Welder question s

[Mild Bill]

Ive watched several Vietnamese shows about girl mechanics some of whom do welding with what looks like our 110 welders. They daub or spot welds to finally bring them together. Ive got a Craftsman generator moder 5500 and a 8500 watt capacity. Could I use that on a Lincoln Tombstone welder and weld a straight, say, 10in weld, OR would I have to do as the girls do spot weld until the weld is finished?? I dont know if this is just a regional thing with them, or if there afraid to blow a fuse with a continious weld. Thanks

 

[m16ty]

Don't do those spot welds you see videos of, especially with a stick welder. It will not work out as nice as it looks in the videos and you'll wind up with a bunch of slag inclusion. I think it's video trickery that they make decent weld with those "spot" welds, nobody in real life welds like that.

Your welder is 220v, doing the math 8500 watts will get you 36 input amps. I think that welder pulls 50 input amps at 225 amp setting on the dial. So theoretically I'd say you could possibly run 120 amps or so on the dial. You've also got to keep in mind that most consumer grade generators won't actually output their advertised wattage. They might for a very short period but I'd bet that generator won't sustain a 8500 watt draw very long.
You have to get up into industrial grade generators to get a sustained full advertised watt rating. Most of those can handle 110% usually without issue and will hold 100% watt rating all day long.

 

[Fixingfarmer]

Depends what you have the dial set to.

My Lincoln generator/welder says 10000 watt on it for the generator side and that’s probably what it would take to go at the full amp setting thicker rod

If you have both plug it in and try it. Worst thing that happens is you trip it out. It’s a very handy thing to be able to run around with

 

[john in la]

I ran a tombstone welder for years with only a 30 amp 7200 watt breaker.
I was too cheap to buy 50 amp wire to the plug.
Yes you could not crank the welder to top amps to weld thick metal.
Yes you could run about 1 rod then you had to give the welder a cool down break. Because doing ether of the above would trip the breaker.

But to weld general around the farm stuff with a normal amp setting where you weld a little bit fit a little bit and weld a little bit it worked fine.

 

[Ericp351]

No go. I tried 95% same set up with an OK 10 hp gen. Hauled out as didn,t have enough cable, and could not get proper arc. Sorry. Post script, I had good use over years and 1/8 rod with 40amp 220v feed. 90 amp and up, as reqd. 50 amp recommended, 40 amp works.

 

[Dopp Creek]

I have used my Miller AC/DC welder (220volt) powered by my Generac 5500W generator for some field repairs. I think I ran 120 amps DC and it did the job. Since they were minor repairs I wasn't welding much more than half a rod at any time.

 

[DanielW]

For years the only 'portable' welding I was able to do was a 10 kW home-owner generator with one of my 220V transformer stick welders. It definitely wasn't great, and I wouldn't want to go back to that being my method for field welding. 3/32" rod at 110 amps was about the heaviest I could run, and even that was pushing it. If I went to a heavier rod (and the extra amperage it needed), or went to low-hy or different alloy rod that was trickier to run would be a total PIA.

Neither the generator's rated/continuous wattage nor the breaker size were the primary concern: Once (if) you struck the arc and were moving along it would handle it dandy. It was striking the initial arc that was the problem: As soon as you'd strike the arc, the genny would bog down for just a quick half second or so until the governor kicked in and brought it back up. But in that brief moment when it bogged down at lost a bit of power, it would lose the arc, then it'd come back strong and you'd have manipulated it slightly trying to keep the arc going or similar. You'd end up sticking the rod, and it would bog it down again, and the process would repeat a couple of times until it threw the breaker on the welder. You'd end up having to do the opposite of what you're suggesting: Running continuous welds as long as possible to avoid having to strike an arc if you didn't have to.

I'm certainly not the world's best stick welder, but I'm pretty decent. When running at the farm on the shop power I do dandy. And even at the house in town where I use an adapter to run of a 30 amp dryer outlet I've never had a problem. But running on that genny was a constant frustration unless you kept below about 110 amps. Which might be fine for some really light work, but doesn't cut it for heavier equipment repairs. I had much better luck running (loathe as I am to admit) a flux-core 220V welder on that genny. Later I bought an old Lincoln welder/generator combo. Even though the Lincoln is only a 7 kW unit, it's waaaay better at striking and maintaining the arc than the 10 kW home-owner genny was. I do wonder if a different genny with a different governor response might have been better?

