Originally Posted by
Odyknuck
I have been researching building a Water cooler for my new 250EX and have discovered an area of concern. A lot of the DIY projects are using 120vac pumps and are being sourced from the Welder. In doing so they are utilizing the ground wire and one 220 VAC leg to get the 120VAC. This is a really bad ideal as the case of the Welder now becomes "HOT" because the ground wire is connected to it internally. If you insist on doing this please disconnect the ground wire from the Chassis. Note this method comes with a price as you no longer have short circuit protection on the Welder and the Cooler. Meaning if a wire and/or a componet comes in contact with one of the case's it will not trip the breaker. You will also not know it until you touch the case. Either way it's a really bad Ideal. My suggestion is to run a seperate neutral to the Welder plug from the distribution panel or simply source the cooler off of a wall receptable.
Using the ground for a neutral is a bad plan, but removing the chassis ground is a worse plan!
The case will not be hot as long as it is tied to ground it will be at that level. And as you say, by removing the chassis connection, you lose some very important safety features. Remember that neutral and ground are tied together at the panel, and they share the same voltage potential. The only good way to resolve this is to use a neutral line to get 120V or add a small 240 to 120 transformer as part of your cooler build.
Long arc, short arc, heliarc and in-the-dark!
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