Well, i'm looking to buy a hobart 180 to use at home in my garage, right now i only have a 120v mig and it's not cutting it. I do not currently have 220v in the garage and was wondering what i would need to set it up and what i would need If i wanted to run it off an extension cord. I have a sub pannel that I am going to add, right now the garage is running off the house breaker.

 

This machine takes a minimum of a number 12 wire but if the cord is very long a 10 is better and useful in the future for larger machines. It will run from a dryer recept and is rated to run from a 20A breaker but will run from up to 50A due to the fact it has its own internal thermal overload protection. For the ground wire, on a main entrance service panel it can run to the neutral bar or a equipment ground bar. On a sub it should run from the equipment bar only. That machine takes a 6-50-R recept.

 

I was doing some research, i'm going to go with a 50A breaker in the pannel and use 8/3 for the extension cord, incase i ever want to go bigger.

 

i had my garage rewired and they put in some hefty wires my house was rated for 300 amps and after the new cable was run it has a capacity of 600 300 for the house and 300 for the shop with 5 special 3 phase 240 outlets and 35 120's and 15 240's works good but wasn't cheap

 

I got pretty much the same machine (Hobart Handler 175) and I run it off a 12 gauge extension cord I made. I took a regular 12ga 110v extension cord and cut off the ends, then put new 220v dryer plug and receptacle ends on it. Cost me about $15 including the cord. It works pretty well.

If you wanted to use it in the mean time (until you get an outlet in the garage) it will plug into some dryer outlets. That should be a 30amp circuit so you should have plenty of power there.

Good luck with that machine, I like mine quite a bit.

 

Did you use a dryer recept on the end of the cord? The recept itself is different than a welding recept in the sense that the ground terminal isnt bonded to the recept yoke or to the backing plate of a surface mount type. When using these as cords you should run a jumper wire from the ground pin to the box if it is steel or to the backing plate of a surface mount. Personally I would rather use a recept that matches the welder than modify the cord and they are already bonded correctly.

 

This particular welder comes with a dryer style (50 amp) plug even though it only requires 20 amps. The surface mount boxes are automatically grounded when you connect the ground wire to the ground pin, at least on any I have ever seen. There is a physical connection built into the box.

 

That is a welding recept, it has a U shaped or round ground pin, a dryer has a flat or usually a L shaped. A 3 wire dryer is not internally bonded as it is used for multi voltage connections by bonding the neutral to ground within the machine. They changed this in the 96 code I think and new ones are now 4 wire with seperate grounding. Yes, the HH comes with a 50A plug and they do allow them to be plugged into 50A welding circuits but if I was making a circuit for it I would tend to tailor the breaker to closer match the machine and you just dont need that heavy of wire anyway. A 10/30 circuit is fine for them and I see the new 180's have upped the recommended breakers a bit. The instruction manual is slightly confusing for these machines as far as max breakers go. The minimum wire size is 14 and the max breaker is 20 for a 175, but that doesnt actually mean it cant be plugged into a 50A circuit. What it means is if you are using the 14 wire the max breaker has to be followed. It has a number 12 cord on the machine and that is allowed to be plugged into 50A circuits. Wires down to number 12 are the minimum that can be used on a 50A circuit. Confused yet??? ha You can put number 12 wire (single circuit in pipe) to a welder recept with a 50A recept and a 50A breaker on it for some machines, like a AC225 buzz box, but its not really a good idea to always follow the minimum allowable. There were millions of recepts installed with 10/50 setups back in the day especially from old fuse panels for running those machines. Its a good thing to check a 50A circuit when using it for something other than a welder or compressor to verify what wire is in them, especially if you were to hook up something like a pottery kiln that runs continious to one. Most equipment like a kiln doent even come with a plug and thats good, means the installer can visually verify the wire size.

 

Ahh ok, you are right about the dryer thing. I might have been thinking of the 3 wire electric range receptacles.

