I am in the Market for a new welder, to upgrade from my 110V Welder. I
probably will hardly ever doing anything thicker than 1/4", so I plan
on buying either
Lincoln Electric 175
Hobart Handler 180 Mig Welder
Millermatic 175 Mig Welder
So the first question, what size of AMP outlet do I need for one of
these? 50A, 40A, 30A? I'm trying to figure out whether I need to run
6 guage, 8 guage, or 10 guage wire for it. I know the big ARC welders
require 50A, but I wasn't sure about the MIG welders at this size.
There's a big difference in price for the wire, so wanted to make sure
I didn't go too big.
Also, while I'm at it, does anyone have an issue with any of the above?
I even see Home Deport carries the Lincoln Electric 175 for only $599
which seems like a great price. I was leaning towards the Hobart for
the best bang for the buck, but then I saw the Lincoln at Home Depot
for that price.
Thanks.
I went to their sites and can't seem to find that easily, can you point
me to the right link. I'm guessing I will need about 80 feet.
I see on most of these, this rating...
230 V, 19.5 A, 60 Hz
But, I'm still assuming I need a 30A or 40A outlet, just not finding
the information easily, maybe I'm just blind :-)
Well I figure 50 AMP, 6 guage Wire is the Safest, Biggest to go with,
but I wanted to make sure that wasn't major overkill. For example, if
it says you need about 30amps, then I would like to go with a 40 AMP
breaker, and 8 gauge wire.
I just wanted to find out for sure.
You could probably get along just fine with 30 amp breaker and 10 ga
wire. The problem is, if you want to go to anything other than the
smaller inverter welders, you would need to make the double jump to 50
amp and 6 ga.
sparty wrote:
So let's say I use a 40 amp breaker and 8 guage wire. I guess you are
saying that is more than enough for something like Millermatic 175 Mig
Welder. So 6 years from now, if I decided to go to the Millermatic 210
Mig Welder, would that be enough? They still have much bigger welders
than that, so would a Millermatic 210, be fine on a 40amp 8guage setup?
Most of the transformer based welders want bigger input circuits. Rated
input amps for various products you might want to upgrade to include:
Millermatic 210 (This is only 160 amps output) 27 amps
formatting link
Lincoln Power Mig 215 41 amps
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Lincoln Precision TIG 185 64 amps (AC for aluminum)
Check Miller's website it says the Millermatic 210 draws 27 amps at 230
but i've seen a lot more 250's listed used and they draw 42 amps
if you might buy a used welder bigger than yours youre likely to find
the 250 and you'll need a 50 amp for it
sparty wrote:
I can't image ever needing anything bigger than a 210. I even think
the 175-180 models from all 3 companies will be big enough for me.
They can all do 1/4" in one pass.
So it sounds like the 175-180 models from the companies could run off
of a 30 amp breaker and 10 guage wire. But for future's sake, I'll
probably run a 40amp breaker and 8 guage wire to be safe.
Brent Phili> Check Miller's website it says the Millermatic 210 draws 27 amps at 230 >
Personally I went with 6ga and put in the appropiate breaker for the welder
hooked to it. If the welder specs called for 40A then use a 40. That way I
can upgrade my welder plug with only a breaker change. The difference in the
price of the wire wasn't enough to pay for redoing in the future.
I can't image ever needing the 250 machines and higher. I think a
175-180 model machine will last me for a long time and can easily do
1/4" in one pass. Maybe some day if I found a used 210 model and
decided I wanted to do 3/8 - 1/2" then I might get one. This is mainly
for hobby projects and off-roading skid plates and such. So all of it
should definitely be 1/4" and less.
I'll double check the wire prices. If running 6 guage is only about
$20-$30 more for the length I need, then I will just go ahead an run 6
guage and use a 30 amp breaker for now with this model. It probably is
a good idea to go with the heaviest guage to not worry about re-wiring
in the future.
You need to size the breaker to the smallest capacity item in the
system. That could be the wire or the receptacle.
Otherwise you could end up with a fire, very bad....
Michelle
Maybe what I will do then, is run the 6 guage wire and then wait until
I buy the welder. Then I will see what kind of plug it comes with and
buy that amperage outlet and breaker. Thanks.
You'll be able to do a lot of welding with one of these machines if
you don't need to do aluminum.
If you have a short run from the panel, you don't need a massive
circuit to run any of them. 30A is plenty. 30A breaker, 10 gauge
wire and a NEMA 6-50 receptacle.
Remember that welding is inherently intermittent.
I have a 20 amp 12 gauge 240V circuit in my garage that a former
homeowner used for his compressor. I routinely run a Miller 172
MIG or a TA185 inverter TIG off it and have never popped the
breaker. The TIG could trip it running flat out, but under 100
amps, it will run all day.
As others have noted, if you anticipate a bigger welder in the
future, use appropriate sized wire & breaker.
Cheers--Jeff Dantzler
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