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I bought a welder and a flannel shirt... 220v vs. 240v question.
Pics to follow after I drop my first stack of dimes... but before I can do that...
When my 1962 house received a second story and big sunroom in 1992, they upgraded the 100amp panel to a 200amp panel. The job is garbage... outlets on opposite sides of the house on the same circuit, a random outlet in a hallway on the gfci, the entire garage on a single 15amp, one single solitary outside light on it's own dedicated 20amp... I've spent 2yrs tracing things down and it would make Jesus weep the job they did.
Anyways... the old 220v? outlet in the garage that was for the dryer before the remodel is still there. The breaker has been open just waiting for me to find something for it. Behold the Harbor Freight Titanium 200 ($350 cash to a bro who bought a storage unit and had 5 of them, normally $850). Big score for me, but the 220v? dryer outlet is not the same as the 240v? plug on the welder. I know there's a Europe vs. America 220v/240v and that we used to use the "older style outlets" is that what is going on here or am I all wrong? Can I just run to Taylors and swap out to a newer plug?
Big score for me, but the 220v? dryer outlet is not the same as the 240v? plug on the welder. I know there's a Europe vs. America 220v/240v and that we used to use the "older style outlets" is that what is going on here or am I all wrong? Can I just run to Taylors and swap out to a newer plug?
The terms 220 / 230 / 240 are used pretty much interchangeably in North America. Unless very precisely specified otherwise, they all mean the same thing: split-phase (aka, single-phase center-tapped) where each hot leg is worth 120v (or 110v, or 115v) relative to neutral, and 240v (yadda) relative to the other hot leg. They're 180° out of phase with one another.
208 is a whole different animal (that's the RMS voltage you get between two legs of a 3 phase Wye supply, with a 120° phase offset), but that's not important here.
In residential applications, there have been several different standards over the years for electric ovens and electric dryers. Originally, they were all three-wire (no ground), and maybe the appliance chassis was externally bonded to ground, or maybe it was internally bonded to neutral (which... was sort of safe, except for if the neutral wire broke in which case it was lethal), and maybe it wasn't connected to anything.
Newer homes use four-wire receptacles, which are pretty much interchangeable, other than that they now have a dedicated ground wire, separate from the neutral. Under normal circumstances, neutral and ground should be at the same potential, and are in fact tied together inside the primary distribution panel. But they're supposed to always be separate after that.
Also, as a broad generalization, electric dryer outlets tend to be 30A, while electric range outlets tend to be 50A. But builders have interchanged them over the years...
Ok, enough residential history.
That plug on your welder is a NEMA 6-50. Somewhat common in industrial settings, not typically found in the home. Rated 240 (or 220 or 230 or 208) at 50A. Two hot wires and a ground, no neutral.
The socket on your wall, rather interestingly, is a 50A range outlet, not a 30A dryer outlet. I mean, they both work exactly the same (two hot wires and a neutral, no ground), it's just uncommon to see a 10-50 in a garage, as that specific receptacle is normally found in the kitchen.
The difference is the shape of the neutral pin. In a 30A socket, it's L-shaped. In a 50A socket, it's straight. The only reason for this is to prevent you from plugging a device which draws 50A into a circuit only rated for 30A.
Which... is literally the exact thing you're trying to do here.
This is a 10-30 outlet, normally used for clothes dryers:
This is a 10-50, normally used for electric ranges:
So, in theory, you are good to go with either an adapter or cutting off the plug from your welder and replacing it with an electric range plug. Technically, that socket you have is ungrounded, but neutral is the same as ground, except for when it isn't. (This is usually when you're being electrocuted.)
I would, however, want to verify the gauge of the wire feeding that receptacle first. You can get away with 10awg for a 30A circuit, but for a 50A circuit, the code specifies 6awg. It'd be... slightly unusual if the electrician pulled 6awg to a garage for a dryer.
What size fuses are installed in the panel for that branch? Worst-case, replace the 50A fuses / breaker with 30A (if the branch is wired with 8 or 10awg), and don't max out the welding current.
Last edited by Joe Perez; 10-17-2023 at 09:42 PM.
Reason: schpelling
Joe, I followed 90% of that... the parts about electrocution I glossed over. Tomorrow I will check the breaker panel and pull the cover off the outlet and check the wiring and report back with pics.
You can find those 220-240 pin plugs in all mcdonalds kitchens in Australia.
Pretty sure its just to stop 11 Yr old slave-staff from plugging dumb **** in. Considering there's like 4 daisy chained normally, and all the important stuff is on other dedicated plugs...
Just as different plug top.
That plug on your welder is a NEMA 6-50. Somewhat common in industrial settings, not typically found in the home. Rated 240 (or 220 or 230) at 50A.
I would, however, want to verify the gauge of the wire feeding that receptacle first. You can get away with 10awg for a 30A circuit, but for a 50A circuit, the code specifies 6awg. It'd be... slightly unusual if the electrician pulled 6awg to a garage for a dryer.
