Tip of the day #2

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
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This is the second instalment of my tip of the day. Today’s tip involves safety.

So a little tip DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT have your small 120v mig welder plugged into the same circuit as the magnetic chuck on your surface grinder. ESPECIALLY when your running the surface grinder and you decide you will do some light fab work while you wait for the surface grinder to finish up. I was very lucky yesterday. I started welding and popped the breaker. I thankfully was just sparking out the D2 barstock. If I had been taking any kind of cut I would have created a 6 shot D2 flat stock shooter when I tripped that breaker. I’m lucky because my mag chuck stays magnetic to some extent after the power is switched off.

So when you plug in remember safety first.
 
And this is an example of why I have 240v plugs on my welders (and why it was worth it to install a bunch of extra 50 amp plugs/breakers).

That and I have noticed that with the exception of the occasional sheet metal project (and I mostly tig for sheet), I rarely run a welder at an amperage that won't pop a breaker. I also installed a bunch of 20 and 30 amp 120v circuits for similar reasons, but I use these for other things.

Hell, my plasma cutter is pretty small and I run it on a 240v50 circuit cause it will pop anything but the 30 amp 120s if I run it flat out. Turns out it requires a lot of juice to melt steel in any quantity.

Don't know your electrical situation, but if your breaker is nearby and you have the room, putting in some extra high amp circuits in 120/240 is SO worth the cost.
 
tig, mig, arc, kiln, table saw, all on separate circuits. Many of my 110 v units are separate as well.
Glad there was no injury, now get in that panel box and isolate those circuits. LOL
And, thanks for sharing. There are so many ways to get injured in a shop environment every sharing incident is good for all of us.
 
I could accept worklights or something, But would one have a ’mag chuck not powered from the grinder circuit ?
 
I have 4 50amp 240v outlets spaced every 10 feet. And then along every wall I have a quad outlet on its 20amp breaker and these are every 10ft around the entire shop. I have plenty of power. What I was saying is my mig is a tiny cheep one that only plugs into 120. I use it mostly just for Damascus billets.
 
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