I think I have 4V in my extension. The welder is 10' away but connects to likely double or so of that length. An extension to the normal cord. My plug is several feet from the heavy panel. I'll look into it but since I have no issue at this time, the longer cable might allow the welder to wander out to the driveway from the shop building.
Mart> Your shop power may measure ~230 volts normally but it is likely to drop
I got the welder moved today. It welds pretty good in stick mode, still have to turn it up past where I figured, though. Part of my problem is I was using the last couple of rods of 7018 left over from a job about a year ago, and they've been sitting out so their coating is probably saturated with water vapor and soft. Anyway, the 7018 didn't burn right until I got it up to 80% (expecting 50%) but I also tried 6011 and 6013 and those behaved much better. So I'm going to call my problem solved and move on.
Next step is to test this thing in TIG mode.
Grant
RoyJ wrote:
What's that Lassie? You say that Curt Welch fell down the old sci.engr.joining.welding mine and will die if we don't mount a rescue by 13 Jun 2009 16:16:50 GMT:
Isn't it just the opposite? Longer arc=more resistance=higher power. (for a given current)
I don't believe so but I really don't fully understand the electrical characteristics of welding arcs.
If it were a truly constant current power source, then a higher resistance would in fact create a higher power so you are right if that's what you are thinking. Power = current ^ 2 * resistance. But maybe less of the power would go into the weld and more would go into the air in that case? So even with the power supply putting out more current, you still might get less in the metal? Or, the heat radiated from the arc would distribute over a larger areas of the base metal tending to cause it's welding temperature to drop??? Like I said, I don't fully understand the dynamics of welding arcs.
If it were a constant voltage power source instead, a higher resistance would create a lower current. Power = voltage ^ 2 / resistance.
However, transformer welders are neither constant voltage nor constant current. Their voltage starts at an open circuit voltage of around 80 volts typically and drops as you put a larger load on it. The current increases as the voltage decreases. The shape of the voltage current curve controls whether power is increasing or decreasing since it could go either way when current increases as voltage decreases. Power = voltage * current. Stick welders are generally designed to allow the welder to control the power with the arc length. I think some typically very short length is the max power, with longer lengths causing the power to reduce. And if you increase the arc force, or dig, control, it makes the welder increase the power even more at the short end of the arc length.
Here's a web page about this stuff from the Miller site I just found:
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