HF Welder help

[donphantasmo]

This welder was on sale, so I had to jump on it.

Mig welder with wheels

I've been looking for a welder for a while, and I couldn't say no to the price. So, I got it. But the directions on hooking it up SUCK.

So, I'm pretty sure someone out there in MB land has one. Can you please give me some guidance on how to hook up the plug?
There are 3 wires, Black, White and Green? Which one is the common (ground) and which two are the hot (leads)? I looked in the instructions, and the do not give any kind of guidance.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!!

 

[rustycase]

Don, GREEN is always ground.

Your welder will require feed from a 220 volt breaker.
I'd use a 30amp rated breaker and some #10 wire to get it somewhere that you can actually use it.

The black and white are both hot legs.

Don, if you are not CERTAIN what you are doing, electrical work, messing with service panels and 220v stuff is a real EZ way to get hurt. I can tell you what to do, but one little bit lost in translation could really create a problem.

You really should have someone help you, hands on, if there is any doubt, at all.

Best way to use that little mig welder is to plug into an existing electric dryer outlet. You'd need to make up your own cord to run to the welder.

#10 wire will work for a 30 or 40amp breaker, but you would need heavier wire for a 50amp breaker, and I don't think that lil welder is gonna draw that much, anyway.

...I've wired hundreds of homes, but I am a hack when doing stuff in my own garage... so there's my forewarning !

Be cautious.
rc

 

[Norman]

Harbor freight also carries those wire feed welders in 120 volts. Usually at a lot less price. My son bought one for around $80.00 when they were on sale, they work ok. The harbor freight welders are at the bottom end of good welders but for hobby use they will work.
If you haven't, get your self an auto darkening helmet, you won't regret it. You will also need a welding stand, I made a cheap one out of 3/4 conduit that will fold up when not in use.
I hope you get it up and running be careful and have fun.

instruction manual for your welder.
http://manuals.harborfreight.com/manuals/97000-97999/97503.pdf

 

[donphantasmo]

Rusty, I had my landlord (who had previously succusfully wired a 220 Volt for his compressor) wire this for me. Like I said, he had success before, but for some reason, this one said POOF as soon as we put the breaker back in.

And Norman, I already have the manual for the welder, both electronically and on paper, but I didn't see anywhere in it where it says how to wire up the plug.

Either way, Either I plug it up to the dryer, or to the cord that we are making, I will still need to make sure I hook up the leads correctly.

Thank you Rusty. White and Black are hot, and Green is ground.

 

[klapool]

Harbor freight also carries those wire feed welders in 120 volts. Usually at a lot less price. My son bought one for around $80.00 when they were on sale, they work ok. The harbor freight welders are at the bottom end of good welders but for hobby use they will work.
If you haven't, get your self an auto darkening helmet, you won't regret it. You will also need a welding stand, I made a cheap one out of 3/4 conduit that will fold up when not in use.
I hope you get it up and running be careful and have fun.

instruction manual for your welder.
http://manuals.harborfreight.com/manuals/97000-97999/97503.pdf

My wife bought this little gem for me 4 or 5 christmas's ago. It's a 110 volt mig welder from Chraftsman.

From what Ive read all welders like this are all made in italy and have various name brands put on but all are the same.

Do they work???

Well...

I welded a motorcycle stand with it.

Cheapskate Riders Board • View topic - Bike stand

Another project was to weld a Harbor Freight trailer together and a hitch that sits under the rear fender of my motorcycle, Pulled that thing to Sturgis and back!

Basically all I can say is these little units work wonderful!

 

[Al.Fisherman]

I went to my local welding store to get a auto darkening lens...they wanted $240.00 for one for my hood. Saw one (complete hood) at Harbor Freight for $35.00 on special. Used it today for the first time, making a custom front mount...works great and you can dial a number of options. Darkening from 1 to 13, and how fast it will lighten, slow or fast. Great for the money.

http://s982.photobucket.com/albums/...ight fliers/?action=view&current=11-30-11.jpg

 

[Norman]

I have the wire feed welder from Walmart Century brand I really like mine cheap and very easy to use. I also have the auto darkening helmet from Harbor freight it works very well.
There's forums that do hot rodding things to these welders too, or make them work better and mods. to improve them, I don't remember them right off but a google search will get you there.

