Welding Tips and Tricks

Congrats on the find. That is a good deal. Depending on the lenght you want to go with, maxed out at 300 amps, I went with 50 ft. sections of 2/0 lead. I believe that is good up to 150 ft. I would look on ebay, if you use that site. Usually you can find some smokin deals on weld cable.

Is that 275 one way? I had to drive 600 miles round trip to get my Ingersoll Rand engine driven compressor. I feel your pain.

There are a few on there under welding cable. Here is a couple.
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-2-0-EXCELENE-WE ... 2a128ab8f2
http://cgi.ebay.com/Complete-Set-2-0-x- ... 335b704fe8
http://cgi.ebay.com/50-2-0-EXCELENE-WEL ... 230747e903

Yeah, 150' on 2/0 sounds about right. On my last shutdown the hot roof crew were welding jet-rod at 275 on up to 250' of cable, with the machine grounded directly to the structure, and had no problems other than exceeding the duty cycle on some of the machines. I don't know why those idiots didn't use the Miller 500A deisels. They were on Lincoln 275A inverters maxed out, while I was burning 1/8" 7018 with one of the big machines.

It was a very disorganized job. I'm still stunned we finish a week ahead of schedule. My bonus amounted to double travel pay. I guess they think "bonus" is two words, as in "bone us".

Steve

Wow, they still give out bonus's? Aint heard of one of those in 5 years

Ekfinn,
This looks like a good deal on two 50 ft. leads with connectors
http://cgi.ebay.com/WELDING-LEAD-SET-/3 ... 4aad692534

That's a good price for cable w/ connectors.

I can't quite make out the name on the connector, but it looks like a Lenco LC-20 to me. ?????? You might have to swap out the connectors to match, adding another $35 to $40 to the total cost. Some Millers use a euro style pin connector that doesn't adapt to Lenco, but will adapt to Tweco.

I asked the seller via an email, and he said that he listed in the description all the markings on the cable. Not sure if they are 1/0 or 2/0. before you buy them, you might send him an email and ask him to measure the thickness of the cable. You should be able to tell from that. Sorry couldn't help.

I would probably jump on em' too. Those ends look like a Tweco end. At 100 ft. with a 1/0 cable, you should be good to about 250 amps at a 75% duty cycle. Welding, I probably wouldn't worry about it. But stretching those cables out to 100ft. when you are gouging with those carbon rods at 300 amps, you might want to watch.
I repair a lot of heavy equipment and burn a lot of carbon rod and my trailblazer hasn't missed a beat. They are rated for a 3/16 carbon, but I run 1/4 all day long. You can burn 5/16 with it too, but not for extended periods. It's one of the best machines I have ever owned.