Need electrical help

animal-inside

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Bought a cheap chinese welder for small jobs around the house.. I don't expect much out of it, but it will serve its purpose.

My issue is the male end of the welder is different than my 220 outlet.

I have a 220 extension peice with the correct male end. I would like to chop off the incorrect 220 end and use a junction box to mate it to the correct extension.

I've done this before, but can't recall exactly how I dealt with the obvious issue of 3 prongs to 4. I know my terminoly isn't correct, but I figured it out last time. Thought I'd ask her before using volt meter and internet to figure it out.

Any help ?
 

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Looks like you want to plug into your dryer outlet to make the welder work..why not buy a welder receptacle and put that on the end of the noma dryer cord?
 
I cut the cord off an old dryer and cut the end off my welder cord. So I could plug it into my dryer plug.. probably not much help. But it worked for me
 
Hey man. I can't help you but you can also go on reddit and type in r/electrical and you should be able to find answers.

Also you might be surprised by that welder, I bought a 110v master craft and built 2 heavy duty offroad bumpers.
 
Remember dryers are usually on a 30amp breaker whereas a stove is 50amp. Welders are 50amp...so depending on how hot youre running your welder you might be tripping the breaker on a dryer circuit. Id get one of these....and put it on the end so you plug your welder into it.

 
Bought a cheap chinese welder for small jobs around the house.. I don't expect much out of it, but it will serve its purpose.

My issue is the male end of the welder is different than my 220 outlet.

I have a 220 extension peice with the correct male end. I would like to chop off the incorrect 220 end and use a junction box to mate it to the correct extension.

I've done this before, but can't recall exactly how I dealt with the obvious issue of 3 prongs to 4. I know my terminoly isn't correct, but I figured it out last time. Thought I'd ask her before using volt meter and internet to figure it out.

Any help ?
You only need the black, red and bare ground wire.
You will not need the neutral line on the welder. So I’d cap it off and tape it up well.

Black and red are the load (live) lines.

Btw it doesn’t matter if you reverse the two loads, they are the same, so even if you wired black to red and red to black it will function exactly the same.

Oh and if the cable is long enough, just thread it into the machine and wire it to the load connectors inside, then cap or tape off well the white line.

I’m in the middle of wiring my garage, lol. I ran my 220 welder line in the wall today.
 
You only need the black, red and bare ground wire.
You will not need the neutral line on the welder. So I’d cap it off and tape it up well.

Black and red are the load (live) lines.

Btw it doesn’t matter if you reverse the two loads, they are the same, so even if you wired black to red and red to black it will function exactly the same.

Oh and if the cable is long enough, just thread it into the machine and wire it to the load connectors inside, then cap or tape off well the white line.

I’m in the middle of wiring my garage, lol. I ran my 220 welder line in the wall today.
I’m an electrician and sorbs has it right.
 
THanks for the replies!!

The receptacle is 220 50am.. The welder is 240 40 amp

I found a cheap 30$ adaptor on amazon I might just grab..

The welder has the older style dryer male end and the garage has the updated neutral separate from ground recptable.
 
If I get bored tomorrow I'll patch up the cord in the junction box.. I wish the male end I have opens up, but its solid plastic so I have to do the joint in the junction box.
 
If I get bored tomorrow I'll patch up the cord in the junction box.. I wish the male end I have opens up, but its solid plastic so I have to do the joint in the junction box.
Well why not just buy the welding receptacle and attach your stove cord to it minus your neutral (white) that you tape up. I wouldnt cut the factory cap off the welder. Its a standard welding plug. Youd have basically an adapter cord. Its just screws in the receptacle that you put your stripped wire under..lugs..its not hard.

Youd also need big marettes or small burndies and try to stuff all that in an octagon you got if you cut the cord to make joints. Plus you'd need connectors for the box L18s or 19s...easier to just get a receptacle and put it on the end and keep everything factory.
 
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Funny you mentioned this I was just givin a Mig welder literally a day ago and am wiring a 220 plug onto the end of er. The fourth is a neutral correct? And for the love of god remember if there going off of European wiring (A lot of Chinese tools do) that white can be live and black can be power.... I’ve made that mistake before.... And a million angry pixies hurt....like a lot.

Regards
SonOfOdin
 
Well why not just buy the welding receptacle and attach your stove cord to it minus your neutral (white) that you tape up. I wouldnt cut the factory cap off the welder. Its a standard welding plug. Youd have basically an adapter cord. Its just screws in the receptacle that you put your stripped wire under..lugs..its not hard.

