Jeff wrote:

Got a question about circuit breakers, I have a HarbourFreight stick
welder, that is marked 120/240v draws 41 Amps, Does this mean it draws 41
Amps at 120 or 20.5 Amps at 240V? I'm talking about through each leg, if
hooked up as 220V.

I have it wired the welder hooked up for 220V operating, and have a dbl
pole 40 Amp breakers in my panel, it's been working fine for the
past year. Is the dbl pole 40 breaker the correct size for this
application? Does this mean that each leg of the break is capable of
drawing 40 amps each?

Should I reduce the size of this break to a dbl pole 25 Amp breaker? By
the way, I installed this dbl pole 40 Amp breaker myself last year.

I think you should resize your breaker to a 30 amp double pole breaker.

Current flows out of one leg, through the welder, through the work, back through
the welder's ground lead, and back through the other leg. Yes, the current flows
in both legs. A little buzzbox stick welder can draw 41 amps at 240VAC. The part
you didn't mention is how many amps your welder can weld with. Let's suppose
it's 250 amps at 25 volts AC. Power is volts times amps, so that's delivered
power of 6250 watts. Let's assume your welder's transformer is 20% lossy, so
we'll divide 6250 by 0.8 and get 7812 watts of input power. To calculate the
current needed from a 220V plug, divide 7812 by 220 to get 35 amps. So you can
see that 41 amps at 220 is not unreasonable. You can almost certainly get by
with a 30 amp breaker. If you pulled wire that's too small for a 40 amp breaker
(did you use 8 gauge wire or 10 gauge wire?) then it may be prudent to downsize
the breaker to 30 amps. By the way, I have a little buzzbox welder, and I run it
through a 30 amp breaker and about 15 feet of conduit and a receptacle, and I
used no. 10 wire. I never ever turn my welder all the way up, or at least I
haven't yet, so this setup is fine for the little buzzbox.

Grant