Look what followed me home today...

Well I got my welder. Not the 250EX system I was originally looking to get, but I managed to find this on craigslist for $500 bones and couldn't pass it up.
http://youngstown.craigslist.org/tls/3128924594.html

It welds like a dream in TIG and Stick mode(Tested it before I bought it) and the stick leads are brand new with Tweco connectors. The TIG torch is an older 150A air-cooled model but it will do for now. It's 315A in DC mode and 400A in AC all on a 100A breaker. Just need to get my argon bottle refilled and mounted on the cart and I'm ready to roll. It did turn out to be slightly larger than I thought it was. Damn thing is the size of a washing machine with the wheels and stuff that it's sitting on. Damn thing also has a key to turn it on and off. Crazy thing...

That should get you going. Those are made by Miller if I'm not mistaken. Did you get a pedal with it?

I would assume that is a single phase machine and not 3-phase? Big machine for sure!

Yes, it's single phase @ 230volts. Yes it has a pedal also. It came with everything except for a bottle of gas and welding rods. Even got a pile of consumable parts for the torch too. Torch is really small...About the size of a WP-9 but the head isn't the standard design I'm use to, the collets don't look like any I've seen before so I'm thinking it's just a really old torch, but hey, it will work until I upgrade it to water-cooled after it starts making me some money. And I've also heard that the Airco TIGs are just re-badged Miller TIGs but I can't say for certain. I don't know a lot about it besides the fact that it works, it's huge, and I'm extremely happy that I have one finally!

Cool ... a dinosaur ... I had a chance to pick up one of the 200 amp migs for a C note ... I passed on it thinking it might be a little hard to get parts for ... I don't think they have made those for a while but they were solid units. Enjoy!

Congrats on the new machine! Before I learned about Everlast I was watching Craigs List for similar machines, and when a machine in my budget came up I'd download the manual and read up on it. The ones I saw weighed in at about 900 pounds! Looks like you got a good deal on yours. Good on ya for staying in the fight, and let us know what you're working on. Post up some pics!

Just got it off the truck and wired up into the breaker box. I only wired it with a 60A breaker which should let me run it up to about 250A on the output. I don't think I'll ever need to run it higher than that and if I do then I'll just step up to a bigger breaker. There's plenty of left over power in the breaker box but a 60A was all that I had and for some reason nobody in my area carries GE Model 'C' breakers. Oh well. I just burnt a few 10y/o, improperly stored 7018H4R rods with it and even though the rods were old and practically junk it burnt them up smooth as silk. I'm really loving this machine so far. I can't wait until I get my gas bottle so I can do some TIG work with it. Pics will come soon. My shop should be open to the public in about a week. I'm still finding it hard to believe that I finally got a good welder. =) I'm not much of a stick welder so I think I'm gonna go practice some more!

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Originally Posted by blasphemy000

Just got it off the truck and wired up into the breaker box. I only wired it with a 60A breaker which should let me run it up to about 250A on the output. I don't think I'll ever need to run it higher than that and if I do then I'll just step up to a bigger breaker. There's plenty of left over power in the breaker box but a 60A was all that I had and for some reason nobody in my area carries GE Model 'C' breakers. Oh well. I just burnt a few 10y/o, improperly stored 7018H4R rods with it and even though the rods were old and practically junk it burnt them up smooth as silk. I'm really loving this machine so far. I can't wait until I get my gas bottle so I can do some TIG work with it. Pics will come soon. My shop should be open to the public in about a week. I'm still finding it hard to believe that I finally got a good welder. =) I'm not much of a stick welder so I think I'm gonna go practice some more!

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Excellent timing and a great find. Should be ultra reliable given that it has worked well all this time. Can't wait to hear how things go once you've got the Argon setup! :D

With old iron like that, they pull down full nameplate amperage, and then some. Since that one needs 100 amps of 230 to hit 300A out, you might find that 60A breaker will take you up to 180A at 100% duty, and probably a little over that for short periods. Try not to pop the breaker too many times. The boards in old machines are not easy to find.
If you post some picture of your torch, maybe someone here can id it for you.

