130amp mig blowing house fuse

[johniban]

hi i am very new to welding i have a 130 amp welder been practising with it but had no luck at all.
first of all the plug fuses kept blowing as soon as id touch the metal.
now thats ok but the house fuse keeps blowing?
its doing my ead in how am i suposed to practice.
ive been told i need to get a heavy duty 3 pin plug for the welder?

 

[Bond]

What rating of fuse is in your plug? And what power setting are you using on the welder?

 

[brightspark]

What rating of fuse is in your plug? And what power setting are you using on the welder?

13 amp maybeewhich fuse is blowing in the house .what size fuse or is it a minatue circuit breaker

 

[awemawson]

Is it the main house fuse (I somehow doubt it) or the fuse for the circuit you are using or the RCD that protects the whole house that is blowing. What do you know of the history of the welder? It may be leaky if the RCD is tripping, or just that you are using it on a circuit with too low a capacity.

Where are you in East Sussex - if not too far bring it to me and I'll check it out for you.

 

[Furry Freak]

Just as a very quick response, but not as an electrician or anything fancy, it's not really the plug that make the difference. A plug is largely a plug if you follow. Although sustained high current through domestic three pin plugs does tend to 'cook' them a bit. In very simple terms, your fuses are set to trip very quickly, so that the power is cut and you don't get a lethal shock. Yes? Very often these welders need quite a bump on start up and this trips the fuse. It's not about the fuse amps as much as their tolerance of the start up current. What you have is fast blow / trip fuses and what you need is a slower blow (ooer!) sometimes termed motor rated. From memory they are 'C' type breakers. But check that with someone who knows what they are talking about.

I had one of these put in on a dedicated slot in the circuit breaker box - nothing else but my welder and plasma run off it. It is on a blue 3 pin round plug too. Putting one of these in is not difficult, but you shouldn't mess with stuff that you are not competent to mess with yadda yadda and there are laws blah blah all designed to keep you from killing yourself naturally.

Hope that makes simple sense and is helpful. In a simple sensible helpful sort of way

FF

 

[johniban]

13 amp

What rating of fuse is in your plug? And what power setting are you using on the welder?

there is a 13 amp fuse in the plug and in the extension lead. i dont know if its becuase of the long extension lead im using but i cant plug the welder straight into the house socket as it wont reach.
ive tried it on a vary of power settings some times i can practice for about 2 mins then it just blows the house fuse.

 

[johniban]

fuse

13 amp maybeewhich fuse is blowing in the house .what size fuse or is it a minatue circuit breaker

the ground floor sockets breaker fuse keeps going, im not a electrician so please bare with me
i have to keep flicking the switch back up to on position on the ground floor sockets.
i have no idea about fuse boxes ect.
basically the welder is a wolf weld 135 plugged into a 10 meter extension reel and thats plugged into an out door wall mounted socket.
i am only practicing at the moment as this is my first time but its just doing my head in.
the welder turns on fine i can leave it on for ages. but sometimes as soon as i go to pull the trigger and the weld wire touches the metal to be worked on the fuse box trips.
and some other times i can go for about 2 mins untill it trips.

 

[johniban]

welder

Is it the main house fuse (I somehow doubt it) or the fuse for the circuit you are using or the RCD that protects the whole house that is blowing. What do you know of the history of the welder? It may be leaky if the RCD is tripping, or just that you are using it on a circuit with too low a capacity.

Where are you in East Sussex - if not too far bring it to me and I'll check it out for you.

hi mate cheers for the reply. its the ground floor socket fuse that trips. i purchased the welder from ebay from a lad from rye, he says hes only used it a couple of times and it does look like new.
the plug is rough looking and white looks like its from something else in the house.
the seller did mention that the plug will need changing to a ''heavy duty plug'' for welders.? didnt know there was such a thing?

he said that sometimes after about 10 mins the machine cuts out or the fuse in the plug sometimes blows if welding dirty steel.

not sure if he was waffling rubbish or what.

it did blow the plug fuse first but then i changed both fuses in the extension lead and the welder to 13 amp fuses and now they are fine but the ground floor socket trip fuse now keeps tripping.

 

[johniban]

sorry forgot to mention im in eastbourne eastsussex

 

[awemawson]

sorry forgot to mention im in eastbourne eastsussex

I'm TN33 - Sedlescombe - the offers there if you want to take it up.

andrew(at)mawson(dot)org(dot)uk

 

[johniban]

welder

I'm TN33 - Sedlescombe - the offers there if you want to take it up.

andrew(at)mawson(dot)org(dot)uk

i may take you up on that offer mate im going to have a play sat wit a different extension lead to see whats happning

 

[Robotstar5]

Is it possible to just run the welder off the socket (no extension lead) as a quick test?

 

[silverstag]

Make sure the extension lead is completely uncoiled before you use anything plugged into it or it could start to overheat and destroy its insulation.

 

[s410man]

try the welder on a low power setting

if it is still blowing then there may be a problem with the welder

 

[johniban]

welder

hi cheers for the replys, been having a play today didnt think i did to bad for my first time welding.
the steel was 4mm i cleaned up both surfaces, and it holds well. not sure if it penetrated enough but it looks ok. it just doesnt want to be used on maximum setting all other settings are fine but as soon as i select max setting and pull the trigger without even touching the steel the house fuse blows.