Powerarc 200ST 120v

Hi everyone. I bought this machine about a year ago and have mostly used it for tig. It has been a great machine for that but when it comes to stick welding on 120v I'm not sure what the problem is or if this is normal?

I have welded out a whole 6" sch.40 pipe with tig on 120v without much stopping other than to get new filler wire between 100-120 amps the whole time without any issue.

On the same 120v circuit (which has a 20amp breaker), I cant even burn a single rod of 3/32 7018 without the breaker tripping I've tried between 70 and 90 amps, different hot start settings, different arc force settings and still can only get about half a rod to burn.

Is this normal for this machine on 120v? What could possibly be wrong?

Gee,

Have you tried it with Stick on 220/240V first, just as a baseline.

Otherwise, I took a quick look at the PDF manual.

https://www.everlastgenerators.com/s...es%20200ST.pdf

See here:

Attachment 13977

Maybe a 20 amp 120V breaker is problematic with Stick though. I mean, I TIG with my 210EXT on a 120V/20amp breaker up to 125 amps with no tripping at all. But maybe I’ll try Stick on 120V sometime. I hear my 210EXT welds well on Stick, but after owning it for five years now, I've never gotten around to burning some good ole rods with it.

I dont have any 240v welder plugs readily available, I'll try to use it on a 240v at work some time soon to test it out.

At my work we have a miller maxstar 161stl that we use for anywhere only a 120v outlet is available and it can run rod after rod pretty well at 90 amps (1/8" 6010) on a 20 amp breaker. That's why I was thinking something was wrong with the everlast only burning about 1/2 a rod before cutting out since those 2 machines seem to have fairly similar specs.

The arc voltage for stick is much higher. It has a much higher inrush. You need a 30 amp breaker to take advantage of the arc force control, which can exceed the maximum amperage of the machine.

Also each time your breaker trips it gets weaker and weaker.