Arc welder and house lights/appliances

Suspect the main circuit breaker and associated wiring.

Try to find out how many other houses are powered from the same pole transformer as your house. Borrow a welder or other heavy power user and confirm the flicker at your house. Try it at other connected houses. A flicker at your house with a load at a different house indicates a voltage drop problem at the pole transformer.

--Winston

A transformer type home shop welder should not draw much current when not in use, (open circuit) They are usually an adjustable loose coupled style. Closing the coupling allows for more maximum current to flow. As they are also a drop down about 7/8:1 voltage type, The primary current is about 1/8 the secondary or welding current. Welding at 80 amps should only draw about

10 to 12 amps in a 240 v. single phase primary.

If you are experiencing major flickering or dimming of your household lighting, You should consult your power company. They should be able to positively identify the problem. If it is in your home wiring, they will advise you to consult an electrician. I would suspect a loose or deteriorated neutral service connection. Specifically if your lightbulbs seem to be short lived.

I do not understand why repairmen would apply the use of their own transformer ?

You have three phase power in your home ?

Electrically producing your own Oxygen from water will also produce twice the amount of Hydrogen gas. You would also need to compress the gasses somewhat for use in a torch. Some serious hazards to consider.

Yes. This was semirural when the condominium was built some 25 years ago.

No I'm not planning electrolysis but a water resistor as current limiting device for arc welding

Is the intent to draw less wall power?

The easy answer is to weld at less amperage. Reducing the imput current won't help any; all you will get is an underpowered welder.

Are all or a lot of your lights flickering? Any lights that are on dimmers are very susceptable to minor voltage variations which translate into obvious flickering by the lamp. This is due to the dimmer circuit and not serious voltage fluctuations in your house. If non-dimmer circuit lights are flickering then you may have a problem.

I have a 240V/225A Miller buzz-box and typically weld at 140A or less. It is connected back to the main breaker panel. My wife says we don't have any flickering problems in the house when I weld.

Billh

Not exactly. The intent is to keep the arc from drawing more current than the house wiring can take. Thus the max available amps are limited by the breaker rating, in my case 50 amps. Obviously this is an atrociously innefficient way to get an arc for welding but its the only one that can be had for $0, which is the amount I can spend for now.

And a bad weld.

If I understand correctly, you are going to use the 208V volts as welding potential through a water resistor to limit the current so you don't pop the breaker. If so, what you are likely to do is kill yourself since the stinger will have the full voltage applied to it when not welding. I believe the open-circuit voltage of buzz-boxes is not supposed to be higher than around

80V and for good reason. Suggest you wait until you can afford a safer setup - good coffin probably costs more than a used buzz-box. billh

Not a very safe way to weld as open circuit voltage between electrode and work would be at line voltage. Not to mention electrode/resistor to ground also at line voltage. Save up and buy a used 'Buzz box' for about $50 usd. or so. Much safer and adjustable.

Chipper Wood useoursatyahoodotcom

----- Original Message ----- From: "Camilo Ramos" Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking,sci.engr.joining.welding Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 2:05 PM Subject: Re: Arc welder and house lights/appliances

Or buy a cheapy Chinese MIG. They typically use less amperage.

Gunner

"The entire population of Great Britain has been declared insane by their government. It is believed that should any one of them come in possession of a firearm, he will immediately start to foam at the mouth and begin kiling children at the nearest school. The proof of their insanity is that they actually believe this." -- someone in misc.survivalism

"Chipper Wood" wrote: (clip) Electrically producing your own Oxygen from water will also produce twice the amount of Hydrogen gas. You would also need to compress the gasses somewhat for use in a torch. Some serious hazards to consider. (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^ I have a book on welding which describes a setup for oxy-hydrogen welding based on this exact technique. The water is broken down to a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen by electric current. This flows to a torch, where it burns, and the only combustion product is water vapor. The flame is supposed to be very clean, and what is neat--you only need water and an electrical outlet, so the cost of operation would be almost zero.

I have never seen one, but I would like to have one, I think. I am guessing that you would control the flame by turning the current up or down.

Better use a GFI plug to be safe, lol.

Goes without saying.

This is an awful conplicated (and maybe dangerous) way to avoid turning down the knob.

Well from my reading of old posts it was a method used on ocasion on the first half of the XX century, the Golden Age of Unsafe Practices :). It appears also in an issue of Scientific American of 1966, with several 1000 watt nichrome elements as resistors. Its author also points out the high open voltage but he connected his design to 110 V.

Sorta gives a new meaning to the term "tombstone welder"

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 19:07:46 -0500, "Camilo Ramos" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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In all of this, safety or not, aren't you only going to get 20 Amps to weld with?

50 amps, which is the rating of my larger breakers. If I understand the working principle of the contraption the amount of current is limited by both the resistance of the resistor itself AND the wiring capacity (i. e: wires and breakers) fo the house.

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 19:04:51 -0500, "mongke" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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ACtually it's interesting. This would probably work better on 110V system than a 240Volt system, because the _voltage_ is there, and the fuses all have to be twice as big for a given job.

In my house, the breakers are 15 Amp. 50Amp breakers woul be most unusual in a domestic situation.

Whatever, even at 50A, it's a long way from a cheap 140Amp buzz-box. They're only around $100 here, and less if no elads etc (which will be a cost even with the salt resistor.

One by nature, the other perforce!