What amp power point does your 150 amp welders run on, read somewhere they need a 30 amp supply?

Whats the biggest ampage you can run on a 13 amp socket?

Craig

Craig funnily enough its 13 amps, the cable run behind the socket and more importantly the fuse board will not like it too much if you start trying to draw much more than the 13 amps from your typical domestic ring main. Suggest u keep a fire extingusher handy if you do, but the fuse should trip out long before thats your problem. Have a look at a 30 amp socket and the wire diameter rated at thirty amps, should be self apparent. The heaviest draw in a domestic house cct will be your cooker feed (if its lecy).
Shug.

[Edited on 2/12/03 by Hugh Paterson]

I think you'll be getting near the limit of a domestic ring main with a 130A welder - but only if you run it at full power. You will rarely run it at more than half-power most of the time when building a Locost.

I have a 130A MIG that plugs into the garage ring main. I also have a 150A TIG that has its own dedicated 30A socket and spur from the fuse box (not hard/expensive to install, preferably by an electrician!).

David

Okay thanks for that lads, Just wondering before i buy a welder what i can run on the standard main,This house is council owned and i dont want to pay to electrical work done on a house thats not mine,having said that the cooker points not far from the back door mayge an electrician could put a spur on it and a blue 240 volt socket so i could run an extension to the garage from it?

Craig

I run a SIP 150A form normal ring main @ 13amp - no probs

Same here, never tripped out. It does make the lights in the house flicker though. Interestingly my Tig doesn't have that effect despite chucking 40,000 volts about, probably because it's inverter.

Kingr

Same here runs fine at full power. My father's a chartered electrical engineer and has no problem with me using it.

Lights go funny and computer monitors do something strange so might be worth getting whoever's working on the PC to save their work frequently though!

Cheers,
James

quote:

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Originally posted by Hugh Paterson
Craig funnily enough its 13 amps, the cable run behind the socket and more importantly the fuse board will not like it too much if you start trying to draw much more than the 13 amps from your typical domestic ring main. Suggest u keep a fire extingusher handy if you do, but the fuse should trip out long before thats your problem. Have a look at a 30 amp socket and the wire diameter rated at thirty amps, should be self apparent. The heaviest draw in a domestic house cct will be your cooker feed (if its lecy).
Shug.

[Edited on 2/12/03 by Hugh Paterson]

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Craig single phase 150amps (Welding machine on full tilt boogie) is shoving it, especially if the wiring is "old" However I suspect it wont be a problem as long as u are not continually welding. If you are using a Tig machine with HF startup it can wreak memory on hard drives if u are drawing power from the same loop, especially AC/DC welders. Not advised for people with pacemakers or damp welding gloves and likewise standing in puddles, dont half make you breakdance
Shug.

I use a 170 on the shed supply which runs off a 40 amp fuse and it doesn't make the lights flicker at all. As mentioned earlier you will not use anywhere near full power on a car build and if you do use full power on a diy mig it will cut out before the main overheats due to the duty cycle, lucky to get 25% at full power.

yours, Pete.

I use a 170 on the garage supply - if I whack it up to full power it blows the CB.

if you do need more power its not very hard with a modern consumer board. I had a mate stick a 25 CB in for the plasma cutter, looks easy if you know how, like 5 mins work. i dont know how myself, but that isnt the point!

Not had any problems with computers and HF tig - my server's on a UPS, so that wouldn't be affected anyway, but none of the other computers have objected at all.

Kingr