Many 110 VAC arc welders are sold.
A lot of people have at least attempted to weld with them.
Given the following constraints, has anyone been successful using one?
3/32" rod.0.125" mild steel maximum weld thickness.
BoyntonStu
Many 110 VAC arc welders are sold.
A lot of people have at least attempted to weld with them.
Given the following constraints, has anyone been successful using one?
3/32" rod.0.125" mild steel maximum weld thickness.
BoyntonStu
In a pinch or on a budget 1/8" w. 3/32 6011 or 7014 tiny rods do the same job. Look close at penetration and make sure you don't BBQ the welder. May take more passes and a deeper chamfer.. The duty cycle is really, really short. Just prep grind & Chem clean the workpiece just a little better than if you had a lot more amperage to toss at it, there will be a difference. Rods stick a lot a first. heating the startpoint with a torch stops that 90% of the time.
Rob
I started with a basic 110v AC arc welder; it was a re-badged Century. It had a range from 20 to 100 amps, and a duty cycle of 20% at 100 amps. It had a relatively low OCV (open circuit voltage), which made it pretty well impossible to run 6011 or 7018 -- the two types of rods I tried first! My friend who was going to show me how to weld had decided the welder was defective, since even he could not keep an arc going.
Once I found a manual to download and discovered that it specifically ruled out 6011 or 7018, I switched to 6013 and 7014. It performed reasonably well with 3/32" 6013 and 7014. I tried some 1/16" 7014, but never found it to work very well or be very useful. I was *sometimes* able to do some decent welds, especially with the 3/32" 6013, at thicknesses up to 1/8" -- but 1/8" and over were very, very iffy, and sometimes even welds on lesser thicknesses came out pretty poorly. I should say, however, that I was brand new to welding, and my technique was terrible. I've oftened wondered what I could do with it now that my technique is much improved, but I sold it when I bought a 220v unit.
I've also wondered if starting out on the 110v welder contributed to some bad habits that I developed. As others have mentioned, it was very hard not to stick the rods--but on the other hand, it was pretty much impossible to hold even a slightly long arc. I got into the habit of holding just as long an arc as I could and still keep the arc going, so that I wouldn't stick the rod. When I switched to a 220v welder, with a whole lot more OCV and a whole lot more voltage in the arc, I found that I could keep a much longer arc, and following what I had learned, I did so -- resulting in lots of slag inclusions, not to mention lots of splatter. What I didn't realize at first is that the 220v welder also allowed me to hold a much closer arc without sticking -- now I can get the tip of the rod right down at the weld puddle. The arc just has so much more force, even at theoretically the same amps. No, strike that -- I used to run the 110v welder almost always at the 100 amp setting, hoping to get enough heat out of it to do what I needed; but with the 220v welder, I very rarely need to get up to 100 amps, and still have way more arc force.
An even more important result of switching to the 220v machine, IMHO, was the ability to run 6011. There are situations where I still find it nearly impossible to get a good result running 6013 (or 7014 or 7108) right off the bat -- especially poor fit-up and/or in a tight corner when I can't crank the amps too high because the material is not too thick. It may still be a matter of my technique, but I almost always get a globby kind of effect where a slag inclusion gets stuck in the crack and the weld puddle just splits around it like paint around a crayon mark. The 6013/7014/7018 just doesn't have the penetrating power of 6011. If I think I'm going to have this problem, I make a pass with 6011, clean it up (grind it back a bit), and then lay down a beautiful bead of 6013/7014/7018.
Bottom line: yes, you can do some useful work in thinner materials with a
110v buzzbox, but you will have to live with some distinct limitations. (All of the projects I made with the one I had are still in service; I guess there are enough decent welds mixed in with the globby ones to hold them together, and none of them is subject to much stress.) I personally would recommend learning some good technique first on a 220v machine. Alternately, get a Miller Maxstar 150, which can run on 110v and still run 6010 and 7018 -- but that's going to cost a whole lot more than the average 110v buzzbox!HTH,
Andy
I've used a 70 amp 110v Century for a few years. Trying to use any
3/32" rod with it is absolute frustration. The 1/16" rods work pretty well but the rod I always use is a 5/64" UTP 612. It was suggested by one of the guys at the local welding supply, and indeed worked very well with this small machine.I've used the welder alot on < 1/8" wall tubing, and has worked pretty well for that, considering the machine.
h>Many 110 VAC arc welders are sold.
Royj,
I wonder whether there is a way to boost the LOC Voltage on a 110VAC welder?
The first idea that comes to mind is to boost the 110 to about 140 to start the arc.
Or perhaps add some extra turns on the primary for 'start', then short across them to weld.
A momentary normally closed 'starter' switch perhaps?
BoyntonStu
I applaud your interest in ways of overcoming problems with 110V welders but by now you should have come to realize from responses to your various posts that they are all less than what you would achieve by just buying a used or relatively inexpensive 220V stick welder. If you really want to weld then you want to have a serviceable welder so you know the problems are with your technique and not the limitations of a weak machine. Spend your time developing your welding skills and leave the trickery for later if welding is the real goal. If you just want to fool around then fine. I realize some of your questions may be due to limited budget and if that is the case then you can take what I just said with a larger grain of salt. I really want to encourage your welding pursuit but it requires welding not electrical practice. Billh
Ive got an old...old old 3 tap Marquette 110vt buzz box that welds well enough with 1/16" rod and it can be stretched to 3/32 if you are careful. On the other hand..the obiquitious Harbor Freight 110vt Mig was cheaper and easier to use with little learning curve.
I loaned the Marquette to a buddy, and a year later Gave him a HF Mig Id outgrown, as he does hobby bodywork..and he only uses the Mig now.
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
billh,
I completely agree with your post.
However, as an academic exercise, I wondered where or not there was a possible 'improvement' for a 110 welder.
Does one ever use a 220 welder at the lower settings?
Is a 110 welder able to go into the range of the 220 welder's lower settings?
For steel less that .125 thick, it seems that a 110 welder is marginally useable and would be better if:
1> The duty factor could be increased.2> The OCV could be increased
3> I wouid add; increase the current to about 125 Amps.Duty factor could be increased by forced air cooling and by 'venting' the welder.
OCV could be increased by a temporarily higher arc starting voltage.
At this point might we (with little cost and work), have a small, portable, better than marginal 110 welder?
Increasing the current to about 125 Amp is not so easy but it could be done with a parallel transformer properly phased from another 110 circuit.
The goal of achieving a 'hot rod' 110 welder does not seem far fetched to me.
I could be wrong.
BoyntonStu
Stick welders must have some way of limiting the current. A typical way is to saturate the core which limits the current but also provides a wild inductive kick when the machine is idle. So the way the 240 welders work is to use lots of steel and lots of copper. You could do the same with a 120 volt welder but it would weigh a LOT more (and cost $$$)than the usual Harbor Freight version.
I made a 120 volt welder MANY years back out of some scrap steel and w> Royj,
What rods, current, and rod dia did you use?
In your opinion would it be satisfactory for welding up to 0.125?
BoyntonStu
A couple of thoughts as you continue to explore the possibilities --
Yes, I use my 220v *mostly* at the lower settings -- generally running between 55 and 85 amps, even though my welder can go up to 275 amps. Perhaps an analogy would be the difference between turning a little boombox all the way up vs. turning a 300 watt stereo system just a little way up -- you may never turn the stereo up any louder than you could get with the boombox, but the difference in listening pleasure may be enormous!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, someone has already created a 110v welder that has a greater range, a decent duty cycle, and the ability to strike an arc with any of the rods you'd ever likely use (which is what higher OCV does for you) -- the Miller Maxstar 150. They achieved this through inverter technology, rather than the large transformer found in the inexpensive buzz boxes ... and the cost is something like $700-800 (that estimate may be off by as much as a couple of hundred!).
I myself love to tweak and fiddle and scrounge, so I am very sympathetic to your exploration of ways to enhance a basic 110v buzzbox, and if you come up with successful tweaks please post them here. My suspicion is that what you're trying to do would not be all that cheap, but I may be wrong :). Most if not all of the 110v buzz boxes already have forced-air cooling, so I'm not sure you could add too much to the duty cycle there. Increasing the input voltage, especially with some of the light-weight buzz boxes, may just lower the duty cycle further. Perhaps adding a HF unit (high frequency, high voltage, but only a few millivolts) might be a way to increase the choice of rods that could be used, but this is going to be very expensive unless you find a *very* good deal on a used unit, or build your own.
