Two DIY questions

[Ixion]

Haven't filled with tiles yet, but fiddled with welder.

Replaced the fuse wire, gave another go with all else I could find turned off from that circuit at the wall (washing machine, dehumidifier, toothbrush, digital photo album).

Still got a few nice cracks. But still kept blowing fuses. Tried with various bits of metal, different rods, and different amp settings. Still no go.

It'll be technique. Are you actually getting an arc? A sustained crackling blue light. If not, then you're "sticking" the rod to the work, which will blow fuses on a domestic circuit very fast.

Practice with a very small rod (16 gauge) on light workpiece, and the amps wound right down (check the rod manufacturers recommendation, and go about 20 amps higher- that will make a messy weld but be easier to strike. )

[The Lone Rider]

It'll be technique. Are you actually getting an arc? A sustained crackling blue light. If not, then you're "sticking" the rod to the work, which will blow fuses on a domestic circuit very fast.

Practice with a very small rod (16 gauge) on light workpiece, and the amps wound right down (check the rod manufacturers recommendation, and go about 20 amps higher- that will make a messy weld but be easier to strike. )

Suggestion to me by the guy who gave me it (my boss from work), when I first got it, was to set the choke to 100A and work my way down from that. He said rod would just melt and I'd find myself no longer making contact, and practice that and lower the choke in small increments until something seems stable.

I have tried 100A on the welder. Rod only seems to stick when fuse blows?

Worth trying the welder set higher than 100A maybe?

I don't actually have any training whatsoever. Simply said to my boss I was interested and thinking of pursuing welding and tattooing as a hobby... so he gave me his arc welder as he has a TIG welder.

[Ixion]

It will be the other way round - fuse blows when rod sticks.

Thing is that 100 amps is getting near the limit for a 10amp fuse. It'll work OK with an experienced welder, but any mistake will probably blow the fuse

If you practice with a light rod , which would normally run around 40 amps, set the choke to 50, that makes the arc a bit easier to strike (your weld will be shitty, but at this stage you don't really care about that), and you have a bit more tolerance on the fuse.

Try to sort of "scratch" the workpiece with the rod, like striking a match , and draw it away a little bit until you actually strike a nice sustained crackly arc.

It takes some practice to get the knack , its a bit like riding a bicycle. Once you get it, you'll wonder why it was so hard.

EDIT. You shouldn't actually have the rod contacting the work by the way, except to strike the arc. You need to hold the rod with a small gap so the arc jumps across it. (Having said that, years ago there used to be weird things called contact rods which you did hold on the work. They never worked well and I don't know if they are still around).

The choke setting depends on the thickness of rod you are using (other things too, but rod thickness is the main one)

[The Lone Rider]

Hmmm, already thought I had some freakin thin rods.

Last hope then.. will go buy the smallest I can find.

What effect does the rod size have? Bigger weld needed/thicker metal, the bigger guage the rod?

[Ixion]

Very very basically, bigger the bit of stuff you are welding, bigger the rod you use.

Biggest you'd likely be able to run would be 1/8" (dunno what that is in metrosquiggles); smallest commonly available is 1/16th inch, 16 gauge. The size is the diameter of the metal bit , excluding the outer flux coating.

16 gauge is normally a hard rod to use, cos you would only use it for welding thin section metal, but just to practice striking the arc, it will help stop the blowing fuse problem. Just use a piece of plate, maybe 1/4" thick , and try just putting a bit of metal on it.

Once you get the hang of striking the arc switch to maybe 1/8" on some 1/4" or so plate.

[cowpoos]

Hmmm, already thought I had some freakin thin rods.

Last hope then.. will go buy the smallest I can find.

What effect does the rod size have? Bigger weld needed/thicker metal, the bigger guage the rod?

got a plug on your main fuse box?? plug it in their...if it blows that fuse...call a sparky...he can do some test on the welder while he is their looking at your house power supply...if he's a goodin...

[CookMySock]

Duty cycle aside which is a valid point I am figuring you know more than the electrician who looked at the wiring in my garage and load I was drawing and nearly fainted, he explained garages in certain eras were often underrated in the cable used, in fact what was in mine was barely adequate for a 10 amp circuit yet was wired to 2 10 amp sockets in daisy chain so draw 10 off the first then 10 off the second and the first section of cable was over loaded, oh I know this was overloaded as the aforementioned "casual observation" happened, my fault I knew better but was in too much of a rush.

