- Joined
- Oct 20, 2008
- Messages
- 5,547
For years the utility welding method in my shop has been stick. TIG is great for some stuff, and my little craftsman MIG does OKish on sheet metal- but when you need to put some amps into general steel work, it's hard to beat stick welding. Unless that is, you have a sizeable MIG machine- especially if you're doing things like dry-welding billets by arcing up all the seams first, it's a lot faster than stick welding.
I went looking for one recently, and came up with an AIRCO CV300 II Migatronic welder. That's a big old transformer based machine, in this case out of a Seattle shipyard. It was set up for spray transfer welding with 1/16" dual shield wire! I got it for $300. The catch: it's a 3 phase only machine.
There are people who have converted 3 phase welders for single phase use, most notably a fellow named Dave Kamp from the various welding forums. I figured I might try that; at any rate, my VFD puts out only up to 3 hp (far below the 35 amp necessary input for the welder) and research lead me to believe that a VFD can be damaged when feeding a welder.
Fortune smiled upon me, and a Phase Perfect 10 hp digital phase converter basically fell into my lap. This is not a static phase converter, but a quite expensive box that digitally and efficiently synthesizes a perfectly balanced third leg of power. What literature and chatter I could find online indicated it would work fine to power a welder.
Well, I finished wiring everything tonight, and powered up- and the welder works great! All I had on hand was the argon for my TIG setup, so the arc was a little gruff, but I think tomorrow when I go get some 85/15 mix that will improve.
Just thought I'd share that, as a +1 for Phase Perfect if anyone should consider one.
Plus, now I have a power supply for any mechanical power hammer up to perhaps 150 lbs. that I might find...
I went looking for one recently, and came up with an AIRCO CV300 II Migatronic welder. That's a big old transformer based machine, in this case out of a Seattle shipyard. It was set up for spray transfer welding with 1/16" dual shield wire! I got it for $300. The catch: it's a 3 phase only machine.
There are people who have converted 3 phase welders for single phase use, most notably a fellow named Dave Kamp from the various welding forums. I figured I might try that; at any rate, my VFD puts out only up to 3 hp (far below the 35 amp necessary input for the welder) and research lead me to believe that a VFD can be damaged when feeding a welder.
Fortune smiled upon me, and a Phase Perfect 10 hp digital phase converter basically fell into my lap. This is not a static phase converter, but a quite expensive box that digitally and efficiently synthesizes a perfectly balanced third leg of power. What literature and chatter I could find online indicated it would work fine to power a welder.
Well, I finished wiring everything tonight, and powered up- and the welder works great! All I had on hand was the argon for my TIG setup, so the arc was a little gruff, but I think tomorrow when I go get some 85/15 mix that will improve.
Just thought I'd share that, as a +1 for Phase Perfect if anyone should consider one.
Plus, now I have a power supply for any mechanical power hammer up to perhaps 150 lbs. that I might find...