Club 80-90 Forums

Does anyone have any experience or advice regarding using a generator to power a welder? Losing access to garage with power and vehicular access, due to moving house. I’ll have a garage with power but no vehicular access, and my son has a garage with access but no power. Guess where I’ll be finishing my welding work...

Most of my welding is below 50 amps, but rises to 160 for chassis work.

Advice on type (inverter or not) and size would be most useful.

Many thanks...

Yes,

I have a 7.6KVa Pramarc genny which has been used for welding purposes a number of times. I have a Clarke EN150, others have brought their gear to me, it was up to the job, (a 13A socket being 3120 watts) but being old tech a bit noisy - runs on a Honda GX350 engine I think.

I don't think there is a need for a pure sine wave inverter genny for welding (like the Honda), and they are of course much more expensive

I’ve tripped 16A breakers on startup when welding at higher power tho, so I guess I’m up 4KVa or so at times. Thanks for that Carrera, I’ll carry on with looking at generators...

150a requires 5kVa genny as a stick welder, 16A mains seems to be the limit for a 160 amp welder

https://www.welduk.com/faq

and on the inverter front I was thinking Honda inverter generators which produce 3 phase and then rectify to mains quality sine wave single phase, rather than inverter welders which it struck me you may be considering.

I don’t think I’m getting another welder, but that link is perfect.

So by that, 160 A and 22V needs 3.9kva.

Many thanks for that Carrera, I knew I’d get some wisdom on here.

Same calculator as me Roger

just buy a petrol powered welder

RogerT wrote: I’ll have a garage with power but no vehicular access.

How is that a garage?

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It’s not a garage, it’s a compromise. Some on the same street have agreed between neighbours to remove the dividing fence between properties and so each gain shared access to the back. We’ll see...

Mocki wrote:just buy a petrol powered welder

Aye, but I’ve already got a welder, and I’ll need power for lights and other tools...