Welding Tips and Tricks

As I am watching the news about the power outages in California, I am interested in setting up a backup generator for my house. We don't have natural gas at the property so propane or gasoline/diesel.

Now the exciting question is to get an engine welder that can be used as a generator in an emergency. The house main panel is 150A so 18kW is the peak usage, but in a pinch we can do probably with about 10-12kW.

Any suggestions? Would a Trailblazer 325 do? Other recommendations? Thanks.

koenbro wrote:As I am watching the news about the power outages in California, I am interested in setting up a backup generator for my house. We don't have natural gas at the property so propane or gasoline/diesel.

Now the exciting question is to get an engine welder that can be used as a generator in an emergency. The house main panel is 150A so 18kW is the peak usage, but in a pinch we can do probably with about 10-12kW.

Any suggestions? Would a Trailblazer 325 do? Other recommendations? Thanks.

Fixed it for you.

You can also look into A-I Power's SUA15000EC generator. 12kW continuous for around $2200.

Your issue is going to be that the welding generator only provides limited AC power as a by-product.

From: https://www.millerwelds.com/-/media/mil ... ed4-75.pdf

It gives: 2,400 watts (20 A) of 120-volt

So yeah... It won't get you your 12 kW

Of course that could be still enough as most temporary emergency generator setups for houses only supply power to some critical components like refrigerator, heater (pump) and lights in the house and do not provide power for A/C, stove(s), boilers, etc.

That usually cuts the needed power in a house to 1 to 2 kW and is doable with a fairly small portable generator.

If you intend to go whole-hog and get 12-18kW of continuous power then a professional diesel genset that can easily handle the load would be the ticket (also keen an eye for switch-on power peak draws from some devices that may need some over-dimensioning on the generatore side). Probably an enclosed shippingcontainer-based one that has high noise insulation and a big fuel tank so it can run continuously for a long time and not drive you (or the neighbours) nuts with the hum/noise.

Bye, Arno.

Arno
The 2400 watts of 120v power is only if he is using the 120v Excel power plug on the machine. Excel power is a very nice feature when running a single device on an extension cord.
The EFI trailblazer and
Bobcats put out 12kw peak and 10.5 kw continuous ac auxiliary on the non excell power side.
If he is planning on powering his house I suspect he will back feed power to his house panel. This won’t be done with one of the 120v outlets on the welder (excel or non excel) it will be done with the 50amp 220v outlet.

Sure, but the high current side is likely a fairly 'ragged' AC signal (stepped square-wave). Not sure I'd like to feed that to the equipment in a house.

Fridge, stove, pump(s) and other such loads won't care much about it, but more sensitive electronics may not be too thrilled about the harmonics.

That's one of the things that good (backup) generator builders spend a lot of time on: clean sine-wave A/C power output.

Still.. That's a personal choice if the additional investment is worth it or not..

Bye, Arno.

can use the samller units for a while depending on the length of time of use and how big a demand is on the unit. IF a refrigerator is on constantly , that will take away from the available power (does the light stay on all the time?) A water pump will take quite a bit of power for start up and then give the unit a reprieve while making pressure on the system. One would have to add up what is being tapped into the generator. Dont rely on the generator (smaller units) for constant heavy usage. We had a electric oven and that took the 6900 watt generator OUT after 4 hours of usage.