clarke 250te

[Daveville30]

Anyone know if these are any good.thinking off buying one. Would it handle welding box section onto 10mm plate?

 

[skotl]

Welcome to the forum

Never used one, but a quick look at the specs suggests 10mm plate is at the very upper end of it's capabilities, and will need a 36A supply at 230V.
That said, I can't see them advertised as new - is this a second hand one?

At this kind of price range (Machine Mart have a 255tec at over a grand inc VAT) there are an awful lot of alternatives.

 

[Daveville30]

It's second hand going fairly cheap with warranty.when you say 36 amp supply what's a standard house I've an arc welder hooked up to a 16 amp blue plug.

 

[Mee]

Personal experience has led me to conclude these machines never quite do what they claim to do.

 

[skotl]

It's second hand going fairly cheap with warranty.when you say 36 amp supply what's a standard house I've an arc welder hooked up to a 16 amp blue plug.

The specs say 36A but realistically you would be looking at a dedicated 32A supply from your consumer unit, with the appropriate size cabling installed. Making much of a dent in 10mm will need all of the 250A.

If you need to do thicker material then sticking (fnar fnar) with stick welding might be the better route - you can build up stick welds in a way that isn't possible (experts may correct me) with MIG.

 

[Daveville30]

There's a dedicated 16 amp socket with heavy duty cabling would that work? Theres a 3 phase jasic inverter in work and it will weld 10mm plate even turned way down to 200 amps.

 

[skotl]

Well, you can't squirt 32A through cabling and plugs/sockets that are designed for 16A. Well you can, but only until they melt!
16A at 230V should be good for 150-180ish amps of welding output.

 

[Daveville30]

I know what your saying but the 16amp female socket was only put there to suit the 16 amp male on the arc welder .the cable is heavy duty and the shed is hardwired to the meter. Would swapping it to a 32 female be OK?

 

[skotl]

You need a spark to answer that question, as the CSA of the cable, how/where it's routed, length of run, capacity at the consumer unit etc all need to be taken into account.

 

[ronan]

I think 16 amps is max on single phase ? Why not stick weld them ? Have you many to do ?

 

[Daveville30]

Yea cheers shed was only recently put up I'll ask the sparks. Going for a 250 r tech inverter instead should draw a bit less.

 

[Hood]

My R-Tech MTS255S needs a 32 amp supply if you want to weld near the max.

 

[Daveville30]

Think it's a 32 amp already or more as I said it's heavy duty cable by passing the house supply straight to the meter. 16 amp plug was put in to suit the welder

 

[Mee]

R Tech requires 22 amps maximum so needs a 32 amp socket.