It's 100A in for 400A out on AC and 315A out on DC.

The basic rating is 300A. It will do a bit more than that on DC. The AC rating is very dependent on arc voltage and wave balance, which you can't control on that box. 400 is a max possible output that you will never see when welding normally. It just gives you that headroom to keep a stable arc at the 300A rated output. Those things were built when copper was cheap, and they put a ton of it in there. They have a soft and super stable arc that is great on heavy work. It probably wouldn't hurt to blow out the dust and whatever else might have found it's way inside, and set the HF contacts.

Previous owner took care of all that cleaning stuff. I had a look inside it before I bought it and it is spectacular inside. HF worked fine when I tested it before buying. I don't have my gas bottle yet to test now that I got it home, but I'm sure nothing moved out of place during transport. As for the power, that's all fine, like I said, I have plenty of power to spare, if I need a bigger breaker I'll install one, that's just the biggest one I could find today. I have enough spare power in my box to put the 100A in should I need it. And you are correct, the arc is super smooth!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blasphemy000

Just got it off the truck and wired up into the breaker box. I only wired it with a 60A breaker which should let me run it up to about 250A on the output. I don't think I'll ever need to run it higher than that and if I do then I'll just step up to a bigger breaker. There's plenty of left over power in the breaker box but a 60A was all that I had and for some reason nobody in my area carries GE Model 'C' breakers. Oh well. I just burnt a few 10y/o, improperly stored 7018H4R rods with it and even though the rods were old and practically junk it burnt them up smooth as silk. I'm really loving this machine so far. I can't wait until I get my gas bottle so I can do some TIG work with it. Pics will come soon. My shop should be open to the public in about a week. I'm still finding it hard to believe that I finally got a good welder. =) I'm not much of a stick welder so I think I'm gonna go practice some more!

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I have blown the 60A main running my Synchro 180 near the top end, of course there may have been a few amps being consumed elsewhere, but I did measure 55A at the machine full out which is what the manual said it would take, so I doubt you will get 250A out of a machine on a 60A breaker. I suggest you look for a power factor correction kit for that beast. Magnetisation current likes to rob current...that you can't use.

If I pop the 60A I won't be too worried. The main breaker in my garage is 200A and I only have like 5 120v breakers and 1 240v for the air compressor. I have plenty of power to spare in the box so if need be I can wire the welder with a full 100A breaker. Not a big deal.

What I meant was try not to pop the breaker, as it's one thing that an older machine like that will not like. You don't want to blow a board. Just like there are a few controls that are probably marked not to switch under load. SCR gated boxes like that usually have such warnings, and having the breaker pop is like switching under load. I have a similar vintage machine. One good thing is that they are not to hard to diagnose to the component level as they are pretty simple, and schematics are usually included or not hard to find. One not so nice thing is the impact on your electric bill. No such thing as a free lunch. ;)

You might look to see if your torch is one of these. Looks like consumables are available if you ever need any.
http://www.tectorch.com/heliweld%20torches.htm

Gotcha...I'll just keep it turned down until I get the bigger breaker then. I don't pay the electric bill at the shop, my father-in-law does and he said he could care less how much power I use. But I did warn him that this welder would spin the dial on the electric meter like crazy.

That's not the torch I have. This torch doesn't have collet bodies in it. The collets go directly into the torch head and the back cap screws on. The ceramic cup also screws right to the head and there's no insulator, nor is there room for one. It's definitely an odd looking torch. I do plan to upgrade to a CK200 or CK230 with water cooler in the future though so this one will work until then as I did get an array of cups, 3 diff. length back caps and a pile of collets for it. Also, the gas supply line is a thin plastic line that runs parallel to the power cable up to the torch handle.

I did just get my argon bottle today and got everything hooked up and gave all the TIG functions a try. Everything worked really well and I got to lay down my first bead on aluminum. I got a lot of practice to do on my aluminum yet, so I'm gonna get some 1/8" to practice on as the 1/16" scrap I had laying around was just too thin for a first timer. I did lay a couple 1/2-way decent beads, but I think some thicker metal will be easier to learn on. Thanks for all the input guys. I'm going to make supper...