[AT] Wire size for welder?? Help welder people!

[Ron]

Must be two different Farmers on this list, one is chuckling at our oversizing
wire sizing "wasting money", other one is agreeing about not oversizing
breakers or
fuses.
Big dog, thanks for mentioning breakers job is to protect wiring, nothing
else, forgot
to mention it in my reply to John.
Ron





At 05:12 AM 12/9/04 -0500, you wrote:
>At 12/8/04 2:44:00 PM, you wrote:
>>John,
>>
>>Don't overlook the fact that breakers are to protect the wiring, not the
device.  If you're running from a 50 
>amp breaker, you need #6 wire.  The more correct way to look at that is
that you size the breaker according to 
>the wire you run.  A 50 amp breake
>>r will not protect #10 wires.  They will overheat and become a potential
fire hazard before the breaker trips 
>unless the cause is a sudden short.
>>    If the welder requires a 50 amp breaker for operation you need wiring
heavy enough to sustain a near 
>capacity current draw for an indefinite time period.
>>
>>Bigdog
>
>
>
>	Hi Bigdog:
>
>	That is an "extremely" good and important point... An awful lot of guys
never grasp that consideration. 
>The "bigger is better" thing kicks in and they want to hook small loads to
these huge breakers so that one will 
>never trip. Back when I was selling appliances I would go into a home and
find every fuse in their fuse box was 
>a 30 amp slow blow. Some of these folks had little more than a TV and a
few lights and were in old houses 
>that were wired extremely light. In most of those cases 15 amp fuses would
have been more than adequate 
>and much safer. My rule is to fuse any circut as lightly as I possibly can
without blowing fuses (or tripping 
>breakers). Fusing too heavy for the wire is like setting the pop-off valve
on a steam boiler at a higher pressure 
>than the pressure capacity of the boiler.
>
>
>
>"farmer"
>
>
>Francis Robinson
>Central Indiana USA
>robinson at svs.net
>
>
>
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