Wild Bill wrote:

What's in this welder described below, a couple of resistors?

Everyone had better hope that utility system current is not passing through
the welder's output leads.

Obviously it is not.

WB

(snicker) Wow what a goober I hacked up that time! I have to laugh at the fact
that electrical engineers are capable of the dumbest things sometimes. OK, let's
amend it: current flows down one leg, through the primary of the transformer and
back through the other leg. Point is, the same current flows in both legs. - GWE




"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...

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





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