i have a lincoln tig 185 and its been great. i seem to have mastered steel and have now moved on to aluminum. my conclusions on aluminum are that it sucks. I then asked Mark at Auto Fab racecars if i could bring my welder over to his shop so that he could help my learn how to weld aluminum, which he agreed to. to make a long story short my welder has never welded so well. i was welding aluminum as if it were steel. Mark told me that he sees nothing wrong with the way i set up the machine, cleaned and preped the aluminum, and ran my bead. He thought it must be something wrong with the amperage or voltage at my shop. i could not agree more cause my welder has never performed as well as it did at Auto Fab. i checked Auto fabs outlet at the outlet and got 224 volts AC. i went back to my shop and checked my outlet in the same manner and got 215 volts AC. only thing i could not check was amps.
i then went to my breaker box and took off the lid. this is what i see. 3 very large wires ( one red, one blue, one black) coming in to a 200 amp breaker that feeds the rest of the box. As well a large white wire that goes to some form of distribution log. if i put my fluke meter on the large white wire and any of the other colors either blue, red, or black i get 122 volts AC. which i would assume that if you add 122 for the red, 122 blue and 122 for the black i get 360 volts coming in, right? is this single phase or three phase? any other check that i can do to make sure i am getting the amps and volts that i need? oh the welder is fed off a double breaker that says 50 amp, which it has never tripped. any help would be great, thanks in advance.

 

An interesting dillema, i would like to hear some insight as well.

-s

 

go to http://www.handymanwire.com and ask someone one on their forums. they'll set you straight. they are all electricians on there. here's the direct link to the forums http://www.handymanwire.com/ub...s.php

 

thanks guys. any one else?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fulldragcrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> if i put my fluke meter on the large white wire and any of the other colors either blue, red, or black i get 122 volts AC. which i would assume that if you add 122 for the red, 122 blue and 122 for the black i get 360 volts coming in, right? is this single phase or three phase? any other check that i can do to make sure i am getting the amps and volts that i need? oh the welder is fed off a double breaker that says 50 amp, which it has never tripped. any help would be great, thanks in advance.</TD></TR></TABLE>


You have 3 phase in which each "circuit" is 120 degrees out of phase from one another. If you were to take that voltmeter between any two 'hots' your going to find it to be about 220 volts. You have 220v 3 phase. Amperage isn't "checked" per say as far as what can be supplied, thats determined by the outside transformer as well as the main breaker and breaker being used for the outlet, in your case, 50amps. If your welder was drawing more than 50 amps, the circuit breaker should of course 'trip' which it hasnt as you said.

Assuming the draw was 40 amps, a 9 volt difference -could- make a good deal of difference in machinery, though I cant say whether or not if you would make such an impact as you described with a welder. :/

 

Who's gas bottle did you use at the the autofab shop?

The first bottle of gas I got for my new welder was contaminated. It would weld steel OK (not great, but basically made me think I was out of practice looking at the welds), but aluminum was a different story. I was going crazy with it since I have a 6061 tube 6G certification. Tried everything, then finally took the bottle back and tried it out on a known good machine. Same mess. Got a fresh bottle and all is well.

rich

 

You have a single phase 200amp service going to your house. It is normal for the voltage to very from location to location. The 50amp circuit that is setup for the PT-185 should be ok. The fact that you have not tripped the breaker yet shows that you are not overloading the circuit. Though if I remember the specs correcty when the PT-185 is maxed out it needs a 60amp circuit to run full out.

John

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by richg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Who's gas bottle did you use at the the autofab shop?

The first bottle of gas I got for my new welder was contaminated. It would weld steel OK (not great, but basically made me think I was out of practice looking at the welds), but aluminum was a different story. I was going crazy with it since I have a 6061 tube 6G certification. Tried everything, then finally took the bottle back and tried it out on a known good machine. Same mess. Got a fresh bottle and all is well.

rich</TD></TR></TABLE>
i took my bottle also. all equipment was mine and what i would have used if i were welding at my shop. good idea though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1fastVX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You have a single phase 200amp service going to your house. It is normal for the voltage to very from location to location. The 50amp circuit that is setup for the PT-185 should be ok. The fact that you have not tripped the breaker yet shows that you are not overloading the circuit. Though if I remember the specs correcty when the PT-185 is maxed out it needs a 60amp circuit to run full out.

John</TD></TR></TABLE>
this is not a house its a auto repair shop, but thanks for the effort.
http://www.lmtautorepair.com

 

Post some pics of the bad and good welds. Can you describe what exactly the welder is doing when its back in your shop?

rich

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by richg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Post some pics of the bad and good welds. Can you describe what exactly the welder is doing when its back in your shop?

rich</TD></TR></TABLE>
The 185 welds fine on steel, even up to 1/2 inch ( multple passes of course). Even on 1/8 aluminum its kinda ok, but any thing thicker than that the machine even on max amps will not develop a weld pool. then the arc wanders every where. but while welding with my equipment at Auto Fab i was welding 1/4 in aluminum in a single pass, while the machine was set at 185 amps, but i asked mark to watch the amp gauge to tell me how much i was using he said the max he saw was 163. the weld pool formed as it should, and the arc didnt wander at all. then mark brought over 2 scrap peices of 1/2 inch aluminum, i told him that i didnt think my welder could even begin to handle any thing that thick, he told me to chill out and crank up the machine just to try it. well guess what. it welded great 3 passes and the joint was complete. the AC balance was set to " Auto", no helium involved, just straight argon. its gotta be the wiring in my shop, the wires that lead from the breaker, which again is a double pole 50 amp, i think i saw a stamp on the wire that said 11 amw. so i guess that is 11 gauge wire? And again i have never tripped the breaker. I dont know guys, its like my welder was turbocharged while welding at auto fab. but on a slightly different note i am going to go a head and replace the wiring and the breaker. going with a 60 amp double pole breaker and 6/3 or 4/3 MC wiring. does this sound right? its what a friend told me to do, he was kinda like a journey man electrician for about 4 years like 10 years ago. thanks again.

 

If it's really 11ga wire, that's way too small. Go to Home Depot and get something bigger, 6ga or 4ga is what you need. To save some money, replace the wiring first, before the breaker, which is expensive. Then replace that if you still have problems. This does assume the problem isn't further upstream though...