Thread: Electric Wiring Problems

No question is going to start a bigger bitch fight then the one you have posed as proven here https://www.woodworkforums.com/f160/buying-mig-20-amp-fuse-10-amp-plug-outlets-shed-94122

However I will say this, you really really should run it from a dedicated 15 amp plug, one day you will want to run it to it's maximum potential and will need the power a 15amp circuit can provide...

Hi,
Boc and other manufacturers make the judgement that a 15 AMP Outlet plug is warranted for installation.There are those in the DIY community who seem to know better and file the plug and use a 10 amp GPO.

Know this ! From that the moment you make an electrical alteration to the machine, any warranty on your new welder instantly evaporates. Please check the situation out with BOC.

Relative to plug alteration, I know of a customer who returned to the retailer, a water blaster that he altered by replacing the standard 15 amp plug with a 10 amp plug.

The man was incensed that he would not be given warranty. He was even more upset when this matter was reffered onto the electrical safety board whom I presume took it to court.

In the scheme of things, a few hundred dollars spent on an electricians services to provide the correctly rated outlet, pales into insignificance against the potential insurance losses and fines caused by illegal fitting or tampering of electrical equipment.

The disclaimer placed under your post by the forum admin is there for a good reason.

Your local govt Electrical safety office can help here as well, to advise you on what are the true facts.

Other opinions may vary.

Grahame

thanks guys. i think i'll go with the 130 Amp welder. this comes with a 10 Amp plug

Originally Posted by the fabricator

thanks guys. i think i'll go with the 130 Amp welder. this comes with a 10 Amp plug

Good move
At one site that I work at they purchased a CIGWELD weldskill 170 which has a 15 amp plug, without considering the workshop had very few 15 amp power points.
Its a real pain to use. If they had of purchased the smaller machine there would have been no problem. I have found you don't need more then 130 amps which is enough to run a 3.25mm electrode

Some people have been known to make a short lead with a 10 amp plug one end and a 15 amp socket on the other

I am surprised a 130 amp welder has a 10 amp plug...Our old 140 amp had a 15 amp plug...My 250 amp mig has a 15 amp plug and I managed to half melt the socket the other day when I was welding with it near flat out...

Originally Posted by .RC.

I am surprised a 130 amp welder has a 10 amp plug...Our old 140 amp had a 15 amp plug...My 250 amp mig has a 15 amp plug and I managed to half melt the socket the other day when I was welding with it near flat out...

Perhaps time to get your protection devices checked , if you melted half a socket and nothing tripped then I would suggest you have a problem with fuse size

Some advice from a former Electrical Engineer ( not an electrical contractor - they are the experts in this field):

Why would you overload a 10 amp circuit by 50% with a 15amp load. That could lead to the mains overheating and eventual fire, depending on the size of the conductors in the mains circuit, the other loads on the circuit, and the location of the run ie., in the ceiling of your house under fibreglass batts, where the ambient is already hot, and the batts prevent heat escaping, which can result in a cascading overheating situation.

An electrical fire is caused by the melting of the insulation on the conductors, and subsequent arcing of the bare phase and neutral / earth conductors when they come in contact. The magniture of the fault current feeding this arc can be a thousand amps or more depending on the location of the fault, way higher than the arc of a welder, just to put things in perspective. Assuming you don't have a high speed Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker on your main switchboard which hopefully will interrupt the arc before any fire takes hold.

So, is all this worth the risk ? Not likely. Get an electrical contractor to run a 15 amp circuit in your shed, and makse sure the mains back to your main switchboard has the capacity to carry your full workshop load.

In relation to the load requirements of the TIG welders, the latest TIG welders use Inverter technology , which require much less power than the old induction autotransformer welder that weighed a ton, and that we all grew up with . The latest 130A TIG welder these days is about the size and weight of a half besser block.

Ashore, get your circuit physically inspected and tested before you use it again. I suspect that you have loose terminal connections on the GPO to generate that amount of heat. Loose terminals occur over time, and are caused by the cyclic heating / cooling process when you load the circuit with your heavy welding current, then it cools down when you have finished.

However, it may also be that there is a genuine heavy and sustained overload, in which case get your electrical protection checked. It should have operated. You may have already damaged the insulation in the wires. It may not have been through this one time of overload, but progressively over the years as the insulation damage from each session accumulates until it reaches a failure point.

Hope this helps

regards,
Jill

Originally Posted by Ashore

Perhaps time to get your protection devices checked ,

The curcuit protection works OK to the point of making me go insane...It is one of those 20 amp flick type and likes to flick down after about 20 seconds of welding on high..

Hi Guys, something to consider, that originated with the electrician who put in our Air Con.

My house started life in the '70s with a stove, a few GPOs and a single light in each room. I've added a shed with 10A GPOs plus a 15A cct for the compressor. There are new downlights and GPOs and the Air Con for the house and the fuse board has been upgraded (two extra to slots) to accommodate it all.


The Electricity Co have even upgraded the Lead-in (not sure how big the Pole fuse is?) ... but the two wires in my ceiling (under the Batts) from the barge board to the Fuse box are the original.

He and I did the math on current flow and we have a reasonable (with in spec) safety margin. However he tells me that many houses had even lower current rated wires going to the fuse board (cause it was cheaper and in 1970 was probably still way more than needed for the projected load).

As some one else suggested in this post if something goes a bit awry e.g. loose screw connectors or a crimped wire … everything can get very hot and incendiary very quickly indeed ... get it checked out.