Now that I invested a few thousand $$ in a proper heavy-duty MIG setup, I've become lazy/stupid in my welding and run MIG for just about everything. Can't remember the last time I ran stick was - probably not since last summer.

 

[chvet73]

Now that I invested a few thousand $$ in a proper heavy-duty MIG setup, I've become lazy/stupid in my welding and run MIG for just about everything. Can't remember the last time I ran stick was - probably not since last summer.

I haven’t used my Lincoln in I can’t tell you how long.

 

[tom upton]

Right or wrong I am just the opposite. I hardly use my mig. Have a ac/dc stick welder that does majority of work. Only use the wire feed for super light stuff. I started production welding many years ago just before GMAW became popular. Used mostly jet rod. When we first started using wire, a good guy with 5/32 or 3/16 jet rod could keep up or surpass the wire feed on a lot of jobs. Its still pretty hard to beat the look and speed of a well laid 7024 pass.

 

[Ericp351]

I,m with Mr. Tom, above. Burn her in with 6010 or 6011. 7018 for looks. 6013 thin. Nickel and a torch for cast. Mig or f lux core OK for car body repair. Flux better in wind. Get her done, strong, stick. Mig for little household stuff , and to kill time. Stick when your forged pad eye needs to chain down a tank to the deck.

 

[Earl Grey]

I did some welding once with my 180-amp AC Airco buzz box on a 30-amp breaker, but I think I kept the amperage down to about 110 and use smaller rods. I have a 5700-watt 240 V generator now, I might try it with that sometime.

 

[Mule Meat]

Ive watched several Vietnamese shows about girl mechanics some of whom do welding with what looks like our 110 welders.

Like most of the world. Vietnam uses 220 Volt. So what looks like a 110 volt welder is actually running on 220.

 

[Mild Bill]

Then Mulely lol, u saying cause they use 220, then daub welding is just a cultural habit?

 

[Mule Meat]

Then Mulely lol, u saying cause they use 220, then daub welding is just a cultural habit?

No. A lot of fabricators use daub welding to weld parts. You see it mostly when someone is working with sheet metal such as auto bodies. It keeps the parts from distorting from heat that would be created with continuous welds. You did not say what they were welding. So maybe it is done to keep the parts within specific tolerance.

 

[m16ty]

No. A lot of fabricators use daub welding to weld parts. You see it mostly when someone is working with sheet metal such as auto bodies. It keeps the parts from distorting from heat that would be created with continuous welds. You did not say what they were welding. So maybe it is done to keep the parts within specific tolerance.

I’ve done it many times with MIG and thin metal, but you’ll get a bunch of slag inclusion doing that with stick.

 

[T@G]

Interesting. We use MAG ( "MIG") welding due to ease of use and productivity, welding thicker stuff. What needs to stay on. Rutile flux cored wires ( which needs gas shield aswell). Cant see how stick welding would be faster than feeding wire with 4T.

Cant remember when welded last time with stick... Hmm wait, burned some sticks while repairing cracked industrial water pump housing, cast iron.

 

[m16ty]

Right or wrong I am just the opposite. I hardly use my mig. Have a ac/dc stick welder that does majority of work. Only use the wire feed for super light stuff. I started production welding many years ago just before GMAW became popular. Used mostly jet rod. When we first started using wire, a good guy with 5/32 or 3/16 jet rod could keep up or surpass the wire feed on a lot of jobs. Its still pretty hard to beat the look and speed of a well laid 7024 pass.

I love the MIG when it comes to thin stuff and new metal, in the comfort of my shop, but stick for most farm welding. More often than not I’m welding a piece of old farm equipment back together or building something out of salvaged steel. While you should still clean your joints with stick, you don’t have to get it as clean as you do with MIG. Also, you can do a dirty weld to just get by with stick, where you just can’t with MIG. Then there is the issue with shielding gas outdoors.

Honestly, most people that think MIG is the superior process for virtually all welding think that because it’s the only process they can make a decent weld with. People should learn stick before they ever pickup a MIG gun, and that’s the way most welding schools teach it. Really, they should actually learn gas welding first, as it gives you a better understanding of the overall process of joining two pieces of metal together. Once you learn gas and stick, it’s real easy to pickup MIG and TIG.

 

[TomA in CA]

I ran my 225 transformer of a 7000 w generator once. . I didn't care for the bog and feared for long term effects on generator so I don't do it anymore.