run another welder off a bobcat 225?

Question

I stopped by my buddy's shop yesterday to see his new (to him) Miller Bobcat 225. He can't stop himself from buying equipment, so when it came along with 120 hours on it he grabbed it for $2300.

Anyway, we had fun burning some rods with it, and then he wanted to know if he could weld aluminum. Not without a spool gun. But my old Miller 330 is at his shop. When we've tried tigging aluminum with it in the past it would just trip the breaker. Now he's thinking we could plug the 330 into the Bobcat's 50 amp outlet, and use that setup to weld aluminum.

That would sure be easier and cheaper then setting up the Bobcat to do aluminum. Is there any reason that wouldn't work?

Dave Wilson

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Tom Kendrick · Accepted Answer

The Miller 330 takes 92 amps at 220 volts, single phase, so that's a limitation.

The other factor is the generator in the Bobcat. The load rating of that generator is for a resistive load, such as a load bank. The Miller unit appears as an inductive load (see those transformers and chokes inside). If you were to hook up 10,000 watts of light bulbs, that would be an apples-to-apples comparison for the generator in the Bobcat. Hooking up 10,000 watts of air compressors would be another ballgame. I would check with a Miller rep to see what the inductive load capacity of the Bobcat generator is before proceeding.

run another welder off a bobcat 225?

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