got me a new welder, Lincoln HD175. Making my own extension cord. Need to know what would the proper gauge be? Was thinking 10/3 stranded wire core(for flex). Would this be enough? Or would I have voltage drop? Just making it 50' . The welder is a 230volt. Will be running it off my dryer plug. Thank you.
# 10 wire is correct for 30 amps as that is the wire size for the dryer circut. As long as you run a wire that is equal or larger then the breaker size you will be ok because if you pull to much current the breaker will trip without overheating the wiring.
Should be ok for voltage drop unless you already have a mile of wire from the breaker to the receptable. I run that much extetion for my tig. (50 feet # 6 on a 50 amp circuit) with no problems.
The extension cord I bought from a welding supply place for my Lincoln is 6 gauge and 50 feet long. You might get a little voltage drop with the 10 gauge welding on the highest power setting.
Rule of thumb for 10 gauge stranded copper wire is you lose about 1 volt for every ten feet...I think it's something like .85volts, but it's just easier to use the 1 volt per 10 foot rule... Sooo, check your welder manual and look in it's operating range...if you can run 220-230 volts input, then you could actually run a 100 fott cord without issues to the welder...then you just need to know about the current effects on 10 gauge per length and how many amps you can run without over heating the wire.
I have a 25' extension. Yellow ****, really flexible, called SUPRENE. Got it at Lowe's. Works great, no issues running any of my 220 stuff.
#10 @ 30 amps is good for 65 feet. after that you should go #8. So unless you dryer circuit is only 15 feet long you should go one size up. You don't want your extension cord, or the wire in the wall, to become a heater. You probably wouldn't have a problem with #10 if you where only welding intermittently, for extended periods I think the wire would get hot and end up tripping the breaker.
A lincoln 175 has a total output of 3500 watts =220 volts just over 16 amps. 175 amps x 20 volts on the secondary.
I would bet your manual reccomends running your welder on a 50 amp circut for maximum performance. A dryer is only 30.
I think a 50 amp circuit requires a 6 gauge minimum......3 conductor (hot, hot, neutral and ground is about $2.50 a foot.......you need a double pole 50 amp breaker too. don't be a cheap-*** and risk burning the ****in' house down
His welder at full power only draws 17 amps. How ever a nice 50 amp breaker with a 6-3 wire and ground would make a nice setup to run a sub panel.
go on evil-pay, the best price you will get an extension cord from is from GTS, look for 8/3 50'. im sure the prices have gone up but they were nearly half the cost of my local welding supply which the prices are usually pretty good. GTS is also a local supply for me but i never did check if the price was the same in store. i highly doubt it. it was actually cheaper than making it.
The weird thing about the 175 weder is that it has a cord already attached to the machine that is 12 gauge. I just bought the wire by the foot and then bought the plugs . 10-3 without ground. and installed a female plug at the panel and then made up a couple cords. One at 25' and one at 30' if I need to weld out of the shop.
Yeah I noticed the plug cord out of the machine is #12, Im going to use #10 and hard wire it into the welder it self, save me trhe cost of buying another plug.
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