welder extension lead

[God mode restorations]

afternoon all..
my old extension lead has give up now..its done well.i cant afford the Eastwood welding extension lead and its only 25ft long...and need 20 meters...but what i do have is a roll of tower fles black rubber cable..2.5 mm core rated 25amps..will i need a heavier amp cable to run my 170 amp welder...

 

[normspanners]

You need as big section as you can especially if it is an older mig, coz the volts drop causes the wire feed speed to alter, as the volts drop, the speed drops. also the mig is controlled by voltage. I use 4mm flex for my welding extension, but I was on a loser here because I had 210v and at tea time down to sub 200. they have redone the overheads now and made them a ring i think and now we have 240v, it has made a massive difference, next door complained about the brownouts when I was miging, even I could see there lights dipping, but not with the stick .
I have doubled up on cable before now, IE two into one plug /socket when I have had to.
I have used a boost tranny at the cable end to raise the voltage that made a big difference.

 

[God mode restorations]

Ok right...so the tower flex cable will not be man enough....

 

[God mode restorations]

Just came across some 3 core 4mm rubber cable 35 amp rated...will that wire in to a 13amp plug...

 

[normspanners]

Well its in mine
Get agood quality plug/socket , I use a MK metal clad socket on the end.

 

[God mode restorations]

awesome..cheers and thank you....

 

[brightspark]

its hard work getting 2.5mm flex in to a 13 amp plug never mind 4.0mm .u can get it in by cutting a few strands of the flex off till it fits in the hole but i bet u wont get the flex clamps to go over it

 

[tlovatt]

If you are running from a 13A plug then the 2.5mm will be fine - the difference in volt drop along the cable will be about 2V more than a 4mm cable (7mV per AM difference in 2.5mm and 4mm CSA) which assuming you are plugging into somewhere with a good feed should not be a problem. Keep in mind that UK mains is 230V +10% - 6% so could be almost as low as 215V at the connection to the house and will vary throughout the day as the grid seeks to regulate power demand vs capacity.

 

[brightspark]

it can depend on what aeria u live in to what voltage is. apart from farms and outlying aerias the voltage is mainly 240v

 

[God mode restorations]

ok cool..am a bit stuck as what will be my best bet...the 2.5 is rated at 25amps...so a 20 meter cable should be ok...and i can get some 4mm if i need that's rated 35 amps...

 

[tlovatt]

If you look at the voltage during low demand, you will find that the typical voltage across the country is 240V whilst officially the nominal voltage is 230V, it dates back to European harmonization,

The UK used to be 240V +/- 6% (IIRC)
Mainland Europe 220V +/- 6%

So we could all be one happy family, the UK became 230V +10% - 6% and Mainland Europe 230V +6% -10%

That way no one had to change anything and we could all (on paper) have the same voltage. However, with the state of the UK power network you will find voltages (during peak periods) are dipping further than they may have done in the past. The target is to maintain the average frequency over the day (50hz) and so the voltage of the grid is adjusted in order to allow the frequency to be corrected - the reasoning apparently dates back to the widespread use of clocks based upon mains frequency.

 

[tlovatt]

If you are running from a 13A plug and you have the 2.5mm already I would go with that and avoid the cost of buying new cable, it should be sufficient for a 13A or 16A supply

 

[God mode restorations]

ok cool...well i will stick with the 3 core 2.5 as i have a large real...but now i understand more with the information you guys have given...thanks all for your help...

 

[God mode restorations]

yes I all ways un real the hole cable.but I got the new cable and heavy duty plugs and its made a lot of difference..

 

[Jan]

My wife ******** up one of longer extension reels by using the carpet steam cleaner without reeling all the cable off the centre. Most of the insulation had welded itself together and even melted the reel hub into a shapeless mass. If I hadn't got home when I did there could have been quite a fire!