That's the biggest concern I noticed; the welder has the same 6-50 plug I use to run my TIG and charge my wife's car, but your vintage wiring looks tiny, even for 30 amps. My 50amp 6awg cable has a minimum bend radius of...huge. With the insulation it has a OD around the size of a quarter I'd guess.
I also have a 30amp 220v in the garage for the air compressor and have used that outlet for the TIG, and it never threw the breaker. But then again I'm not sure if I ever used the whole 200amps welding anything ever at home. Your air cooled torch and therefore your man hands won't like that.
I'm running this 50amp receptacle with 10/3 wiring on a 30a double pole breaker. Just like others have stated, dont run full power on the welder and the breakers wont trip. So far, I havent welded anything thick enough to require a wire and breaker upgrade
Breakers are 30amp x2. Ill Crack the outlet open this afternoon and check the wiring.
Ok, that's what I expected. No need to check the wire gauge at this point, judging from the lack of chonkiness of the cable in your original photo, I'm pretty sure it's 10awg.
Actually, check it anyway. Wouldn't it be hilarious if it turned out to be aluminum wiring rather than copper?
I looked up the manual on your welder. According to the specs, it maxes out (on the 240v side) at 28.7A for TIG, 33.6A for stick, and 36A for MIG. Those numbers are low enough that you're probably* fine just running as-is. Your range outlet there in the garage is a code violation (it should technically be replaced with a 30A outlet), but if that doesn't bother you, you could just build a 6-50R to 10-50P adaptor (or chop off the plug from the welder and install a 10-50P plug onto it) and run it, secure in the knowledge that there is only a small** risk that this will cause your house to burn down, killing your family in a pretty gruesome way.
* = you might burn the house down
** = not as small as the risk of being shot by a dog carrying a gun in its mouth at the beach
Location: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
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I don't know much about melting things with electricity, but like state farm, i have seen a thing or two.
I do now know the current carrying capacity of a 6" C-clamp is about 2000 amps.
You're likely never going to hit that max current at whatever duty cycle that machine is rated at anyway. Keep the breaker, put the new plug in. Should be good.
Oh, come on. He might just get some cool pictures of the wiring glowing red hot like Erat posts.
I think the long and short of it is this: If it were our house and our welder, we'd run it. But none of us is actually going to say "Yeah, you're totally solid, go ahead and run it" because that would mean that we're recommending that you plug one code violation into another (existing) code violation, and we'd probably feel slightly bad for a few minutes if you did this and it did in fact wind up killing your whole family.
Isn't this fun!
Pics... went by Taylors on the way home and picked up the receptacle that matches the plug on my welder just in case.
Then came home and put the tester on the outlet to make sure it was cold... check.
Popped the cover off and discovered what I think is 10ga solid wire.
There is no way the new receptacle will accept the solid 10ga wire.
SO, lets say I swap out the plug on my welder and/or find an adapter... the real danger here is overheating the wire, yes? I can keep a margin of safety by never running the welder wide-open while MIG'ing? I also read that 10ga wire is good for 35amps... and the max MIG is 36amps... so... like what Joe/Erat/Tim said above.
This discussion makes me smile - the things we do, that send our children bananas ... I bought a new oven. Instructions say must be installed by licenced electrician, so I opened it up anyway - hmmm, has a three pin plug on the end of the lead!? You need an electrician to plug it into the socket? Turns out when I pulled the old one out it had been hard-wired, but that was easily fixed after a visit to Bunnings, purveyors of Fine Electrical Fittings for Fools Who Want To Play at being Electricians and Dice With Death. I smile when I see all the warnings on their shelves that this stuff can only be installed by licenced electricians, yeah right!
Joe is right, this is not without risk: know the risk, know your limitations and when to stop and get an expert in. My hoist wouldn't work, so after testing various wires with the multimeter didn't show the problem, I pulled the cover off the control box - took one look at the spaghetti in there and called in a bloke who installs these things for a living, who took 30 seconds to get it working.
Years ago, my dad needed a new furnace. As they were prepping for the install, the tech told my dad there was a very small gas leak at the adjacent water heater. They then left, the scheduled install date being the next day.
While they were gone, dad and I disassembled the offending gas lines, cleaned the threads, reapplied the proper sealing tape and reassembled the whole thing. We checked the joints for leaks using the standard soapy water method.
Now, per local regulations, this is not legal, requiring licensed professionals to deal with natural gas lines, because we've all seen the dodgy crap that most DIY people do.
When the tech finished installing the new furnace, he told my dad "You do good work." My dad looked him in the eye and proclaimed he had someone else do the work, and the tech winked and said, "Yeah, right."
10-16-2023, 03:30 PM
I bought a welder and a flannel shirt... 220v vs. 240v question.
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