Clarke Pro 90 earth cable and clamp upgrade

[marco2002]

Good evening all. I've had the Pro 90 for about 4 years and it's not been bad at all for thin car bodywork managed to repair a front cross member on my old nissan. The earth clamp on it is pretty feeble and the cable is only 6mm( minimum spec) . Had a look around and a cable with a dinse connector looks a good option? The cable is not very long either. As far as I can see I would need a dinse socket to go on the front of the case where the current earth goes through the hole and inside the welder there's a butt type crimp connector( 2nd picture)so I would need another piece of 16mm cable to go between the crimp connector and the back of the dinse socket with a lug on it. I've got a neighbour who's an electrician so should be able to get a new cable crimped. I was thinking a 16mm cable and should be ok for this welder as it's only 90amps.Hopefully it will help improve the welding lol. Have a sill to weld up on a nissan soon found a small hole where someone put a patch panel on before have to get it done soon while the weather's still warm! Any tips or words of wisdom would be appreciated.
Thanks marco

 

[hotponyshoes]

16mm would be fine for power handling but bigger cable is a lot more physically durable.
I've got a load of 25mm rubber covered if you want some of that, it's pretty tough stuff and takes being dragged over floors/edges pretty well. If you can find rubber 16mm that would be better/tougher than pvc covered stuff

 

[Popcorn]

You might find this thread helpful:

clarke 90- worth fitting a thicker earth ?

i have a clarke 90 mig - works well for what i need the earth cable looks pretty feeble , would it be worth getting a few meters of something thicker and fitting that , or is the thin one up to the job

www.mig-welding.co.uk

 

[Nomad]

Hi Marco,

I have the same machine and found the original earth cable & clamp would get warm after running at high power.
Replacing the cable was simple to do the only tricky bit is getting a good connection afterwards.
Make sure you upgrade the clamp at the same time.
If I was doing it again I'd fit a dinse socket on the front of the machine for the new earth cable.
Beware if fitting a dinse - looking at my machine I'm sure the output from the transformer inside won't reach the front panel. One option might be to turn the transformer inside the machine 90* so the transformer output reaches the new dinse socket.

Some advice about DINSE https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum...ground-clamp-sizes-seem-way-too-small.129085/

I'd also advise upgrading the power cable, the original is lightweight and about yard long, I fitted much heavier cable - longer than original so it's a lot easier to position the machine where I want it.

My machine served me well for 20 years, no need for anything larger for mot repairs etc

Edit: beaten to it by somebody who types faster than me There have been a few threads in the past if you use the search at the top of the page.

 

[marco2002]

Thanks for all your advice so far!!

 

[marco2002]

Just an update went the whole hog today got the hobbyweld gas, regulator, hose pipe adapter. Bottle was £70 and £40 for filing up. So should save a fair bit on cost of disposables. Looking at earth cables on Amazon and ebay tnite

 

[marco2002]

Tested out the gas bottle and regulator all seems ok apart from the adapter hose looks like the barb connector is leaking (regulator end). Those connectors don't look very robust so I might just use a jubilee hose clamp on it as I can't be bothered to do a 40 mile round trip to the shop. I can the jubilees in swanage easily. The pipe is a bit on the short side at 0.5m so might get a longer pipe at some point....

 

[marco2002]

Looks like I fixed the leaking pipe nipped the barb connector up with a pair of pincers and it's stopped hissing

 

[Popcorn]

Think a lot of people swap to Rectus21 quick release connectors, but I've never seen the need myself.