May have asked before... still undecided... MIG vs TIG/Stick

I once told a guy who was at my yard sale, trying to get everything for next to nothing, "Oh, you were looking for the SALVATION ARMY. That's down the street, and they have free stuff."

Steve

Reply to
SteveB
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I thought this was your problem. I'll give you $5 each for the gas bottles. The BIG ones! But you have to throw in a working 4 ton pallet jack.

Steve ;-)

BTW, deliver them to 1556 River Drive, St. George, Utah. Call ahead and make sure I'm not golfing or fishing. If I am, just wait, and I'll return eventually.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

Same things here. A pack of as new Craftsman reversible ratcheting wrenches in original packaging, for $10. It may be more of a case of the pawn shop guy not even realizing that they are worth more than solid wrenches. I think that the only thing he knew how to do was weighing jewelry.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus19678

Whats in LA, besides empty store fronts?

What do I have that you have a buyer for? Id be happy to work on taking best offers.

Gunner

GUNNER'S PRAYER: "God grant me the serenity to accept the people that don't need to get shot, the courage to shoot the people that need shooting and the wisdom to know the difference. And if need be, the skill to get it done before I have to reload."

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Reply to
Gunner Asch

Humm...I do have 2 spare 2 ton pallet jacks...sigh....not big enough.....shrug

Gunner

GUNNER'S PRAYER: "God grant me the serenity to accept the people that don't need to get shot, the courage to shoot the people that need shooting and the wisdom to know the difference. And if need be, the skill to get it done before I have to reload."

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Reply to
Gunner Asch

Maybe Steve meant 4000 lbs. I have not seen pallet jacks over 5,500 lbs.

iu

Reply to
Ignoramus19678

Ideally, I would like a 220 volt 30 amp DC stick welder, and an AC/DC tig welder. They would be for light-duty household / garage projects and repairs. Probably only need a 25 to 40 % duty cycle.

Someday, I'll get more power run up the driveway to the garage, but right now I've only got a total of 70 amps, with one 220 volt 30 amp- single phase circuit for welding.

Working at the shipyard has spoiled me rotten! Having 3-phase 440 everywhere, with more maxstars, dynasties, and big Miller grids than you could shake a stick at, I'm not used to trying to figure out what I can run at home.

-- Tin Lizzie "Elephant: A mouse built to government specifications."-Lazarus Long

Reply to
TinLizziedl

Hummm...nothing that small for stick...though I do have an old Marquette

110vt AC stick welder...will go up to 90 amps.

Id strongly suggest you purchase a MIG welder.

A 30 amp stick welder will get you at most..about 125 amps of welding power..which is about the mid range for 1/8" stick...I consider it to be very very marginal. Start up surge on even a Tombstone will often pop a

30 amp breaker.

I do have (4) 220vt AC stick welders. Miller M-250s that will work fine in your application..but they are AC only. And frankly...for your type of welding..Id think that AC will cover it nicely. $100 each.

Ive got nothing small enough in TIG to run on your breaker. But Ill look around.

I think Id drop in another breaker..at least a 50 amp and hook your welder to it.

Indeed. Which is why Ive got a 150 amp sub running my shop. Its nice to have friends in the local PG&E office so they ahum..increased the size of my transformers a bit.... Now if I could only get the bastards to run unmetered 3ph...sigh..chuckle

Want one of the AC stick welders? No leads or clamps unfortunately..bare machines only..but they will give you years of service and are in decent condition. Heavier than Tombstones and have fans.

$100 each

Gunner

GUNNER'S PRAYER: "God grant me the serenity to accept the people that don't need to get shot, the courage to shoot the people that need shooting and the wisdom to know the difference. And if need be, the skill to get it done before I have to reload."

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Reply to
Gunner Asch

obviously this has diverged from the original post, I was doing some roofing work at a house where the electrician was upgrading the service to

200 amps from 60. The power came in overhead and he or the electric company didn't change the wire. I questioned him and he said that it wasn't like running wires through holes in floor joists. The inspector came and must have agreed.

Without any inspection I ran out of my 100 amp panel an 80 amp breaker to another box I installed with a 70 amp breaker for my home made three phase converted idler motor and hydraulic pump and another 50 amp for the welder. I think a GE 50 amp breaker takes more than 50 amps to trip it. My welder shows input of like 90 amps at 230 but have never popped it with 3/16 rods. I have popped it many times in high range doing tig. But it must be 3/4 or so of max. Dinosaur transformer type, not sure how smart it would be to put a 90 amp computerized inverter on a 50 amp breaker.

