Is this Arc welder shot?

You are perhaps not quite understanding some basic electricity. You might want to involve someone who has a somewhat better grasp of it for this phase of the process. Really.

Step the first: if you are wiring the welder at 230 volts, the white wire should not be connected to anything, unless some part of the wiring diagram specifically calls for the wiring of the neutral conductor. 230 volts is hot to hot (red and black). White to black is 115V, white to red is 115V.

Step 2: Insulate means insulate. In the case of the 230 volt connection described in your post, it means lead H2 should be insulated, not connected to anything, with no exposed metal so it cannot short to anything. What you have done (connecting H2 to the red wire) is clearly wrong. No wonder it blows the breaker.

You opened the case on a machine that was supposed to have been running, changed the wiring, blew the breaker. And you ask why?

Your first hookup where you get 36 volts at the stinger is exactly what you should be getting. And you said it welds fine.

IIRC: H2 is a low voltage booster input for low line voltage you might see out on the end of the transmission line out in the country. Usefull if you see a voltage sag to 200volts instead of 240. H2 should be insulated with a gob of tape and hidden off somewhere where it won't get in the way or rub on anything.

Hook> have a Lincoln 225-S AC welder that is really old, not sure on the year,

Forgive me if this sounded stupid but I have been wiring stuff for years and from what I can read off the diagram everything looked fine. I am not new to wiring at all, I've asked an electrician to come by and have a quick look and see what he can tell me. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some better information to report. I'll try and keep you posted. THANKS

I suspect that the wire colors you are refering to are those in the input power cord. I would expect that the black and red wires are the two hot wires, and the white is being used as the ground. Your electrician could probably tell you if this is acceptable. I'll tell you how I believe the circuit functions. I hope the explanation is helpful.

In this welder, H1, H2, and H3 are all connected to the same winding. There are probably two input voltages listed on the nameplate, 230V is the highest, and 200 or 208 is most likely the lower voltage.

The 230V volt line connects between H1 and H3. Since the fan motor is a 230V device it is connected to these same terminals, in parallel with the transformer primary. H2 is a live conductor, so it must be insulated to prevent it from coming in contact with anything.

If you were connecting it for the lower voltage listed on the nameplate, The line would connect to H1 and H2, and the fan would be connected to H1 and H3. The additional turns, in the primary winding, between H2 and H3 would boost the voltage to the 230V required for the fan to operate at its normal speed.

You can call Lincoln, at 800-833-9353. If you can provide them with the code number for the machine, they should be able to fax or email a new wiring diagram. They have always been helpful to me.

Bob

Thanks for the help everyone, last night my cousin who is an electrician had a look at the machine and was able to get it going. He actually discovered two problems and I'm not sure which one was creating all of the problems.

1) He noticed that the H1, H2 and H3 wires had red paint on them (probably from when someone re-painted the box) but since the inside and outside of the box was painted he suspected that they dismantled the machine to do so and in doing this ended up relabeling H1, H2 and H3 BUT not in the right order. This tells him that the machine probably wasn't used after it was repainted.

2) On of the NEW screws that was used to hold one of the wires in place had penetrated a wire behind it and would have been grounding that wire to the box.

"HotRod" wrote: (clip) my cousin who is an electrician had a look at the machine and was able to get it going. He actually discovered two problems and I'm not sure which one was creating all of the problems.(clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Congratulations on having an intelligent cousin. This is an excellent example of why some problems CANNOT be solved by absentee experts. Your cousin responded to clues which were not even recognizable to a less experienced person, so were not even described.

I was not even aware this welder COULD be used on anything less than 230 volts. Mine came with a plug already attached (molded right to the wire). Mind you, mine is not one of those older S models, but you would THINK they would be setup the same. I remember, vaguely, reading their manual and seeing something about "...if the plug did not come attached to the cable..." but I ASSUMED that was for a generator model or something.