Ive got a mint Airco PhaseArc 350 mig welder, which is a 3phase machine so havent been able to run it here at the homestead. When I had the warehouse, I was able to use it down there because there was
3ph. Hating to have machines taking up space that I cant use, I decided to see if it would run off my current 5hp RPC. To make a long story short..It wouldnt. (PRC is Rotary Phase Converter btw), which is basicly nothing more than a 3ph motor spun up to speed in some fashion, and then it will run on single phase 220, and it generates the 3rd leg all by itself, allowing you to hook up 3 phase industrial type equipment to it.I had a brand new Marathon Elect 10hp 3450rpm motor kicking around so I decided to breadboard it up into a bigger RPC and see if it would run the Airco. Getting it up to speed was the problem, as I couldnt spin it fast enough with a rope wrapped around the shaft, so micky moused up a 1/2hp 110vt 3450 moter, pulley and flat belt to spin the big motors shaft directly, before applying single phase power to it. Which worked just fine.
God that big 10hp motor is loud when it runs....I could hear it 200 yrs away, Of course..bolting it to a pair of I beams, then sitting loose on the top of my welding bench turned the bench into a sounding board....aaaaack!!
Anyways...plugging the Airco mig into the impromptu RPC. I found the motor itself was idaling at about 18 amps on each input leg, and the output legs generate 240, 2399, and 233 volts across the output legs, with the manufactured leg provideing 233 volts. With the Airco turned on, simply ideling, current went up to about 22 amps per leg, and here is the funny part...at 25 volts, burning .45 DualSheild, with 150 amps indicated on the welder, total current draw only went up to 28 amps, raising the voltage to its top 35 volts...far far into the OH FUCK spray transfer mode, only raised the total amps to 35 with an indicated 250 amps of weld current. Chuckle..burning that hot was like using a spray gun, the weld looked like it was composed of nothing but tiny ball bearings, and had absolutly no simularity to a weld at all. It was a sponge.
So, I showed that I can run a decent sized 3 phase industrial type machine on single phase power, which in this case was the spare electric dryer outlet, fused at 40 amps, run into a 50' 6/3 extension cord out to the welding area (which is on its own 60 amp circuit), by making up a simply rpc.
I think however..Ill start looking for a 1725 rpm 10hp motor , as the noise and the air from the fan itself is like a hurricane, at 3450 rpm
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner