Maxstar 150 power cord question

This depends on the gauge of the "power cord". Without that, your question is not meaningful.

Voltage Drop = Ohms Per Foot * feet * amps

Ohms per foot is specified int his table:

AWG Wire Table for BARE COPPER Wire Compiled by a program written by Fr. Tom McGahee

Compiled by Fr. Tom McGahee tom snipped-for-privacy@sigmais.com Permission granted to copy freely so long as credit line above is included

AWG = American Wire Gauge size Dia-mils = Diameter in mils (1 mil = .001 inch) TPI = Turns Per Inch (Ignoring thickness of unknown insulation) Dia-mm = Diameter in millimeters (For comparison with non-USA coilers) Circ-mils = Circular Mils. (circular mils = diameter in mils squared) Ohms/Kft = Ohms Per 1,000 Feet Ft/Ohm = Feet Per Ohm Ft/Lb = Feet Per Pound Ohms/Lb = Ohms Per Pound Lb/Kft = Pounds Per 1,000 Feet NormAmps = Normal Average Amp Capacity based on 500 circular mils per Amp MaxAmps = Maximum recommended Average Amp Capacity in Open Air based on 438.489 circular mils per Amp

Actual Amp capacity of a wire depends on form factor and method of cooling! MaxAmps assumes free flow of air around wire. Do NOT exceed this maximum without cooling! Wire wrapped in a coil or without any form of cooling may over-heat at MaxAmps! Many factors govern the ACTUAL Max Amps you can pass through a wire continuously. Be careful!

AWG Dia-mils TPI Dia-mm Circ-mils Ohms/Kft Ft/Ohm Ft/Lb Ohms/Lb Lb/Kft NormAmps MaxAmps

0000 459.99 2.1740 11.684 211592 0.0490 20402 1.5613 0.0001 640.48 423.18 482.55 000 409.63 2.4412 10.405 167800 0.0618 16180 1.9688 0.0001 507.93 335.60 382.68 00 364.79 2.7413 9.2657 133072 0.0779 12831 2.4826 0.0002 402.80 266.14 303.48

AWG Dia-mils TPI Dia-mm Circ-mils Ohms/Kft Ft/Ohm Ft/Lb Ohms/Lb Lb/Kft NormAmps MaxAmps

0 324.85 3.0783 8.2513 105531 0.0983 10175 3.1305 0.0003 319.44 211.06 240.67 1 289.29 3.4567 7.3480 83690 0.1239 8069.5 3.9475 0.0005 253.33 167.38 190.86 2 257.62 3.8817 6.5436 66369 0.1563 6399.4 4.9777 0.0008 200.90 132.74 151.36 3 229.42 4.3588 5.8272 52633 0.1970 5075.0 6.2767 0.0012 159.32 105.27 120.03 4 204.30 4.8947 5.1893 41740 0.2485 4024.7 7.9148 0.0020 126.35 83.480 95.190 5 181.94 5.4964 4.6212 33101 0.3133 3191.7 9.9804 0.0031 100.20 66.203 75.489 6 162.02 6.1721 4.1153 26251 0.3951 2531.1 12.585 0.0050 79.460 52.501 59.866 7 144.28 6.9308 3.6648 20818 0.4982 2007.3 15.869 0.0079 63.014 41.635 47.476 8 128.49 7.7828 3.2636 16509 0.6282 1591.8 20.011 0.0126 49.973 33.018 37.650 9 114.42 8.7396 2.9063 13092 0.7921 1262.4 25.233 0.0200 39.630 26.185 29.858

AWG Dia-mils TPI Dia-mm Circ-mils Ohms/Kft Ft/Ohm Ft/Lb Ohms/Lb Lb/Kft NormAmps MaxAmps

10 101.90 9.8140 2.5881 10383 0.9989 1001.1 31.819 0.0318 31.428 20.765 23.678 11 90.741 11.020 2.3048 8233.9 1.2596 793.93 40.122 0.0505 24.924 16.468 18.778 12 80.807 12.375 2.0525 6529.8 1.5883 629.61 50.593 0.0804 19.765 13.060 14.892 13 71.961 13.896 1.8278 5178.3 2.0028 499.31 63.797 0.1278 15.675 10.357 11.810 14 64.083 15.605 1.6277 4106.6 2.5255 395.97 80.447 0.2031 12.431 8.2132 9.3654 15 57.067 17.523 1.4495 3256.7 3.1845 314.02 101.44 0.3230 9.8579 6.5134 7.4271 16 50.820 19.677 1.2908 2582.7 4.0156 249.03 127.91 0.5136 7.8177 5.1654 5.8900 17 45.257 22.096 1.1495 2048.2 5.0636 197.49 161.30 0.8167 6.1997 4.0963 4.6709 18 40.302 24.813 1.0237 1624.3 6.3851 156.62 203.39 1.2986 4.9166 3.2485 3.7042 19 35.890 27.863 0.9116 1288.1 8.0514 124.20 256.47 2.0648 3.8991 2.5762 2.9376