Sure there must be some formula as to how much amps in breakers and what the main one is but probably with a 70 amp service you could have a 50 amp welder breaker and wire. So long as you kept self cleaning ovens and stuff like off while the welder was on. If I recall six gauge copper was good for

50 feet or less.

Fran

Reply to
fran...123

TinLizzied, I would definitely upgrade the breaker (and wire) to at least 50 amp, and preferably more. Then you can have a lot of choices.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus540

Yeah, I've thought that 30 amp circuit was a little low unless I went with an AC tombstone or something similar. Funny thing is, I've never welded with AC. I would like to find someone local with an AC stick machine so I can get a feel for it.

I like the idea of no arc-blow when using AC, but I've heard that the rod and positioning choices are limited. This true?

Reply to
TinLizziedl

I bought a tombstone welder once with the intention of selling it for more $$. When I tried it, I was VERY pleasantly surprised. It welded very well, and it was an AC version. It is a totally usable welder.

Also, if yu can weld at 125 amps, you can weld anything. It goes a little against what I said about a circuit.

i

Reply to
Ignoramus29131

Not in the slightest ..least not for home use.

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno

Reply to
Gunner Asch

What do you consider "home use"? Around here that includes heavy- equipment trailers, snowplow blades and RV bumpers.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Nearly all of the small ship yards in S.E.A. are using buzz boxes to build barges and small ships - tugs, service vessels, etc. You see them scattered all over the yard wired up through long extensions.

And 6011 is the most common electrode you can find over here.

Cheers,

Bruce (bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Reply to
Bruce In Bangkok

"Ignoramus19678" wrote

We used to use the electric pallet jacks at the Convention Center, and other sites. They are a joy on carpet.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

I can comment...

AC and DC on weld outcome. Here in UK at college - so every electrode is 6013 - learning vert-up T-fillet using root run 2.5dia 6013 then capping with zig-zag weave 3.2dia 6013 (the college standard method)

Essentially, found that could hold a shorter arc and get a flatter bead on DC. With AC had to hold a slightly longer arc length so didn't short-out the weld as crossed the more humped root.

And smoothness and general aesthetics of the finshed DC weld get higher rating than for AC weld. But not by much. And of course, college is not the real world. A good "tombstone" AC welding machine is very good - and there are a lot about. Last thing you want is a bad cheapo inverter DC welding machine when you could have a sweet AC machine (???).

Here's the details:

On DC, could make the root-run absolutely flat - doing a "shimmering" weave never more than the electrode core wire still overlapped the corner to flatten the root run (a flat root bead makes the capping bead much easier). Then with the capping run, could hold a really short arc length, so very accurate focus of where the metal and heat is going.

Found the 6013's DC do run better on DCEN (the "college standard") - tried burning a few bead-on-plate and timed - came out to-the-second identical burn time, whereas DCEP was all over the place. Rods so happy on DCEN, stayed with it. Of course, for 7018's and 6010's, opposite is the case - DCEP is where it's at. Found can do the "college method" of 2.5dia root, 3.2dia cap all on same amps with 7018 DCEP.

Reply to
Richard Smith

Are you welding 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week for pay?

Anything under than can be considered Home Use

Virtually EVERY DC rod has an AC counterpart.

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno

Reply to
Gunner Asch

To me the difference between pro and amateur, home and commercial, is that the pro has to make the weld wherever it is, while the amateur can limit themselves to jobs they know they can handle, and work small enough to roll over to weld flat, and send out the rest. The pro needs a capable and dependable machine, the amateur can get away with a much cheaper one.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I'm a full-time weldor at a naval shipyard, DOD-civilian WG-10. I get enough of welding my butt off at work, I ain't gonna do it to myself at home!

"Home use" for me means I'll burn about a half to one pound of wire a month at most, I imagine. I simply want the capability to weld at home for building small projects or repairing the same. I would like to be able to weld os, hs, cres, and aluminum. Will an AC "tombstone" give me the wire choices for those materials? I'm not even sure if there is a stick wire for Al. All we do in the shipyard is tig on cres and Al.

Kinda funny- I'm qualified to weld using smaw, fcaw, gmaw-pulse & spray, gtaw, on many materials including: os, hs, hy-80, cres 300 series, NiCu, CuNi, and more, but I've never struck an arc on aluminum. I'm used to having big machines running big wire and sucking lots of amps. This "home welding" is more complicated than I had thought....

Reply to
TinLizziedl

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