It's not just my house.................

[Scottishlandy]

I 've read at least one post on this forum about house lights flickering due to welding.............but I can do better than that, so it would appear. I live in a remote small village in the Scottish Borders and I have just discovered that my welding activicties are making a good number of my neighbours lights flicker as well.I've not been lynched yet but I maybe soon if I don't solve the problem! Before I speak to Scottish Power I thought I would ask and see if anyone in the welding fraternity can help. The mig welder I use is 160amp, uses a normal 13amp fused plug (which never blows) and therefore just plugs into the mains. I have been reliably informed that the feed to my workshop comes from the house via a 2.5 cable, which I think is normal domestic type.
So should I use a heavier cable for my workshop supply?
Buy a bigger generator but what size would I need? (the one I have now won't run the welder)
Or ask all my neighbours to move?

Any suggestions gratefully received.Thanks.

 

[irondarren]

if its 2.5mm cable thats a little on the small side. Much depends on the distance the workshop is from the house, its all down to voltage drop. The longer the cable the thicker it needs to be. How far away is the workshop from the consumer unit

 

[murex400]

Ask two of your neighbours to move out then you can take a supply from each house and you now have 3 phase

 

[burntmebonce]

i used 6mm cable to feed my workshop which is 30m away from the house and i still make my neighbours lights flicker but not the ones in my house strange or what. they think i was ****** when i wired it in

 

[Hitch]

Its do do which phase its connected to apparently....

Wozzaaah was asking about upgrading his workshop supply at Ultimate Handyman, and one of the Electrical experts mentioned it.

 

[Wozzaaah]

I've never had any complaints about lights flickering when I've been welding. Not had much feedback on UHM Hitch but I'm pretty much decided on what my plans are and I think they involve selling the tig

 

[malcolm]

I've forgotten which username and password I used on ultimate handyman. Is that a Syncrowave you've picked up then Wozzaaah? I've got a 300 that says it would be perfectly happy with a 110 amp supply.

I think we've got 60 amps into the house. I'm running mine directly off a 40 amp type D trip, but that's just to cope with the start up load.

Haven't welded anything thicker than 2mm aluminium yet, but did manage to vaporise it when I got confused about settings and that didn't trip the trip. Might be worth giving it a go.

Flickering lights seems to be more of a MIG thing than a TIG thing. It's all about changes in load rather than the actual load itself (that's dimming of lights ). TIG is a lot smoother than MIG, and posh MIGs a lot smoother than cheap MIGs.

 

[snowcat]

I've never had any complaints about lights flickering when I've been welding. Not had much feedback on UHM Hitch but I'm pretty much decided on what my plans are and I think they involve selling the tig

What Tig set is it wozzz anything nice???

 

[Wozzaaah]

It's an old Miller Dialarc 250HF, single phase, same as this one.

got it on the bay of E a while back but at the moment it's sat idle due to the fact I've only got a measly 20A supply to the garage and it trips that just turning it on. My portamig specifies a 50A supply but runs quite nicely on the 20A at quite high settings.

 

[Hitch]

Thats not that big, get your 60a supply and thatll run fine surely

Youd have to be doing some hefty tig work to have it on full bore

 

[snowcat]

It's an old Miller Dialarc 250HF, single phase, same as this one.

got it on the bay of E a while back but at the moment it's sat idle due to the fact I've only got a measly 20A supply to the garage and it trips that just turning it on. My portamig specifies a 50A supply but runs quite nicely on the 20A at quite high settings.

Time for an inverter then wozz, tho mine's 3 phase.....Lincoln do some nice little S/F ones, I could always mention the F word

 

[malcolm]

Have you got a type D trip? That's what sorted mine. It's the in-rush current trying to fill the mighty transformers full of electricity that trips the trip. Once it's started up it doesn't seem any worse than any other welder for current draw.

Bloody portamig started tripping switches last weekend - it was on a different circuit (16 amp type B trip that was set up deliberately low in case something went wrong in the garage). Fine in the summer but the cold weather affects things a little. It's temporarily on the TIG circuit now.