Haha, you get tradespeople who talk like that.. "rant rant rant!! how the hell this house hasn't burned to the ground yet puzzles me!! Get your family outa here now!!!" I bet you felt like ripping the whole set of wiring out and replacing everything didn't ya.. well thats the idea.

Whats your hourly rate as you could be the person I need to do some wiring here, but then hmmm.

I'm not registered, so legally I can't touch it. But PM me if you need help. Haha, dangerous ay.

Assuming the cable is rated for such see above, it is not normal to have a 10 amp cable serving a 15 amp circuit, nor advisable, there is a reason cable have ratings, or is this just a conspiracy by cable makers.

You can pull whatever current you like through a 10A cable. How hot do you want it to get? Will the motor it's powering still start under load? Will the welder sag under load so you can't use it? My mate runs his 17A espresso machines off long and cheap 10A warehouse extension leads.. You can still pick the lead up - its not that hot.. but who cares?

Ya rolls ya dice and ya pays ya money.

Steve

[dasser]

Hi Ya, Ixion has some good advice. If you find your stick welder needs repair, maybe look at buying a mig instead of repair. Their is a art to using a stick welder. The Mig I found the learning curve better. My dad had from the sounds of yours a similar welder but using it with a long extension mains cable also kept blowing fuses. ( it was a 30 m cable ) Hey good luck. Before you know it you will find all sorts of things to weld up...

[The Lone Rider]

Hi Ya, Ixion has some good advice. If you find your stick welder needs repair, maybe look at buying a mig instead of repair. Their is a art to using a stick welder. The Mig I found the learning curve better. My dad had from the sounds of yours a similar welder but using it with a long extension mains cable also kept blowing fuses. ( it was a 30 m cable ) Hey good luck. Before you know it you will find all sorts of things to weld up...

My dream down a few years road (much longer with a kid on the way now) is to get me an old piece of junk, cut the suspension and swing arm off and weld me a hard tail rat bike bobber.

Sex on wheels.

[The Lone Rider]

I have changed my 10A ceramic fuse thing to a 10A HPM circuit breaker.
Fired up the welder at 125A and seemed more steady. Still tripped circuit breaker.

Will try with lower amps and see how I go.

I am using Telwin 2.5mm rods, and top of welder has this:

Input:
Volts: 190/500
Nomina: 6KVA
Frequency: 50hz
Phase: 1
Rating: Cont Hand Welding

Output: 60
Amps: 55/180


Thanks again to people with good suggestions.

[CookMySock]

2.5mm is too big. Go a size down. Ask your boss if he has any smaller rods you can have.

If you want to get serious about this, you will have to get a larger capacity outlet installed in your shed. Theres no point trying to make anything with a crippled welder.

To give you an idea, the welder is rated at 6KVA whereas your 230V home wall socket is rated at 2KVA, so they are a world apart.

Steve

[Ixion]

Wot 'e said.

2.5mm you could probably run Ok with experience. But at this stage, you'll blow fuses. You need to use a lighter rod (about half the thickness ) so you can wind the amps down. Otherwise you'll stick the rod when it's cold, and at 125amp you don't have any tolerance before the fuse blows. Practice with 16 gauge (about 1.5mm )

[Blackshear]

You should start on Ally TIG welding.
After that, everything else is a breeze.

[The Lone Rider]

Managed to get one really good weld and an ok weld with it set to around 115A.
Still flickin the circuit breaker a lot.

Will try smaller rods.

Boss was fair sure that it should work fine as is, as the rods he's used are even slightly bigger than my 2.6mm and he ran it single phase in his garage same as I am doing (excluding the fact the wiring behind the walls may be different).

[CookMySock]

Still flickin the circuit breaker a lot.

Um, you probably should stop doing that - circuit breakers are not designed to reset and then reset again... If you are unlucky the breaker will get hot and jam on.. Of course you will be stoked with this and everything will be fine for some hours.. and then the magic smoke gets let out of something indoors..

Steve