Almost got hurt today. PSA

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Cope said:
I looked at the welder again today. I was wrong. Its 40 amps on the settings not 40 amps draw.

It's a 50 amp cord with a 20 amp pigtail.

We tested it again with the 220 cord off his MIG. about 2 min and that cord was melting. To rule out his 50 amp circuit we switched the machine over to 110 and put the 110 cord on and it instantly melted that one also so we took the machine in and dropped it off. Lincoln. Is gonna warranty it. We also gave them the 3 burned cords.

They wont pick it up till next Thursday so it will be a while before we hear what the problem is.
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I'll say it once more..... this machine really should not be on a 50A breaker; it does not pull nearly that level of current. The fact that it is pulling enough current to melt the cord but to NOT trip the breaker is proof. Look up the current level versus time-to-trip on ANY breaker; 55 amps on a 50A breaker will take many MINUTES to trip the thermal section. You don't have adequate overcurrent protection for this machine's cordage with that 50A breaker.
 
I recall we had the electrician add a 30A 110V breaker for the little MIG welder the boss got us for some unknown reason. It came in handy for that chop saw that appeared shortly after. 20A circuit didn't stand a chance with that thing. Added the appropriate sized extension cord too.
 
nm9stheham said:
Yep... I have the habit of putting one hand in my back pocket. Story: I found the main 200A breaker tripped on my house near Ft Wayne..... used a 3' long wood stick to reset it..... BLAMO! Like a grenade going off... due to a dead short between the 2 phases inside the panel. Glad I was 3'-4' away 'cuz I really jumped!

I used to work on some Navy 50,000W transmitters..... working around 5000-10,000 volts DC will make you veeeery careful.
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Where I work, the company requires us to wear flash gear to install even a 20 amp breaker. We have up to 138,000 volts available. We mostly work with only 480.
 
So for the record, this was not at my shop and I was not doing the welding.

I have been passing on all the info from here to my buddy tho.

My main point was, trip the breaker before touching the cord. That's what almost ruined my day.
 
Dfr360cuda said:
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Where I work, the company requires us to wear flash gear to install even a 20 amp breaker. We have up to 138,000 volts available. We mostly work with only 480.
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Yeah we did some work on a power plant a couple of years ago.... we stayed waaaay far away from everything. I had to keep reminding and explaining to one of our guys..... 'Don't walk right in front of/beside those boxes that say thousands of volts on them!'; he finally got the message.
 
nm9stheham said:
Yeah we did some work on a power plant a couple of years ago.... we stayed waaaay far away from everything. I had to keep reminding and explaining to one of our guys..... 'Don't walk right in front of/beside those boxes that say thousands of volts on them!'; he finally got the message.
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So...
Where I work, we had an explosion Sunday night. Anyone in the Pittsburgh area has probably seen it on the news. I'll try to get a picture to post here. See what a 4160 volt, 1200 amp breaker looks like after a catastrophic failure. Also the coupling and the compressor it was feeding self destructed.
 
Cope said:
So for the record, this was not at my shop and I was not doing the welding.

I have been passing on all the info from here to my buddy tho.

My main point was, trip the breaker before touching the cord. That's what almost ruined my day.
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I try to remember to do that on my 175 mig at home, home made 8/3 extension cord if I remember right . Keep the breakers off until hooked up and ready to weld-----------
 
B5B204D0-09B5-4FFC-B65D-B1D46DD2C698.jpeg
This is what you find inside the tig 200. Of anything goes wrong with it the only repair is to replace the entire inside of the sheet metal. My best guess without seeing the machine cope had was the input board which determines what voltage is coming in failed.
 
Nothing like a good old zap to ruin ones day. I worked at a check printer. Dayshift guy had a habit of foil wrapping the fuses on things. Don't remember the details but thanks to him one of the fuses fried in the box...24' off the floor. All we had was this rickety old step ladder. Just glad I was still young and healthy back then...seems Charlie had to swap the fuse out that same day and when he shut the box he bent the crap out of things. I reached up to turn it off...and the ladder broke. So there I was, hanging off of all the electrical feed equipment, 24' in the air...waiting for the fire department to show up. Luckily they were only right at the edge of our complex. Needless to say OSHA showed up the next day...that whole fiasco cost the company quite a bit of $$...
 
inkjunkie said:
Nothing like a good old zap to ruin ones day. I worked at a check printer. Dayshift guy had a habit of foil wrapping the fuses on things. Don't remember the details but thanks to him one of the fuses fried in the box...24' off the floor. All we had was this rickety old step ladder. Just glad I was still young and healthy back then...seems Charlie had to swap the fuse out that same day and when he shut the box he bent the crap out of things. I reached up to turn it off...and the ladder broke. So there I was, hanging off of all the electrical feed equipment, 24' in the air...waiting for the fire department to show up. Luckily they were only right at the edge of our complex. Needless to say OSHA showed up the next day...that whole fiasco cost the company quite a bit of $$...
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We had a rental telescopic manlift on site at the rock farm and I had some elevated work to do and time to do it so off I went. In the usual company $ policy they decided my side of the plant was a one man operation so I never had help unless I could plan it ahead of time and it fit in with the rockhead's desires. Up I go. Get the manlift in the extended position and something goes awry in the controls in the basket. Try as I might, that basket was not moving. Closest co-worker is 200 yds away. Luckily the communal rest room was next to my plant. One of them finally had to make a restroom break. The rockhead thought I was just waving my hard hat at him just to be cordial :rofl:
 
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