use for old but functional 150A AC welder?

Those old AC welders hold the entire US ag infrastructure together.

They work just fine for connecting good sized chunks of steel.

neighborhood. The

Inductive ballast.

Jon

Most of the older buzzbox welders were in the 180 to 225 amp range with copper windings. Duty cycles are in the range that lets you run 5/32 rod pretty continueously with the usual stops to clamp a new rod in and chip the slag a bit to inspect. They will also run 3/16" rod but not at high duty cycle.

If it is just going to wind up in a dumpster when some one passes on, go collect it. Check it out, add some proper cables and proper clamps if required. Then sell (give) it to some young person who has no money but wants to learn to weld. I got an old AIRCO buzzbox for $5, added the cables, it almost left to a deserving student last year but not quite.

The other choice is to just have a spare for "> There's an old but solid multitap AC welder in a garage in my

I have yet to weld anything with more than 140 amps..

Bucky Balls

Dan

Grant Erw> There's an old but solid multitap AC welder in a garage in my neighborhood. The

Thawing frozen pipes.

Thaws water pipes pretty well.

Or buy it, and then pass it on to someone who wants to start welding. Cheap beginners machines are in demand. Better to have a newbie get it, then let it collect dust.

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 s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Chuckle..you will...you will.

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 s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

I don't think you can use a buzz box for thawing pipes. If so, let me know how. I think that a (pretty much) dead short de-tunes the transformer so much that the current is close to zero.

Pete Stanaitis

-------------

Shawn wrote:

My lincoln buzz box has a setting marked and a process for it.

The transformer is designed to have a lot of leakage inductance. That is the secondary is not closely coupled to the primary. So it acts as a constant current source, not a constant voltage source. The transformer is not tuned. With a dead short, the current will be approximently what the current setting says.

To use it for thawing pipes, you set it at a low enough current so that the duty cycle is 100 %. And connect to each end of the frozen pipe. The current through the pipe melts the ice close to the pipe first. So if you have the water turned on, you start to get a trickle of water and when that happens you can shut off the welder. The flowing water will melt the rest of the ice.

If your welder does not have a setting where the duty cycle is 100%, just use the lowest setting it has and shut the welder down so as to keep within its duty cycle. ie if the duty cycle is 20%, turn the welder on for two minutes and then off for eight minutes. Repeat until water starts flowing.

Dan

spaco wrote:

My old 180 amp Emerson is marked for pipe thawing at 40 amps. At 25 volts or so, that is 1000 watts going into the pipe. Keep in mind that any high resistance joints will concetrate the heat. Soldered copper pipes should not be a problem but a corroded galvanized pipe might get a bit sparky. No one uses this method any more for that reason.

Keep the water pressure turned on and a valve open down stream so that once it thaws, the water flowing through the pipe will finish the job. Watch the whole thing carefully because it is likely that you have a split pipe, usually in the worst place to get at it.

I've heard the old timers talk about thaw> I don't think you can use a buzz box for thawing pipes. If so, let me

"spaco" wrote: (clip) I think that a (pretty much) dead short de-tunes the transformer so much that the current is close to zero. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Then why does my welding rod turn red hot when I stick it?

I'm pretty sure the setting that is circled is the pipe thawing setting.

Shawn

Buy it and donate to a beginner.

I have recently been given an old Olympic (Oxford) Bantum 180A stick and all it needed was a new earth clamp/cable and I am sorted.

Been finding it difficult striking the arc and doing a decent weld as only used Mig before and found that a lot easier. But, I am practicing and loving every minute.

Even love the smell.

Love to, but these mythical beginners are a whole lot scarcer than you guys seem to think, and once I let a 200 pound item into my shop there it stays, displacing traffic forever, collecting dust, grime and chips, and gradually becoming invisible. Far easier to simply harden my heart BEFORE it gets in, than to go on some titanic search for a "beginner". Anyway, if there is a beginner in my neighborhood, he can easily spot this on craigslist just like I can, it's a different world now with free classifieds. There are *always* at least two and often up to ten welders under $100 in my area.

Lot more old welders than new weldors.

I was over talking to the guy who is selling the $25 AC welder. He told me he hasn't gotten even one inquiry in about a month.

Go figger.

GWE

Heds wrote:

Grant, check ebay prices. If you cannot make a quick buck buying this item for $25 and selling to a local "beginner" for $100 (as seems to be the case), it is not even worth talking about it. I fully agree with your reasoning regarding clutter and mythical beginners buying crappy welders.

Here is a rube goldberg idea for heating your shop. Make Bucky balls in your shop which uses a fair amount of electricity. Sell the bucky balls to pay for the power and your shop is warm from the power used. You can get a lot more detail off the internet and need to find an outlet for the bucky balls before getting set up. But the process is essentially using a welder supply to run a carbon arc torch in a sealed chamber with a low pressure argon atmosphere. Collect the soot and extract the bucky balls using solvent. I am not sure how they make nanotubes, but it must be close to the same way.

Just one of those wild ideas I get and never seem to implement.

Dan

Coming this way anytime soon Grant? Bring it too me and Ill pass it on to a newbie. Ive got a number of them haunting my work space.

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 s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner