Welding Tips and Tricks

I have a Miller EconoTIG. I have it temporarily hooked to a 30 amp 220 breaker ( I am in a new home and this is until I can run a heavier line). I thought I could at least use the machine at lower settings until I have the new line run. Whats weird is that even with the machine all the way up I can't blow thie breaker. I have Tig weldedn (DC) and stick welded with it and it seems to run as strong as it did when I had it hooked to a 60 amp line at the old home.............what am I missing here???

Its all about what the machine draws. Im not sure what an econo-tig draws but apparently yours isnt drawing over thirty amps. If the breaker isnt getting hot enough to trip you may be drawing only around twenty amps. You may be good.

amperage is the amount of electricity the machine is drawing. If it needs more to do a job, it will try to draw more until it meets resistance and that is what trips the breaker. It has a lot of factors to it, including wire type and size, distance of the wire over the wire size, blah,blah,blah, but suffice it to say if the plug isn't getting hot or the breaker tripping at the highest settings, you're probably okay to leave it as it is.

Sometimes on tig, with an aircooled torch, you'll meet resistance and trip smaller breakers a lot more over an extended weld time than you will with a watercooled torch. If that happens, go up to a 40 or 50 amp breaker and it should be better. If not, you may need to bump up to a water cooled torch.

Just for schits and giigles I ran the machine full out today stick welding. After about 1 and 1/2 rods (which was roughly 12" of weld) I tripped the 30 amp breaker...........looks like I will have to run a heavier line!

What size wire do you have now? You'd probably need at least a 10 or 8 gauge.

delraydella wrote:What size wire do you have now? You'd probably need at least a 10 or 8 gauge.

Running 10 gauge which is only good for 30 amps......need at least 6 gauge.

Run a 6 gauge wire and a 50 amp breaker and you shouldn't have to worry about it again. As long as you are not trying to run it more than 100 ft.

6 for a 50 sounds like overkill, but better safe than sorry.

You could get by with an 8 gauge on a 50 amp breaker but that econo tig draws 52 amps at 230 volts at rated output. If there is a fair amount of distance between the receptacle and the panel even with 8 gauge there may be the possibility of tripping the breaker. Especially on those days when it will be run maxed out. Not to mention all the other factors to consider. With the 6 gauge, that was why I said "shouldn't have to worry about it again"