 

[rustycase]

Sounds like yer making progress, Don...at least ur at a trouble-shooting stage!

If you can, for testing, use a 20a breaker so there's not such a darn big spark when things are wrong!!! lol 50a's is one heck of a spark!

You CAN weld on 20a's of 220, it'll just trip when you try to turn it up to a higher rate... IME, prob is usually in how the plug was wired up... a shorted wire.

Unfortunately, it's never possible to rule out a defective china product.
Good thing HF maintains a good return policy.

Auto-darkening helmets...
My kid has a $300+ NexGen helmet that is noticeably FAR superior than anything else I have ever used.
Yah gets what yah pay for.

I have a TIG welder.
This creates a problem because at low amperage, cheap helmets will NOT auto-darken. So I use a fixed lens in my jackson 411P when the NexGen is not available.

Best
rc

 

[darkhawk22]

I'd really like to have one of the 110Volt versions I'm just wondering how well they work.

 

[klapool]

I'd really like to have one of the 110Volt versions I'm just wondering how well they work.

As long as your not trying to weld to big of stock and you stay within the capabilities of the welder you will be fine.

What I mean by the capabilities of the welder is that the welder is a 20% duty cycle. which means you can weld continuously for 12 minutes before the over heat protection trip will cut the power.

To get beyond the short duty cycle what i do is this I picked up one of these blower fans and I set it by the louvers of the welder and turn on the fan to keep the welder cool.

The welder instructions say a 15 amp circuit is recommended but I found with the fan blowing on the welder I was tripping the circuit breaker.
To solve this issue, I ran 10/2 with ground wire from the breaker box to the garage and installed a 20 amp breaker at the garage. Haven't had a trip out since.

It is a great little welder and I love it!

 

[2door]

One thing to keep in mind guys when purchasing the less expensive welder is any repairs that might ever be needed. Many welder repair places won't touch the HF/Wally World/Auto parts store welders. Parts are hard to come by if not impossible to find and the electrical components are not designed for long life.
As long as it works for you and you're not trying to do production work (making a living) with the low priced equipment you'll be good. Casual hobby stuff? Your HF welder should do you proud.
As for proper wiring. My advice, get an electrician to do it for you and have an invoice from him to cover your butt if anything ever goes wrong. Your home owners insurance could be null and void if they find that a fire was caused by faulty/amature wiring.
Tom

 

[klapool]

As for proper wiring. My advice, get an electrician to do it for you and have an invoice from him to cover your butt if anything ever goes wrong. Your home owners insurance could be null and void if they find that a fire was caused by faulty/amature wiring.
Tom

Couldn't agree more!!!

 

[Mannhouse51]

I bought my little wire welder at a traveling tool sale . They usually come once a year . Its a speedway...the thing was like $69.00 5 years ago. And it still works good! I just use .030 flux core wire.

 

[DaveC]

One thing to keep in mind guys when purchasing the less expensive welder is any repairs that might ever be needed. Many welder repair places won't touch the HF/Wally World/Auto parts store welders. Parts are hard to come by if not impossible to find and the electrical components are not designed for long life.
As long as it works for you and you're not trying to do production work (making a living) with the low priced equipment you'll be good. Casual hobby stuff? Your HF welder should do you proud.
As for proper wiring. My advice, get an electrician to do it for you and have an invoice from him to cover your butt if anything ever goes wrong. Your home owners insurance could be null and void if they find that a fire was caused by faulty/amature wiring.
Tom

And if they will work on your stuff be prepared to get stabbed in the wallet. I burned out the thermosistor in my Century welder. Took it to Norco to be repaired. All they did was bypass the thermosistor, cut the 2 wires going to it and spliced them together and charged me $170!! I was stunned and paid it, thinking later I should have told them to stuff it and got a new one from HF.

Oh, well. It still works anyway

 

[Greg58]

Black white green is 110v, black white red would be 22ov.