 

Range recepts are the same way, they often used 120V circuits in them for clocks. Remember, the neutral wire is serving as the ground in these cases and is a current carrying conductor, they dont want currents on any exposed metal parts so it is unbonded in these type of recepts. I think any new ones that use dual voltage are 4 wire now. They elemnated the internal bonding except when using existing circuits. Any new ones need to be 4 wire when using multi voltage appliances. I can add some more confusion. The recept must always be rated equel to the breaker size, but the wire doesnt always have to match the breaker,,, depending on what is going to be plugged in. There are a couple exceptions, one being for small 120V welders. They do allow 30A on 20A recepts but they only allow a 12 wire, not a 10,,, (been some time since I read the details though) they limit the conductor size in that application. Its to protect the recept itself (the wire itself becomes a limiting factor)and to avoid tripping problems and this is only on a dedicated circuit with a single recept. Just for the heck of it take an ohm meter and check the different types of recepts. 3 wire dryer and ranges are unbonded while welders are bonded.

 

I know this whole thing can be clear as mud and thats why so much hearsay surrounds the issue and why often it is implied you need a number 6 wire for a 50A circuit. Using it does eliminate a lot of confusion and take the chance of error from improper calculations out of it. But what it is based on is similar to a light fixture and to some extent using extension cords. The light fixture has number 16 wires in it and is allowed to be hooked to a 20A circuit. The breakers only function is to provide overload protection in the event that too many lights would be hooked up and to provide for short circuit protection, a 16 wire will trip the 20 in the event of a short but the overload protection for the fixture wires are protected by the fact that only so big of a lamp can be screwed into it, for example a 100 watt bulb will not overload a 16 wire. Welding machines are somewhat the same way, they are rated for their duty cycle. (it would make sense to me to require some thermal on small stick machines but they dont), they assume you are going to follow the 20% rating I guess, but these small feeders do have internal thermal in them and it will trip before it overloads the incoming wiring so the wire can be downsized or they can be plugged in to circuits with larger breakers. This is partially the reason we say number 8 is adequate for buzz boxes and a 6 is not needed, you would overwork the machine to meltdown before you would overheat the incoming wire. When you did it would short and trip the breaker. An AC225 like a lot of guys have here works well with a number 10 for cords and the ratings allowing for it are for wide open operation, at 225, most of the time they are run at 120A or so and the cord barely gets warm even if running them hard. It cools while you are changing rods, chipping, fabricating, etc.

 

The use of extension cords is somewhat similar. A number 16 cord has a rating of 1200 watts continious, like with an electric heater, but there is not a problem with using it on a skil saw where the load exceeds that because the load is short term. As long as the voltage drop doesnt effect the tool its great. If you plugged 2 heaters in to this cord on a 20A circuit there could be a problem, it would overload it before it tripped the breaker.

 

From provincial codes up here, they say 14 gauge wire rated for 15 amps, 12 gauge rated for 20 ams, 10 gauge rated for 30 amps. Use the wire rated for the size of breaker you are using. The codes may be a little different in your area but I would bet not much. If you use a 50 amp breaker for 12 gauge wire rated for 20 amps chances are with that welder you may not have a problem but then again, if the wire overheats due to being overloaded and a fire starts, you better have good insurance.
Just my two cents.
I just wired my garage for the hobart handler 180 using 12/2 BX and double 20 amp breaker. So far I haven't gone over the first voltage tap for what I am welding. Just scratching the surface.
Guy

 

You are correct about the ampacity ratings for those wires on general purpose circuits. There are exceptions for specific equipment. Welding machines are one type as are certain motor circuits. The intent of my post wasnt to tell anyone to undersize wsires as much as to help a little with the understanding of how the current reacts in these circuits. This woud be very useful when sizing cords for these machines. We dont always need to go with a super heavy cord for some of them, its expensive, bulky and just not needed.

 

Per N E C, National Electrical Code, conductors for portable welders that operate at different values or duty cycles (manual welders) is 50% of rated welder primary amperage (630-31. A (2). A welder shall have overcurrent protection rated or set at not more than 200% of rated primary current of welder (630-12 A). NEC. Had to chime in. Carl, I.B.E.W. 595. .......o&o>.........