 

[shenion]

The DIalarc has power-factor correction. This is a capacitor across the input (usually on a tap on the transformer.) This trips a cheap 50A breaker on my Airco (basically the same as Dialarc.) Using Square-D breaker helped. Now it rarely trips the breaker.

PF correction is an option (-P models) Disconnecting it will lower the startup and idle current. It will increase the full load current though.

 

[Scottishlandy]

My workshop is about 25metres from the house so if a 2.5 cable runs that distance I imagine that I must be getting a fairly significant voltage drop. So thicker cable might be the most sensible first step and see what happens from there. Thanks for your help so far.
Wozzaaah's Millar looks pretty fine, although I'm fascinated by the "Wah Wah pedal" pictured with it!

 

[irondarren]

one way to test voltage drop, is to put a multimeter on a plug socket with nothing being used, you should get 240v -235v reading. Then power up the welder and run a quick bead, get somone to watch the lowest reading the multimeter has, then you will know how much voltage drop you have

 

[Russy196]

You will need a minimum 4.0mm cable for your welder supply. Normal ring mains @ 32A use 2.5mm x 2.

Probably worth getting your earthing checked too. Voltage's can go down the earths of ajoining propertys on PME (earth attached to the negative at the meter).

Although most of the UK has 100A supplys nowerdays. most old electric meters are rated at 40A

As for generators, well big would be the answer, at least 1kv over the near 5Kv of your welder. You'll probably need a pure sine wave generator, that will cost a packet too. Square waves may mess up your welds and rectifers.

Rus MIET

 

[rtbcomp]

Voltage drop on the cable from your house to the garage won't affect your neighbour's houses - this is caused by voltage drop on the common cable from the supply authority's transformer to your and their premises.

In the days of steam computers we used motor-alternator sets to obviate this problem; this, as the name suggests, is an alternator driven by an eletcric motor with a flywheel inbetween.

 

[Wozzaaah]

My workshop is about 25metres from the house so if a 2.5 cable runs that distance I imagine that I must be getting a fairly significant voltage drop. So thicker cable might be the most sensible first step and see what happens from there. Thanks for your help so far.
Wozzaaah's Millar looks pretty fine, although I'm fascinated by the "Wah Wah pedal" pictured with it!

Depends on the load, a 25m run of 2.5mm SWA will give you a MAX of 5.64kW(24.52A) with the maximum permissible volt-drop of 4%. Yeah, the wah wah pedal It is a remote control for well, controlling the power on the fly. It is the equivalent of turning the power control knob as you weld. I'm itching to use it but at the moment it's just a big ornament. It came with all the bits and pieces, water cooler, water-cooled torch, foot pedal, MMA kit, spare tungstens, shrouds, collets, filler rods, regulator. ALL I NEED IS LECCY!!!!!!!!

 

[Wozzaaah]

Have you got a type D trip? That's what sorted mine. It's the in-rush current trying to fill the mighty transformers full of electricity that trips the trip. Once it's started up it doesn't seem any worse than any other welder for current draw.

Bloody portamig started tripping switches last weekend - it was on a different circuit (16 amp type B trip that was set up deliberately low in case something went wrong in the garage). Fine in the summer but the cold weather affects things a little. It's temporarily on the TIG circuit now.

Sorry, reading this thread backwards to make sure I don't miss anything. It's supplied via a type C mcbrcd at the moment Malcolm. I'm going to uprate the supply to 45 or 50A type D and see what happens. I'm sure I'll be able to use the old beast, just not at anything near it's maximum though.

 

[Drains]

Tell you wot Woz, i'll swop you my absolute rubbish only worth a fiver bar bender (in german that would be all one word btw - absoluterubbishonlyworthafiverbarbenderstein) for your totally useless size of a shed even jimi hendrix couldn't get a tune out of this Tig welder.


Woddayasay?