Look what followed me home today...

[undercut]

Just got it off the truck and wired up into the breaker box. I only wired it with a 60A breaker which should let me run it up to about 250A on the output. I don't think I'll ever need to run it higher than that and if I do then I'll just step up to a bigger breaker. There's plenty of left over power in the breaker box but a 60A was all that I had and for some reason nobody in my area carries GE Model 'C' breakers. Oh well. I just burnt a few 10y/o, improperly stored 7018H4R rods with it and even though the rods were old and practically junk it burnt them up smooth as silk. I'm really loving this machine so far. I can't wait until I get my gas bottle so I can do some TIG work with it. Pics will come soon. My shop should be open to the public in about a week. I'm still finding it hard to believe that I finally got a good welder. =) I'm not much of a stick welder so I think I'm gonna go practice some more!

Excellent timing and a great find. Should be ultra reliable given that it has worked well all this time. Can't wait to hear how things go once you've got the Argon setup!

[Rambozo]

With old iron like that, they pull down full nameplate amperage, and then some. Since that one needs 100 amps of 230 to hit 300A out, you might find that 60A breaker will take you up to 180A at 100% duty, and probably a little over that for short periods. Try not to pop the breaker too many times. The boards in old machines are not easy to find.
If you post some picture of your torch, maybe someone here can id it for you.

[blasphemy000]

It's 100A in for 400A out on AC and 315A out on DC.

[Rambozo]

The basic rating is 300A. It will do a bit more than that on DC. The AC rating is very dependent on arc voltage and wave balance, which you can't control on that box. 400 is a max possible output that you will never see when welding normally. It just gives you that headroom to keep a stable arc at the 300A rated output. Those things were built when copper was cheap, and they put a ton of it in there. They have a soft and super stable arc that is great on heavy work. It probably wouldn't hurt to blow out the dust and whatever else might have found it's way inside, and set the HF contacts.

[blasphemy000]

Previous owner took care of all that cleaning stuff. I had a look inside it before I bought it and it is spectacular inside. HF worked fine when I tested it before buying. I don't have my gas bottle yet to test now that I got it home, but I'm sure nothing moved out of place during transport. As for the power, that's all fine, like I said, I have plenty of power to spare, if I need a bigger breaker I'll install one, that's just the biggest one I could find today. I have enough spare power in my box to put the 100A in should I need it. And you are correct, the arc is super smooth!