If you want to play with this, a better (and cheaper) approach may be to make your own welder from scratch, rather than trying to tweak an existing buzz box. If you do a google search, you'll see various pages with projects that people have come up with, everything from alternator-based to re-wound microwave transformers. I've also seen some descriptions and diagrams for a home-built HF unit. Naturally, all of these pages come with prominent warnings that you undertake any such project at your own risk!
FWIW, as a reference point ... I bought the 110v buzz box that I started with for $65 used, and several months later I sold it for the same price -- when I bought a 220v welder for $25! I wound up spending another $30 or so to replace the missing leads, and of course I had to add 220v service to the garage (around $50 for the parts, IIRC). Less than a week ago I almost bought a Miller Dialarc for $100 at an auction -- I didn't really have room for it, and the budget is really tight right now, but no one else was bidding ... and for a minute or so no one else bid anything, and I began to think about how I was going to explain it to my wife! But finally someone bid $125, and took it home. I still keep feeling like I missed a great deal, though of course some features might not have been working properly -- though it had been in use for stick welding up until the day of the auction.
Good luck!
Andy
Correction:
That should say only a few *millamps*, not millivolts! Obviously I wasn't paying attention when I wrote that!
The major problem with beefing up a 110 volt welder is that most 120 volt outlets are rated for 15 amps. That limits the power to 1800 watts , so no matter how you cut it there is not enough power. For
100 amps, you are limited to 18 arc volts if everything was perfect. Throw in something other than a power factor of 1, and things go down hill rapidly.Using inverter technology, you can keep the power factor close to 1 and maybe fudge on the current drawn. But on a 15 amp 120 volt circuit the power is just not available.
Dan
Dan,
Thanks for your quantitative answer.
How many Arc volts are required to use 3/32" dia 6013 rod and how many amps at 110VAC are needed to provide it?
It is relatively easy to beef up a garage circuit to 20 amps by adding a new breaker. What would 20 Amps allow you to weld?
Has anyone tried to ionize the air beneath the rod to start the arc with a BBQ piezoelectric arc igniter?
BoyntonStu
Just give it a try, come back and let us know how it worked and then we'll all know.
I have to jump in here. I'm not an electrician or anything but....
Circuit breakers exist to protect the _wiring_, not the devices. If something currently has a 15amp breaker, don't just substitute a 20amp one. Sure, everything might work just fine. On the other hand, you might burn everything down. Just not good sense, IMO.
Joel
Ditto Joel's comment. The breaker swap is easy, if the existing wire is a large enough gauge to handle 20a. If the wire needs to be upgraded, then just pull in four conductors and make it a 240v circuit.
--- Rich
Here's how to get either 110VAC 30AMPS or a 220VAC circuit from 2
110VAC extension cords. (no O-scope required)Take two beefy 12Ga extension cords and plug them into 2 receptacles in different rooms.
The other ends go into a large electrical box.
In the box there are two beefy 110Volt 20aMP receptacles and a 220Volt receptacle.
In a 3 hole receptacle there is a wide slot on the left, neutral A small slot on the right, hot A round hole beneath, ground.
Using a multimeter on the 250 VAC range, measure the voltage between the 2 hots.
If it measures 220, you connect each hot to 2 opposite terminals of the
220 receptacle and the neutral and the ground to the third terminal. You have a 220 VAC circuit. Plug your 220VAC welder in there.If the multimeter measures 0 you have tapped the same side of the circuit breaker box. Flip one extension cord circuit breaker off. Measure both 110 receptacles. If both are 0, you must find another 110 receptacle from a different breaker..
If only one circuit went off when you flipped the breaker, you have it. Just connect both receptacles in parallel and you can draw 2x Amps from your extension box. Plug you high draw 110 welder in.
The technique might be useful in reverse when connecting a generator to your home in an emergency if the generator is far from a 220 circuit. (I used the clothes dryer receptacle last year after hurricane Jeanne.)
BoyntonStu
Not a reply to this topic, but I recall you asked about paralleling a while back.
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