AWG Dia-mils TPI Dia-mm Circ-mils Ohms/Kft Ft/Ohm Ft/Lb Ohms/Lb Lb/Kft NormAmps MaxAmps

20 31.961 31.288 0.8118 1021.5 10.153 98.496 323.41 3.2832 3.0921 2.0430 2.3296 21 28.462 35.134 0.7229 810.10 12.802 78.111 407.81 5.2205 2.4521 1.6202 1.8475 22 25.346 39.453 0.6438 642.44 16.143 61.945 514.23 8.3009 1.9446 1.2849 1.4651 23 22.572 44.304 0.5733 509.48 20.356 49.125 648.44 13.199 1.5422 1.0190 1.1619 24 20.101 49.750 0.5106 404.03 25.669 38.958 817.66 20.987 1.2230 0.8081 0.9214 25 17.900 55.866 0.4547 320.41 32.368 30.895 1031.1 33.371 0.9699 0.6408 0.7307 26 15.940 62.733 0.4049 254.10 40.815 24.501 1300.1 53.061 0.7692 0.5082 0.5795 27 14.195 70.445 0.3606 201.51 51.467 19.430 1639.4 84.371 0.6100 0.4030 0.4596 28 12.641 79.105 0.3211 159.80 64.898 15.409 2067.3 134.15 0.4837 0.3196 0.3644 29 11.257 88.830 0.2859 126.73 81.835 12.220 2606.8 213.31 0.3836 0.2535 0.2890

AWG Dia-mils TPI Dia-mm Circ-mils Ohms/Kft Ft/Ohm Ft/Lb Ohms/Lb Lb/Kft NormAmps MaxAmps

30 10.025 99.750 0.2546 100.50 103.19 9.6906 3287.1 339.18 0.3042 0.2010 0.2292 31 8.9276 112.01 0.2268 79.702 130.12 7.6850 4145.0 539.32 0.2413 0.1594 0.1818 32 7.9503 125.78 0.2019 63.207 164.08 6.0945 5226.7 857.55 0.1913 0.1264 0.1441 33 7.0799 141.24 0.1798 50.125 206.90 4.8332 6590.8 1363.6 0.1517 0.1003 0.1143 34 6.3048 158.61 0.1601 39.751 260.90 3.8329 8310.8 2168.1 0.1203 0.0795 0.0907 35 5.6146 178.11 0.1426 31.524 328.99 3.0396 10480 3447.5 0.0954 0.0630 0.0719 36 5.0000 200.00 0.1270 25.000 414.85 2.4105 13215 5481.7 0.0757 0.0500 0.0570 37 4.4526 224.59 0.1131 19.826 523.11 1.9116 16663 8716.2 0.0600 0.0397 0.0452 38 3.9652 252.20 0.1007 15.723 659.63 1.5160 21012 13859 0.0476 0.0314 0.0359 39 3.5311 283.20 0.0897 12.469 831.78 1.2022 26496 22037 0.0377 0.0249 0.0284

AWG Dia-mils TPI Dia-mm Circ-mils Ohms/Kft Ft/Ohm Ft/Lb Ohms/Lb Lb/Kft NormAmps MaxAmps

40 3.1445 318.01 0.0799 9.8880 1048.9 0.9534 33410 35040 0.0299 0.0198 0.0226

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i

I suppose you could ask Miller. I was curious about how much lead from the welder to the arc one could use as I have a lot of welding lead and they said on those not to use more than 25 feet on those small ones. I would expect if you ran a wire good for 50 amps from the breaker box 200 feet might be reasonable. It is not unusual around here to run up to 300 feet from the transformer on the pole to the meter then figure up say another 100 feet of wire in the building not counting extention chords. That welder probably only needs a 30 amp breaker but if you used wire good for 30 amps it wouldn't be able to go as far. probably only using 15 amps to burn those rods. For a more powerful welder I would think the distance from the transformer to the panel and the gauge of the wires to the service ought to be factored in as well. I had an electrician over one day and he said I had a big transformer on the pole good for 400 amps even though I only have a

100 amp service and no one else is tapped in to it... yet...

The other thing you could do is check the voltage drop. measure the voltage at the panel and then have an assistant measure the voltage at the input to the welder when you are welding with 200 feet of cable. Miller may have a spec but I would think 10% drop would be as far as I would want to go.

Free advice take it for it's cost.

Fran

Thanks for that info. JYJ

The product literature is here

On 220 volts the maximum current draw in any of the modes is 21 amps. Normal voltage drop tolerances is 5% or ~10 volts. Any combination of length and gage that gives you 1/2 ohm for the two conductors (down and back) should be fine. Inverter welders are quite tolerant of voltage sags, you could go even smaller than this calc would suggest.

H> I am planning on purchasing a Maxstar 150.

Thanks for the advice.

200 ft. is the length I need to go from the panel to this inverter. With the info from the other reply from Ig, I should be able to figure the gauge wire I need to run, hopefully a standard 30 amp cord will do, or will have to make one up myself. Think 25 ft. leads would do me if I could make up a beefy cord that would allow me to weld 200-300 ft. from the panel location.

JYJ

Your answer is in the manual:

For 220 volt a 6 AWG cord can go up to 321 ft.

That's fairly serious cord and the manual says it's sized for 3% drop but the machine is designed to deal with up to a 10% drop so it's likely something smaller would work. It will depend on how much drop there at the point you plug your extension into. I've got a 25' 8 AWG extension cord for my MIG welder and that's $100 worth of cord and nearly as heavy as the welder itself. 300 ft of 6 AWG cord is going to be a serious amount of cord and a serious cost.

It's also a function of how much power you need to draw. The less power you draw the less voltage drop there is and the smaller cord you can get away with. If you can weld at 115 amps that's something like a 23% less than the machines max which should buy you 23% more length for the cord you use.

The manual says the power must be within 10% of the required voltage or else you might not get any output power. This implies to me it will actually shut down if the power drops below 207 so the closer you come to that number, to more likely you are to have problems with your welder.

If you assume the outlet you plug into is down to 220 volts, then the max drop you could deal with would be 220-207 or 13 volts. If you run 20 amps (a little less than the max for the machine), then the max resistance you can have in the cable is 13/20 or .65 ohms. For 300 ft, you need 600 ft of cable (there and back) so you need .65/.600 or 1.08 ohms/Kft or less. From Iggy's chart, that's 10 AWG. So if my calculations and assumptions are correct, you should be able to make it work on 10 AWG cord, but that would give you very little room for error. If you used a little too much current, or the voltage was a little low were you plugged your cord in, or the welder cut off at a slightly higher voltage, you would find yourself constantly running into problems.

So my guess is that for the full 300 ft, you need at least an 8 AWG cord to avoid regular problems when welding near the high end of the current range of the machine. But who knows, sometimes these things work when you wouldn't expect them to. :)

Thanks to Iggy for the table, it is good information to have.

IMHO, electrical power input and welding cables are seldom too big and are usually just a little bit short. The reason is usually cost.

IMHE, effort spent scrounging a chunk of (too) heavy gauge industrial surplus TECK flexible covered armoured conduit will be money and time well spent compared with the price you will pay for a shorter piece of smaller gauge new rubber flex extension cord.

Similarly it is hard to go wrong with 100' lengths of 00 welding cable with Tweco ends, combined with a short set 00 ground cable and a 15' electrode stinger whip of lighter cable which is much lighter and more flexible. Ground cables seldom need to be as long as the electrode lead.

Scrap metal and copper dealers often get surprisingly good welding cables (usually 00) as well as TECK and other neat copper stuff. Pick up a piece of heavy copper electrical bus to use for a welding heat sink if available. If you find some cables that are damaged but repairable by shortening then the short cut-offs can be used for a great set of battery jumper cables, or if the rubber is damaged may be quite usable for ground cable use.

Good luck

I think I would get a generator and drive it locally. That is a very long drop and I*R =E or the current flowing times the resistance of the wire equals the voltage drop or droop at the end of the line.

A volt meter will read full voltage. No load. Read it with some load... Power from a pole is using very large wire.

Simply measure with the welder off then in idle and then when welding - all at the site of the welder at the welder plug. Typically 10% loss can be handled - but with more and more electronics going on in these boxes are more sensitive. The old tomb stone welders - and those with only transformers - simply turn up the output to get what was expected...

One pays for magic. One way or another!

Think of car and truck computers that stop working and a small time or added tiny boost starts the car. Floats up the battery and the computer turns on. Under a level and all is dead. This is why the small battery units sold really work. Small float assists.

Mart> >>> How long of a cord could I use

Welcome. I use it quite often.

Also, do not forget that the "cable length" should be doubled, so if you are looking at a 30ft cable, the current travels 60 feet.

I don't know how much of a scavenger you are but I have scavenged some pretty nice aluminum wire, the kind which might be used for a temporary electrical service with a wire thickness about 5/16 th of an inch. You might even be able to put in an order at a scrap yard to get a call when someone comes in and scraps some. Often it is three wires one bare and two insulated.

Fran