If you do any heavy 3/16", 1/4" steel welding for any length of time it's best if you have the welder on a separate circuit breaker because it will overheat a breaker if you weld the heavy stuff for more than 3-5 minutes continuous.
When I bought my house, my garage had one light, one 4 plug outlet, and one 2 plug outlet in the rafters for the door opener, all on the same circuit. I am by no means an electrician, but I know enough to tap into other outlets to run more outlets to "spread my power" so to speak. That's what I did. I ran 4 4 plug outlets around the garage. I now have a 33 gallon air compressor, 3 fluorescent lights, and the door opener on one circuit. I have never popped the breaker, but when the lights are on, and I'm sandblasting with the shopvac on as well as the air compressor, I gotta be close. There are 3 extra romex wires coming into the garage, which I assumed were on the same circuit. When my father came for a visit, he tested those wires. They're dead. They are running out the same piece of conduit that my live wire is coming from, so they gotta lead back to the breaker box. How hard would it be to get another circuit out there? And as far as I understand it, all 220 is, is two 110 circuits put together, if I'm correct and it's that simple, then with the 3 extra wires I'll split up my current circuit so there's less draw on that, and use the other 2 wires for 220.
