Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm new to welding, I haven't ever done it before but I need to start learning. I've learned most of the facets to get started, and now I'm looking at an equipment compatibility before I can even plug it in. Also I have some 6011 & 6013 1/16" sticks, for the 2nd part of my question.

The Welder: Lincoln Electric Inverter Arc 230 (Century K2790-1) (30A max, 230V, 6-50P)
The Generator: Generac GP5500 (L14-30R)

First issue is that I don't have a 6-50R receptacle anywhere near where I want to be welding. I considered getting an extension and using my range stove, but for a 50ft cord it would have to be fairly thick and expensive.. So I have a generator I can wheel around instead. It hasn't ever been used, and its only purpose was to feed the house if we have another long term power failure. I was going to purchase the Lincoln AC225 but at 50A they said their efficiency required a generator capable of 15KVA. Stuck on wanting a quality stick welder, I went ahead and purchased the 30% duty, 30A model.

The plan is to take a L14-30P and a 6-50R and make a foot-long adapter to be able to connect the welder's 6-50P to the generator's L14-30R, with some 8/2 or 10/2 cable. My concern is this "efficiency" thing and whether my generator will be capable of powering this welder. Maybe I got a little ahead of myself, but I liked the idea of using this pair for all kinds of things.

2nd part: So I have these 1/16" sticks, and this welder says it recommends 5/64" to 5/32" sticks. Can I simply turn the amps down to 35-45amps or so, and use these 1/16" sticks even though they're too small to be recommended? Originally I was rewiring power transformers and bought some things before I thought I should just go ahead and buy a quality welder, and only planned to use these thin sticks for fabricating some basic foundry tools.

Answers? Advice?
Thank you in advance!

Welcome to the forum Learn4Ever.

There should be no problem using small rods such as 1/16" - but they tend to be very difficult to get on with - the 6011 should be fine - the 6013 I think will give you slag inclusion issues - depends a bit on the make - some are better than others - if your starting out then make life as easy as you can & get some 3/32 if your doing small welds on thinner material or 1/8" for thicker stuff - I don't use them personally but 7014 seems popular as a beginner rod as you can just drag it lightly on the material.

As to your power question I would strongly recommend getting mains power to the welder for a number of reasons - 1 when you switch on an inverter welder there are some large capacitors that will charge taking a very high current for a short time - this is likely to be near the maximum current draw of the welder even though your not welding & the amps knob maybe set low - the generator will drop revs significantly when this happens & frequency will be low - my original Butters machine would sense this even on a generator of sufficient size & switch off with an error code - 2 on page 10 of your manual it states current draw of 30amps at full output which equates to 6.9kw - not knowing the power factor of that machine we can only guess at the equivalent Kva - but assume not less than 7.5 so your 5.5 is way small - now you can say you won't use full output but if it has arc force / anti stick as you decrease arc length it will raise current above what you selected - if you stick the rod which is highly likely at least a few times when learning it can go up to virtually full load input - you really don't want to run maximum output with fluctuating loads on a generator - we've discussed many times here what factor should be allowed in sizing a generator & the conservatives will say 4times based on continuous use - I'd say at a pinch 1.5 times - 3 do you know what type of generator you have ? I say this as it's a bit more complicated than you might first think - if you have a nasty inductive / capacitive site generator then the output will be nowhere close to a sine wave & will likely overheat / damage switching mode semiconductors in the welder- if you have an AVR type then output will be better but the generators own AVR will not take kindly to the spike loading caused by a welder & any back EMF from the capacitors at shut down & you will likely kill the generator - sorry if this dragged on - I'm not great at conveying what I know to paper - others here may put it across better.

If you do it don't be supprized if you burn something up. I've run a little Miller STL150 off of a 100 ft of cord and used 3/32 7018 and had to go down to 3/32 6010. Ran it on a 6000KW peak generator. Takes a bit of learning you have to time your arc strikes to the surging of the generator. It can be made to work but it's not ideal to learning and it stresses the electronics in the welder and the generator. I also burnt up a thermal arc 90 machine doing the same thing. And an early model of the Miller 150.