Need help with Harbor Freight cheap Tig welder

follow up

here is the address for the thing

Why don't you have an electrician wire the plug?

Here's a hint the black (hot line) and white (hot line) wires go to the blades on the plug. Green is the ground/neutral wire in a three wire 220 plug. It goes to the round pin.

Personally I switched the power lead on mine to a four wire feed and grounded it properly.

Black goes to one hot, white to the other hot, and green of course is ground.

This machine has been covered quite well over over on the welding newsgroup. It started out with a certain amount of derision and after a number of people took a chance..it turns out to be actually a decent machine for its type and price range.

Its "lift to start" arc btw. You touch the electrode to the work, hold for a couple seconds, then gently lift it and the arc will start.

The polarized plug is recommended (got an electric dryer? Its polarized so you cant plug it in wrong..thats all Polarized means..there are two large lugs, and one smaller one..the two large lugs are the "hots" and the small one is the safety ground

If you used the black wire for the round lug..that means you put two dead shorts into the welder. It indeed means its likely you killed it.

A basic understanding of electricity and wiring is pretty much needed before you jump in. That or the ability to control your impatience until you can ask someone who does know. Or have an unlimited amount of money.

You can kill a far more expensive machine miswiring it also. So best to learn before burning up a months wages.

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

which style do you have? 2nd from the bottom?

The odd terminal is Always the safety ground. (green wire)

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

You may kill yourself or someone else before you get a working TIG unit. Buy something prewired or hire an electrician, and get some type of basic understanding of electricity before you operate any kind of welding apparatus.

There are two possibilities: the worst is that the welder uses both 110 and 220, the 110 coming from 1 leg and ground. This isn't approved, but might be. In this case, wiring green and white to the 2 flat pins would put 220 on the 110 circuit and fry it. You have my condolences.

The other possibility is that the welder only uses 220 and the green wire is for (case) ground only. This is more likely and mis-wiring is less likely to damage the welder (it would result in 110 being applied to the welder's 220 input). Less likely, but still possible. It is more dangerous, though, as 1 leg (110) would be applied to the case and could give you a shock.

Did the welder come with a diagram of the internal wiring? You could tell from that if the green wire was ground only or used as neutral for a 110 circuit.

Bob

How the heck do you "properly" ground a 220v welder by switching to a four wire cordset?

A four wire cordset only adds a neutral to your two hot and one ground conductor and a 220v welder doesn't use a neutral. The welder comes with a 3 wire cordset because that is all it uses. It's not like a clothes dryer where there is a small 120v load which used to be allowed to be carried on the ground and now requires a proper 4 wire feed.

Pete C.

Black would be one hot lead, white in the case of a 220v welder would be the other hot lead (should be taped black or red to indicate it is not a neutral) and the green is ground. The PE label indicates "Primary Earth" a.k.a. ground.

Pete C.

every welder I have every been around or owned has a 110volt cooling fan which needs a good neutral , and using the green wire for is is asking for trouble some time in the future, its a equipment safty ground

Well, that is certainly not the case with all of them.

My Syncrowave definitely does not use a neutral, in fact it has a whole separate winding in it's transformer to provide power for a 120v utility outlet on the machine which provides power for the coolmate cooler.

In fact, given the ready availability of 220v cooling fans at exactly the same cost as the 120v version I can't possibly see why anyone would design a 220v welder and stick a 120v fan on it.

Pete C.

Hello there

Thank you all for the tip and information. I appreciate it. I was able to put it to work this morning by put black wire and white for hot wire power (flat blade) and the green for ground (round prong). both TIG torch and Arc stick work just fine. This time when I power on the cooling fan run strong not like last time when I miswire and put the green for one of the flat blade. The Fan still ran (about

30% slower) and power red LED on too. and TIG made small arc unusable like someone here said ,

lucky me I didn't fry it. I was able to practice some weld and burn holes in the steel pipe and ruin some piece. but from now I have a working unit and need some practice.

The last time I tried to weld some steel was 15 years ago, when I bought an oxygen tank and took my mother propane cooking tank from her kitchen and gas weld it. The weld broke with just a hand twist. since then discouraged me.

It's easy to become a fool when jump into the field that you're not good at or have knowledge of. Much like a race car driver who have no idea of how transmission works (from one of Tom Cruise's movie) , or an rocket engineer in his mother's kitchen.

I've been doing jewelry work for the past 14 years. welding platinum, soldering gold melting silver and some metal casting. but when it came to steel and aluminum...?#$%! they are some new friends to get familiar with.

Thank you

sunnyboy

"Pete C." wrote in news:428FF8EC.89A55199 @snet.net:

cooling

exactly

now why would you need a 110volt transfomer when you already have two 110 volts hot legs coming in?

Because you have a 240v feed coming in, not two 120v hot legs. No neutral = 240v only. Neutrals are not always available in some industrial situations i.e. 240v 3ph delta.

Pete C.