Welding Tips and Tricks

I was reading on another forum about possible dameage that can be done to a welder by leaving the leads coiled up.................something to do with electro-magnetic force.


can anyone shed any light on this???

There might be something to this with a Tig outfit where there's HF running through your cables, but I've welded all day long with my cables (50' ea.) coiled up on the hangers mounted on a 1962 model welder that's been set up that way since it was new. My thinking is if there was damage being done to the welder from coiled cables we would not still be using a 1962 model welder. That's 52 years, and I don't think I'll be around to see this welder's last day.

Most Tig outfits are either 12.5' or 25' and fairly light so I don't see any reason not to uncoil those anyway. My table in my home shop and at work are far enough from the welder that I have to uncoil all the cable to comfortably work anyway.

That's just what I've encountered and is in no way a proven result in all situations though.

Len

I too have several " old school " oil cooled transformer sets from the 60's era with plenty of lead hanging on them & all the power trucks I've ever seen have rolls of often several hundred feet of cable wound up - never worried about it - I don't think at low frequency there is a problem except maybe some slight heating effect & marginal loss of current at the rod holder - but these welders had very little that could go wrong - hence their still around & working today - the newer electronic units while having more features & giving better power factor are by design fragile & more care must be taken so keeping the leads uncoiled is prudent - I believe there was a post here concerning an inverter that had issues after using with a coiled Tig lead - there was also one where the OP believed that the medical complaints he suffered came from wrapping the Tig lead over his shoulder while welding - so I guess the safe bet is to keep the leads uncoiled & away from the body if using HF - would like to see a more scientific evaluation of the medical side effects.

One thing I will add is that I've seen a coil of welding lead that was laying on the floor gather up all the grinding dust from around it. So there's definitely a magnetic field produced around a coil of weld lead. Not sure what effect that this would have on the welder or weldor involved.

Len

One of our 250DXs has a 50' extension on a 25' torch lead. The HFAC does not want to work (and HF start is unreliable) when all that is coiled. It's not damaged the machine, though.

Steve S

First I am by no means a electrical engineer. I was actually talking to our electrical engineer this past week about the coiling effect on wires. While doing diagnostics on a machine before start up,it was found that a signal was interrupted because the extra wire was coiled inside the electrical panel. I do not think it will damage the machine if done very little but it could interrupt the signal/frequency at the end of the torch, or possibly back to the machine. I will ask him what his take on this is tomorrow.
-Jonathan

Coiling up the cables on a welder that is running in DC mode will have NO bad effects on the welding machine. There is a magnetic field generated around any wire carrying an electric current. Coiling the welding leads will only concentrate the magnetic field. The coiled leads will heat up faster since the heat from the cable on the inside of the coil or pile of wire is trapped by the outer wires. The resistance of the cable does increase with the temperature of the wire. I have yet to see a set of coiled up welding cables that have gotten hot enough to be a problem.

In AC mode, the coiled up cable acts as an inductor, an inductor (also know as a choke) resists the flow of alternating electrical current. Inductors or chokes are often used in electronic circuits to filter out electrical noise (high frequency AC signals) on direct current circuits. Coiled up cables on an AC machine could definitely cause have an effect on the delivery of the electrical power to the torch. The effect will be a function of the number of turns in the coil, coil diameter, spacing between the coiled cables and the frequency of the AC current. The more turns, the tighter the coil diameter, and the closer the wire to wire distance (determined by the cable insulation thickness) the higher the inductance and therefore the higher resistance. On Transformer machines running at 60 HZ, you would like only see problems with the high frequency start. Inverter machines capable of running at a few hundred Hz, you could start having problems. There won't be any bad effects on the welding machine, just a reduction in power delivered in the AC mode. You'd have to have quite a few turns in a coil to feel any real difference and the coiled wires would get warmer than the rest of the cable due to the energy being absorbed. Keep in mind both the torch lead and the ground lead are part of the complete electrical circuit and should not be coiled tightly in AC mode.

Jim

NYWELDERJim wrote:Coiling up the cables on a welder that is running in DC mode will have NO bad effects on the welding machine. There is a magnetic field generated around any wire carrying an electric current. Coiling the welding leads will only concentrate the magnetic field. The coiled leads will heat up faster since the heat from the cable on the inside of the coil or pile of wire is trapped by the outer wires. The resistance of the cable does increase with the temperature of the wire. I have yet to see a set of coiled up welding cables that have gotten hot enough to be a problem.

In AC mode, the coiled up cable acts as an inductor, an inductor (also know as a choke) resists the flow of alternating electrical current. Inductors or chokes are often used in electronic circuits to filter out electrical noise (high frequency AC signals) on direct current circuits. Coiled up cables on an AC machine could definitely cause have an effect on the delivery of the electrical power to the torch. The effect will be a function of the number of turns in the coil, coil diameter, spacing between the coiled cables and the frequency of the AC current. The more turns, the tighter the coil diameter, and the closer the wire to wire distance (determined by the cable insulation thickness) the higher the inductance and therefore the higher resistance. On Transformer machines running at 60 HZ, you would like only see problems with the high frequency start. Inverter machines capable of running at a few hundred Hz, you could start having problems. There won't be any bad effects on the welding machine, just a reduction in power delivered in the AC mode. You'd have to have quite a few turns in a coil to feel any real difference and the coiled wires would get warmer than the rest of the cable due to the energy being absorbed. Keep in mind both the torch lead and the ground lead are part of the complete electrical circuit and should not be coiled tightly in AC mode.

Jim

These effects can be seen in the DC mode as well. Tightly wound welding cable will cause heat and this can degrade cable and cause amperage loss. I would stay away from spools unless you draw all of the cable off.

Is a first for me....this is what may happen if you wrap your leads tightly around a metal coil.

I use an EWM Phoenix 355. Specifically the manual states to avoid loops. My understanding is that loops change the inductance (inductive reactance) which affects arc stability, especially with Arc Force features. If the leads are long, spread them out rather than coiling them. Probably transformer machines don't require this, but sophisticated inverter machines with Dynamics, Variable Arc Force and Arc Length Correction controls might be affected by coiled leads.

Trev