Welding Tips and Tricks

If you drag your TIG box out to the race car in the garage to just throw two little tacks on your new steering column you're fabricating, so you can bring it back in to bench weld it, and just plug your box into the extension chord that also has an LED flood light plugged into it as well... you can say goodbye to your LED flood light. Has no effect on your older, Halogen flood lamp though.

Just bought that damn thing recently too.

Fail.

So, plugging the welder into the same cord as the light, killed the light?

That's why I have a separate welding circuit in my shop. On site I'll plug my power source into a separate circuit to my other devices also. Hi freq and current spiking can play silly buggers at times.

i'll have to go find the video on it. its to do with the cheap led power supplies.
something like the reduction in voltages causes an increase in current allowed through to the led's, which makes them run hotter and shorter lifespan.

The welding pixies just don't like the LED pixies is all.

Good to know that this can happen though, will definitely keep it in mind.

just keep in mind that all your power sockets all join together at the fuse box.
with high power tools you always want to use a lead per tool due to the voltage drop the lead causes.

BugHunter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 7:08 pm So, plugging the welder into the same cord as the light, killed the light?

yup.

Coldman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 7:48 pm That's why I have a separate welding circuit in my shop. On site I'll plug my power source into a separate circuit to my other devices also. Hi freq and current spiking can play silly buggers at times.

that's a good idea... my house is a rental, and the wiring is a nightmare hodgepodge of circuits going every which way.

tweake wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 9:31 pm i'll have to go find the video on it. its to do with the cheap led power supplies.
something like the reduction in voltages causes an increase in current allowed through to the led's, which makes them run hotter and shorter lifespan.

yeah, it was a cheap HomeDepot Chinese LED shoplight, so it's no huge loss.

Toggatug wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 6:30 am The welding pixies just don't like the LED pixies is all.

Good to know that this can happen though, will definitely keep it in mind.

ha... the welding pixies are bullies

tweake wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:23 pm just keep in mind that all your power sockets all join together at the fuse box.
with high power tools you always want to use a lead per tool due to the voltage drop the lead causes.

yeah everything is wired poorly in my rental house... looks like they've had multiple unlicensed 'electricians' wiring the mess. Interestingly enough, I replaced all my ceiling lights with LED lights and I've yet to damage any of those. I use one outlet that is also shared with my welder but it doesn't seem to have the same damaging effect as a shared extension chord.

raticus wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:19 am

tweake wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 9:31 pm i'll have to go find the video on it. its to do with the cheap led power supplies.
something like the reduction in voltages causes an increase in current allowed through to the led's, which makes them run hotter and shorter lifespan.

yeah, it was a cheap HomeDepot Chinese LED shoplight, so it's no huge loss.

sounds about right. budget power supplies in those don't take kindly to drops in voltage.
with the big push for efficiency many people here upgrade their lights to LED which then fail really quickly due to the budget power supply design.

tweake wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:54 pm sounds about right. budget power supplies in those don't take kindly to drops in voltage.
with the big push for efficiency many people here upgrade their lights to LED which then fail really quickly due to the budget power supply design.

Not helped by the fact that in an effort to reduce cost and improve profit margins, many LED lights for sale really drive the individual LEDs on the ragged edge of their voltage range.

The cheaper units with the same lumen/power rating as more expensive ones usually do this by using less LED's and driving them harder. It works, but they fail much sooner as they get too hot and the high voltage damages the units. Sometimes these die even before an incandescent would

Under-drive LED's voltage-wise and add more to compensate for the loss of individual light output and you do get lights that can actually do the claimed 50.000h time before replacement. Google the Philips 'Dubai' LED bulbs for a good (bad? ) example and that's even from a reputable manufacturer. No-name/white-label manufacturers will go down the cost-reduction path a lot more..

Bye, Arno.