test and show those specs: because the world is bigger then the USA and everywhere are different standards in power supply so some need to make adaptations to their power to make the welder work if it does not work with their standard power supply : all other brands work with 230v/16A without a problem.

[duramax-rob]

the 230v 33amp rating is to protect you, your house wiring and the machine. all three need protecting. the house wiring has to match the the circuit breaker size, no smaller but wire can be bigger than rated breaker or fuse. just not smaller. if smaller and breaker doesn't trip, could start fire from overload and burn house. that why welders arte rated at a MINIMUM amperage.

hope this was stated right. if not please correct

[ceejaye]

the 230v 33amp rating is to protect you, your house wiring and the machine. all three need protecting. the house wiring has to match the the circuit breaker size, no smaller but wire can be bigger than rated breaker or fuse. just not smaller. if smaller and breaker doesn't trip, could start fire from overload and burn house. that why welders arte rated at a MINIMUM amperage.

hope this was stated right. if not please correct

i totally get that the wiring from the breaker to the welder should be able to take more current then the breaker rating.
not following how you arrive at the conclusion that welders are rated at a MINIMUM amperage. would you be willing to explain?

the only thing i can imagine is that if the welder asks more power then the rating of the circuitbreaker it wil switches off during welding. but this would be more like an inconvinience then a safety issue if the circuit braker is the designed bottleneck and not the wiring. please correct me if the reasoning is incorrect.

[frieed]

I think Rob was referring to minimum power circuit amperage to handle the maximum current draw of the machine.

[TheWeldingMan]

I am completely new here but this thread and alot of other research has led me to purchase this machine. Welding is my career and have been at it for 16 years.
I'm pretty excited to purchase it. I did own a lincoln square wave 175 about 12 years ago.
The main thing that I've been searching for at this point is who is making them in china. What Factory. Is it a big name or new comer. There's a few machines that all look alike but this one has been getting a cult following like none other

[G-ManBart]

how would that work? i am not following you.

I'm not an electrician, much less an electrical theory expert, but I think the basic theory isn't too complicated. When you're talking about circuit breakers, amp draws, etc there are a lot of factors involved. The machine is only 230V in theory....in reality it's capable of working properly within a range of voltage. Then there's the supply....it might be called 230V, but often it's different (often higher). Then there's your breaker....it might be labelled 30A, but it takes more than that to trip them, and no two are identical and then there's a time factor as well.

Manufacturers are going to be conservative when they say how much power you need to supply just in case someone is trying to just barely get by, or a machine happens to wind up with a component that's a bit less than ideal. That means the listed required input power is probably a worst case scenario. Then you've got a supply which is probably a bit higher than listed....so you're really getting 240V rather than 230V and that lowers the amp load. Then you've got a breaker which takes more amperage to trip than listed, and it doesn't happen instantaneously. All of that adds up to a situation where the welder might have 50A listed as the required input for rated output, but the machine will have no problem putting out rated output on a circuit with a smaller breaker.

As an example, my Miller Syncrowave 250DX is listed as needing 96A at 230V to put out 250A. I normally run it on a 60A breaker, but have run it at 250A output on a 40A breaker with no problems. I'd love to know what the actual amp draw is, but I can't imagine you can pull 96A through a 40A breaker for more than a few seconds without tripping the breaker.

i personally do not know a company besides primeweld that does not specify the assumptions for power supply in their own specs AND plainly refuses to answer the question what current range is needed for a device to work. as of the reason why to test and show those specs: because the world is bigger then the USA and everywhere are different standards in power supply so some need to make adaptations to their power to make the welder work if it does not work with their standard power supply : all other brands work with 230v/16A without a problem.

I certainly can't speak for any welder manufacturers, but all the machines I've owned list a required input power to achieve rated output power and seem to leave it at that.

[G-ManBart]

the 230v 33amp rating is to protect you, your house wiring and the machine. all three need protecting. the house wiring has to match the the circuit breaker size, no smaller but wire can be bigger than rated breaker or fuse. just not smaller. if smaller and breaker doesn't trip, could start fire from overload and burn house. that why welders arte rated at a MINIMUM amperage.

hope this was stated right. if not please correct

When it comes to welders, and the National Electric Code, this isn't actually correct. The NEC has a dedicated section to non-continuous loads, with a section on welders and how you calculate the wires and breakers for them.

The short version is that you can have a larger breaker for a given wire size than you would in a standard circuit. Since welders aren't continuous loads the wires have the opportunity to cool off, so the load can be higher. The code has a chart with multipliers....you factor the amp draw, duty cycle, etc and it will tell you how big a breaker you can run on a given wire size. In many cases you can go as much as double the breaker size compared with a standard circuit.

I believe it's code that the welder outlet is clearly marked so someone doesn't plug in something like a compressor and run it for 8 hours straight bead blasting a car frame or something similar.

[superwelder]

doesnt Europe, and other 220/230V countries use a single hot and single neutral in the outlets? and 50hz? idk if the frequency would matter but how would you wire a US 220V machine (2 hot 1 neutral) to your outlet?

[ceejaye]

doesnt Europe, and other 220/230V countries use a single hot and single neutral in the outlets? and 50hz? idk if the frequency would matter but how would you wire a US 220V machine (2 hot 1 neutral) to your outlet?

the general used outlet in netherlands is 2 poles and 1 ground, but it has a current rating of 16A max. so a different outlet is needed. there is no wholesale company i can find that sells the NEMA 6-50 as outlet. if you know one, i would love to know! the alternative i have my eye on is a CEE plug with a 32A rating if i go for 32A breaker, and not sure what to use if i go for 40A breaker.

[FlyFishn]

doesnt Europe, and other 220/230V countries use a single hot and single neutral in the outlets? and 50hz? idk if the frequency would matter but how would you wire a US 220V machine (2 hot 1 neutral) to your outlet?

You don't use neutral for 230/240. You use both hots and ground.

Another note is that ground and neutral are bonded at the service entrance panels (not sub panels) - at least in residential. I would imagine most commercial buildings that have single phase are the same way. This means that if you take any hot to ground you will get 115-120v. However, it is not to code to run current this way - if you need 115-120v for a load you need neutral. Ground should be ground.

My point - for 230-240v you need 3 wires - both hots and ground. Not 4 - the 4th being neutral.

On the subject of breakers and current draw - I have my welder (not a Primeweld, but doesn't matter - just a numerical example on current) on a 30a circuit. I have pulled over 40a from the breaker. The higher the current above the rated load the shorter the duration the breaker holds. It does not trip instantaneously unless the current draw is pretty high or a dead short occurs.