bjhines Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 25A would do the trick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iskone Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 So a 30 is over kill? Well better to spend $5 then to toast a welder, I'll just return the 50amp. Isk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Grounds should be the same guage as the other conductors..... this is important... you can cause a fire if you fail to match all of the conductors guages.. including ground. Boy. Don't know that I agree with that one. Guess I had better call the county inspector back and tell him he shouldn't have approved my sunroom wiring. I am not an electrician, but ground wires are commonly a smaller gauge than the hot/neutral wires. Ground and neutral have no common purpose... they are completely independant... there is NO CASE where ground and neutral work together... DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE... EVER!!!! Well, if I look in my main panel, the neutral and ground wires are both solidly connected to the box. Guess the original inspector goofed that one up too. We can forget about anything I said about subpanels since that has no bearing on this discussion. The breaker needs to be matched to the wiring and the receptacle. 30 amps should be fine, so that means 10 guage wire. However, since your outlet is going to be outside, to be completely legal you should use a GFI breaker. And to be really picky since it is going outside through a conduit, you should not use sheathed cable and your ground wire needs to have green insulation (not bare wire) once it exits the dwelling. But my guess is you are not going to want a 30 amp GFI breaker once you see how much those things cost. Plus I think welders can cause those things to accidentially trip. Just get a plain ole 30 amp breaker and 10 guage wire. For your short run you will be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iskone Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 On the spec sheet it says Max. Open-Circuit Voltage 30. What is that? The Max breaker? The only receptacles for the plug my welder has are 50amp. I would still like to run a larger ground not only for peace of mind but the receptacle has has very large tabs for the wire. Isk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 Yes ground and neutral can be connected together at the main panel(and ultimately are the same for the transformer)... but for many reasons they should not be confused on the receptacle end... they are very similar in operation... but the ground ciruitry at receptacles can become dangerous if it is confused/involved with neutral(away from the main panel). I never said that every instance of this stuff you find is going to be correct... and there is more than one way to skin the cat... as a general rule... all of your wire should be the same guage... ground is the same guage in all of the electrical wire I buy... obviously some builders/installers can get away a little cheaper on the grounding since it is not used very often before the breaker shuts off... but.. I am talking about the wiring between the panel and the receptacle... it should all be the same... What your electrician did for grounding wire in you subpanel is a different story than what anyone would add to the system... the main hot wires in your panel and the neutral buss wires are large because they may have to handle a lot of circuits at the same time... the ground is only used for ONE circuit at a time(hopefully)... soo that ONE part of the grounding circuit MAY/CAN be smaller...... To sum it up... 1. the ground, hot, neutral wires for any one circuit should be the same guage.. or damn close... 2. the grounding at sub panels and main panels can be smaller.. because it only needs to handle ONE circuit at a time(hopefully). 3. neutral and ground are completely different circuits... don't confuse this... what happens at the MAINS panel has nothing to do with the rest of the branches.. I have found circuits that were using ground as a neutral for years... until one day it suddenly caused havoc due to changes/issues in another part of the system... I am not an electrician.. but I have to tie lighting and production systems for TV into building subpanels all the time... we find these mistakes in the building wiring REGUALRLY... and I have to fix it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest d3adp00l Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Ok folks I am an electrician and in fact a licensed contractor. I have glanced at a couple of the posts. For the original question, in the real world pluging it into the dry is fine, DON'T change the breaker size. Rarely will a 50 amp welder actually draw anywhere near that amount, on top of that it has its own internal overload protection also. The neutral and grounds being landing on the same bus in the main panel. This is required for the main (first) panel in all electrical systems from a highrise to a pump shack. The reason is that the power coming into the house is derived from a non grounded transformer, which alows the posibility of a voltage potential between the neutral and ground this would make the neutral conductor potentially dangerous for backfeed of the distribution (powerlines) when being worked on in an off situation. Ground wires do not have to be the same size as hot conductors. This is as per the national electrical code which is derived from the national fire provention agency NFPA. It has to do with the fact that the fault current won't completely travel down the ground wire and the fact that the amperage rating is determined by what temperature the insulation of the wire can handle before it melts. Is It the safest possible system to have the ground wire sized equally, It is cetainly more safe than having a smaller ground. BTW all "sub" or subsequent panels after the main HAVE to have separate ground and neutral buses and the neutral bus must be separated by an insulator from the panel can Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzz Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Hi: You probably could get by using a 20amp breaker if your not running the welder at it's max,But if you have low voltage it might trip the breaker.Lower voltage makes the amperage go higher so you better use a25 or 30 amp breaker. Black and red number ten wire for the hots on a 2 poll breaker Use green for the ground. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzz Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Hi: You probably could get by using a 20amp breaker if your not running the welder at it's max,But if you have low voltage it might trip the breaker.Lower voltage makes the amperage go higher so you better use a 30 amp breaker. Black and red number ten wire for the hots on a 2 poll breaker Use green for the ground. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzz Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 Sorry I tried to edit and ended up posting the same thing twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar240z Posted June 6, 2006 Author Share Posted June 6, 2006 i got it working today with a replacement dryer cord from home depot, and the plug receptacle that came with the welder... it worked fine, the wires didn't get hot at all or anything.. i welded up one of my adjustable control arms most of the way... kept having porosity though... i guess i should have cleaned them a lot better. i'm having an electrician friend come over tomorrow to help me with a more permanent solution... p.s. i don't care how long it takes to weld...tig is so awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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