Wilk
Part of things
Posts: 528
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I previously ran a Clarke 135 but have recently swapped it to a 210 sealy. The sealy is also recommended to run from a 16a supply so I installed a dedicated feed straight from the fuse box using 6mm cable. I've then fitted a blue 240v 16a "site" socket. Then fitted a 16a 240v site plug to the welder as well as creating a 10m extension lead to allow access around the garage Alls good until friends want to use the welder so I also made up a "caravan" lead with 16a 240v trailing blue site socket and a 16a normal style 3 pin house plug on the other end. Unfortunately laziness gets the better most of the time so the welder gets used on the caravan lead from a normal ring main socket. It's been used like this for over a year now and has been used at probably 8/10ths power. It's never tripped any fuse or given any probs. in reality it'll prob not get used at full power long enough to be drawing 16a and need the heavier duty supply that was created for it. Unless you're going to be welding at max power for continuous periods then you'll easily get away with a normal 3 pin plug (16a version to accommodate the heavier cabling) Hope this helps
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If it can be fixed with a hammer, then it must be an electrical fault
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Yup the site socket you refer to is the Commando I mentioned earlier.
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haggis
Part of things
Posts: 459
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Jan 13, 2016 20:48:19 GMT
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Well I bought the 135 turbo in the end
Looking forward to getting it up to the garage and having a play
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Jan 14, 2016 14:48:31 GMT
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I have a 20 year old Clarke 150, it's been well used and has had little more than the wire liner and low voltage electrical wire to the handset replaced in this time, It really needs a new handset now but still does the job.
Over the years I have used most gas types, argon mix gives the best welds but CO2 is not far behind and much better value, this is what I use now. I use hobby weld, you pay a one off fee and then just pay when you want a re-fill (last CO2 was £27 and lasted for the whole of the range rover).
Small bottles don't last long but it can be useful to have one or two around to finish the job off when you run out of the big bottle.
Another tip is to buy a flow meter to set the gas flow with, you can waste a lot of gas doing it by ear.
If you short out the tip on a high current setting it will sometimes blow the 13A mains fuse but this is not really a problem.
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Last Edit: Jan 14, 2016 14:50:12 GMT by kevins
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Jan 14, 2016 16:26:35 GMT
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I'm not a sparky but my experience says: I have no idea what they mean by a convertor, unless they thought you had 3 phase but then the rest doesn't make sense. Depending on how your garage power is arranged you more than likely would safely get away with running it on a normal 13amp plug, you aren't going to be pulling massive amounts of power continually so as long as the socket is on a 30amp ring main and not a spur there's little chance of overloading the wiring. It might blow the fuse in the plug on high settings however. It's unlikely to trip out anything on the fuse box. In an ideal world you would have a dedicated feed from the fuse box to a blue 16amp supply socket and plug in there. In the real world this will almost always mean you will end up with a long extention lead to get to the other side of the car which may cause you problems of its own... I do power as part of the day job & you are basically bang on. Also the MIG will only be drawing full power when welding thick ,etals & at the top of its range. theoretical max of 13amp socket is 3120 watts, potential max from a 150 amp welder at 31 volts open circuit is 4250 watts. however i read with overheads in the transformer (i.e severe loses converting the power) plus the power conversion factor (AC to DC volt conversion is not a 1:1 relationship) basically the welder never actually manages anywhere near its maximum rated amperage. plus the mig welder is only rated 150 amps at 10% duty cycle (so 1 minute welding, 9 minutes on thermal cutout resting) its more likely to hit that thermal overload/cutout before its troubles a 13amp domestic socket. i run a 151te on 13amp plug, i must admit the pins do get warm on the very rare occasions the welder is on max settings welding extremely thick metal (basically never). On lower settings on car body work it will be fine and will run all day at 100% duty obviously don't go welding thick metal with a 2kw convector heater churning away up the end of the garage, then you will be popping breakers
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Last Edit: Jan 14, 2016 17:05:39 GMT by darrenh
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