Van generator to power welder?

[Kent]

Facing digger buckets takes a LOT longer with stick, and time as they say, is money.

sometimes (not always just sometimes) the time difference is over stated. The answer however is of course to charge per hour

 

[Bill Edwards]

He can with his Ranger though.

Fair point, but it started off with looking at a 200a MIG as being nice, or a 170a being OK. Then the thought of having gouging as perhaps being handy suggests to me that we could be over thinking and going over the top with gear when it might be that it's just the odd seized pin that would be easily dealt with with gas and the odd light welding job where the process wouldn't make much difference.

I'm not saying either of is are right or wrong with what we suggest, simply that we don't really know much about the work that's required of the kit.

 

[Richard.]

I've removed and refaced Afew. A particular one in Norway in the mines could of fitted 10 blokes inside. It's a powerful mig and arc air gouging job all the way. the sheer speed and accuracy a gouger can do will Out perform the fuel gas approach on this type of job. Mma welding will be impractical especially if it's a full clad inside and out.

 

[Jim Davey]

I imagine he was only looking at that size mig as that's all he thought he could run off the generator he has.
Obvoiusly if all he could run was a 170-200 then he'd have to revise his plans on the heavy plant work.

 

[F.J.]

F.J was mentioning a 170 or 200 amp MIG earlier in the thread though, you'd be talking pretty thin digger buckets with that amperage, and the duty cycle wouldn't be up to much either - a 170a MIG with a 35% duty cycle doesn't do digger bucket work too well!

I was enquiring about the welder size that could be run off the 6kva genny already installed in the van. For bigger jobs the Ranger would be used but I also repair cherry picker baskets and the tubing is only 1.5mm thick

 

[Bill Edwards]

Ah, you certainly do need a MIG for some of the work then!

 

[F.J.]

Ah, you certainly do need a MIG for some of the work then!

Absolutely, most of my work is on cherry picker baskets but with more and more coming from heavier plant. Not knowing what kind of power I could expect to gain from the vans genny I had to ask but through everybody's answers I'm aware that it is more or less useless for what I want. Although I could use it for running tools, if I bought another ranger I can also run my tools off that so may as well rip the vans genny out.

The current set up I have in my other van is a Ranger 305D with Bester wire feeder and 15metres of cabling, rollers for 0.8, 1.0 and 1.2mm solid wires and knurled rollers for 1.1mm Lincoln Innersheild. It works a dream for what I do so may as well as duplicate it in my new van now I know the fixed genny won't do what I want it to do.

Thanks for all your replies.

 

[wyn]

Duplication makes sense....stick with what you know works for you already.

 

[HMB]

Sorry I meant tachograph, a disc type. I understand to a degree the laws of towing with different weight classed vehicles but I will be going legit for the biggest I can tow, not just for a towable welder/genny but so I can also pick up, deliver customers buckets, baskets, small machines etc.... I wouldn't dream of chancing it when it comes to vosa and the like as my van is my business and I'd be up the proverbial creek if I got caught!

And don't forget calibration for the tacho at vosa atf's