There is a welder at the space. Last I heard was that we have an issue getting sufficient power to it (as in, there isn’t a high amperage circuit available in the loading bay.).
Several ideas were discussed, such as:
many (7-8) extension cords being run in parallel ( this came about due to an offer for a large number of free extension cords )
Build a flexible extension cord about 100-120 ft long, 4 gauge, in order to bring power from the back of the shop area to the loading bay. Flexible so that it can be put away when not in use. (think movie set power cables)
Unfortunately, with the available 110VAC, ~8amps of power available, only the lightest kind of welding is possible at this time.
Then again, maybe there has been an improvement to the situation since
( If I remember correctly, The welder needs about 30 amps at 120VAC, or preferred 20 amps at 240VAC. The building only has 208VAC, so it’s a question to find out if the welder power supply will compensate )
@tdwebste It’s 208/120, but for 120VAC the max cable length from the
breaker is 8m or something. Voltage sag is a serious issue. I think it’s
being worked on.
@Rob_MacKenzie has been dutifully acquiring all of the safety gear and trying to figure out how to make this work for members. It seems progress has slowed recently but remember he’s not being paid to do this for us. It’s up to us to poke and prod and help move this forward. Thanks @Hekseskudd for doing just that.
I started a wiki page for our welder in the Tools section and posted a link there to the Owners Manual for this model.
The owners manual has this to say about power draw:
120 V: 24.3 A, 60 Hz, single-phase
240 V: 16.6 A, 60 Hz, single-phase
It doesn’t specifically say anything about 208V. A quick search online turned up this thread wherein someone asked Miller about 208V supply and found out this:
The official response from Miller:
The Millermatic 211 and 180 will work on 208 VAC single phase power. The issues that you will have is that the Auto-Set feature will not be exact. Because the input power will be low the output will be low as well. You will also not be able to maximum output from either unit as well.
So it sounds like 208V won’t hurt the machine, but also won’t give us great results. I am not too familiar with the electrical in our building and what options we have. If it is possible to install a new circuit then we could get a 30A or 40A single-phase 120V circuit. If it can be installed in the bay, great! If it’s easier to install this in our suite, then we can make a big cabtyre extension cord. A 50ft cord using 8AWG would only result in voltage sagging to 118.47V at full 24.3A draw. Using 6AWG would only sag to 119.04V. That’s easily within the typical fluctuation from BC Hydro service entrance (see table 1) so I can’t imagine it being a problem.
I too would really like to see this move forward. Let me know how I can help.
Popping in to say that I have a set of 6’ x 6’ welding screen and frame that I’d be happy to donate to the space. I seem to have misplaced the fasteners but they’re just standard nuts and bolts.
I don’t have a car at the moment so ideally someone could swing by to pick them up (they’re packed in the original shipping box); I’m not far from the space, at Cambie and 7th.
It’s up to us to poke and prod and help move this forward. Thanks 