Youd also need big marettes or small burndies and try to stuff all that in an octagon you got if you cut the cord to make joints. Plus you'd need connectors for the box L18s or 19s...easier to just get a receptacle and put it on the end and keep everything factory.

Thats a better idea, thanks
 
I’m an electrician and sorbs has it right.
I haven’t burned down or electrocuted any one “yet”. Lol.
And I’ve done a lot of wiring. Mainly house stuff which is pretty basic.
Balancing my power panel at work was a little trickier, I had to figure out the average load on each line, then maje sure I had the neutral on each line out accounted for before I started switching loads.
But I got down to only 8 amp being sent back on the neutral and saved $300 on my power bill monthly. They had it way out of balance, I was sending 35-40 amps back on the neutral. Nothing like paying for power that is grounded.
 
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Funny you mentioned this I was just givin a Mig welder literally a day ago and am wiring a 220 plug onto the end of er. The fourth is a neutral correct? And for the love of god remember if there going off of European wiring (A lot of Chinese tools do) that white can be live and black can be power.... I’ve made that mistake before.... And a million angry pixies hurt....like a lot.

Regards
SonOfOdin
Wire colour sometimes means nothing.
With 220, both wires have 110 volts. So even though they used a white wire as a load wire, since it was marked on the outside of the box on its name tag 220, you would assume both are live loads.
Normally only house appliances have a neutral with a 220 volt system. I have lots of equipment with control boards, or lights that are 220 only no neutral wire. They just use 220 v rated control boards or ballasts.

I still remember when I first started learning how much of a mystery it used to be. Now things break and I read wiring diagrams and use my volt meter to figure out what went wrong, or just chase wires, if they don’t have a diagnostic chart.
I have saved myself a small fortune at work.

Now fixing electronics, that one I just can’t seem to wrap my head around, but I think that’s tough to self teach quickly., but I found a great guy on kijjiji that can repair almost anything.
 
I haven’t burned down or electrocuted any one “yet”. Lol.
And I’ve done a lot of wiring. Mainly house stuff which is pretty basic.
Balancing my power panel at work was a little trickier, I had to figure out the average load on each line, then maje sure I had the neutral on each line out accounted for before I started switching loads.
But I got down to only 8 amp being sent back on the neutral and saved $300 on my power bill monthly. They had it way out of balance, I was sending 35-40 amps back on the neutral. Nothing like paying for power that is grounded.

That's actually brilliant to go back and calcuate all that to make sure your getting your money's worth and not wasting.. I never thought of this.. I'm guessing my house could be gone over like this due to being built in the 60's and then a reno in the late 90's that included fucking with the pannel.. Based on how shitty they did in the 90's reno, the electrical is liekly just as bad as the rest.
 
That's actually brilliant to go back and calcuate all that to make sure your getting your money's worth and not wasting.. I never thought of this.. I'm guessing my house could be gone over like this due to being built in the 60's and then a reno in the late 90's that included fucking with the pannel.. Based on how shitty they did in the 90's reno, the electrical is liekly just as bad as the rest.
With a house which is only 220 single phase you won’t really save any money.
You really can’t get a huge imbalance.

Now at the shop we have 3 phase, so 3 load lines, red, black and blue.
So if you have a couple of 220 single phase refrigeration unit hooked up to the same lines, so black and red, you’ll have an imbalance of power on the blue line.
So you try to get a couple of heavy load 120v items on the blue line to compensate.
Mind you for each red, black and blue line (or each of the 3 phases) you have 1 neutral. You have to be careful not to overload the neutral line and need to only switch the lines between the 3 phases, between the shared neutral. So you can’t have red black and blue hooked up to the same phase, because you could have to much power combing back on the neutral which could be at a higher amp value than the wire is rated for and start a fire.

Honestly I’m not sure if I’m accurate about all this, but when I told an electrician friend I was going to balance my panel, this is what he suggested. He also didn’t think I’d save money. But my thought was if you can reduce the amount of money wasted on the neutral line, up you’d be pulling in less power on the load phases. It worked, but that panel was really out of balance, like 98 amp on two phases and 20 amp on the third. So a lot of power went on the neutral, sometimes up to 60 amps.

The hardest part was getting the individual line loads. See back then all I had was a volt meter that I periodically looked at, now you can likely buy a blue tooth cell phone one that would give you a 12 hour graph or something, lol.
 
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