wrought iron fence repair: wire and settings needed.

[johnnymg]

Pieces of the puzzle falling into place........... fab'd a 220-115V adapter. I've got a 100' (very beefy) extension cord I'll be using for this repair. I'd probably get at it but it's BLAZING outside and much more enjoyable to be surfing the web with a cold drink by my side. Did I mention I was retired???


cheers
JohnG

[Rambozo]

Just a heads up. Be sure you have the hot and neutral on the correct poles on your adapter. It is kinda counter intuitive as to which is which because the blade/color standards are different between 240V and 120V. You want to make sure that the neutral is on the white wire of the welder, which will be the narrow blade on the 240V plug but the wide blade of the 120V plug.

[johnnymg]

Just a heads up. Be sure you have the hot and neutral on the correct poles on your adapter. It is kinda counter intuitive as to which is which because the blade/color standards are different between 240V and 120V. You want to make sure that the neutral is on the white wire of the welder, which will be the narrow blade on the 240V plug but the wide blade of the 120V plug.

Thanks, that's the way I wired it.

However, I was half tempted to see if the 'auto sense' would work with the hot (line) connected to the white wire of the welder and the neutral connected to the black wire.

cheers
JohnG

[Rambozo]

Not sure if they have made that a feature, yet. From what I gather the welder checks to see if the white is hot, if it is it switches to 240V mode, if it isn't it goes to 120V mode. So if you swap them, it thinks it's on 240V, but running way under voltage and not good. There are real old posts about it damaging the machine. Nothing lately, so no idea if they added something to idiot-proof that. I put a small neon bulb in my plug so I could see that things were good before I powered up the machine. With something portable, you never know when you will run into a mis-wired outlet.



I made my adapter the other direction to keep things compact, and allow me use the same type extension cord for 120V or 240V. Less stuff to haul to a jobsite.

[johnnymg]

Not sure if they have made that a feature, yet. From what I gather the welder checks to see if the white is hot, if it is it switches to 240V mode, if it isn't it goes to 120V mode. So if you swap them, it thinks it's on 240V, but running way under voltage and not good. There are real old posts about it damaging the machine. Nothing lately, so no idea if they added something to idiot-proof that. I put a small neon bulb in my plug so I could see that things were good before I powered up the machine. With something portable, you never know when you will run into a mis-wired outlet.

snip..............
I made my adapter the other direction to keep things compact, and allow me use the same type extension cord for 120V or 240V. Less stuff to haul to a jobsite.

snip..............

I take it your adapter is 220 (at the wall or extension)--->115. That's a cool idea ~~~~

Didn't know the "automatic voltage detection" worked that way. Thanks for pointing that out.

cheers
JohnG

[Rambozo]

Didn't know the "automatic voltage detection" worked that way. Thanks for pointing that out.

That's just my best guess based on what's been posted here, and a little fooling around. I haven't bothered to reverse engineer that part of the circuit. So take that for what it's worth.

[johnnymg]

That's just my best guess based on what's been posted here, and a little fooling around. I haven't bothered to reverse engineer that part of the circuit. So take that for what it's worth.

Understood, I think we're just guessing here as I can't find a definitive explanation/description in the pdf. ~~~~~~~~~~ FWIW, I removed the lower cover and took a peek inside. Liked what I saw in terms of clean/simple layout. The sheet metal case is fairly light weight and it took a little persuasion to get the cover screws back in place. Oh, I had to open the imig up because the AC cable 'strain relief' was totally loose.

cheers
JohnG

[johnnymg]

OK, I finished the gate repair ............. still have a bit of fence to repair though.

Here's the before and after pics:


and the after:


One thing I found (big surprise!) is that welding rusty thin wall tubing is hard! i.e. easy to blow through. In all honesty, I'm thinking this is a temporary repair at best and hopefully the ivy will help hide the rest of the repaired fence.

[Rambozo]

Looks good. You weren't kidding about rusted. That was pretty bad. The best thing is to just cut it back far enough to get a little something to weld to. Was it all at the bottom from sprinklers? If so your repair should be ok provided they keep paint on it. So what did you end up using, MIG or flux-core?

[johnnymg]

Looks good. You weren't kidding about rusted. That was pretty bad. The best thing is to just cut it back far enough to get a little something to weld to. Was it all at the bottom from sprinklers? If so your repair should be ok provided they keep paint on it. So what did you end up using, MIG or flux-core?

The rust was mostly at the bottom but there's one top rail that needs replacing. It turns out the flux-core wire feed worked GREAT!

Thanks again to everyone for the advice/comments. Much appreciated.


Still on the step side of the learning curve
JohnG

[DaveO]

It turns out the flux-core wire feed worked GREAT!

Glad to hear it- I'm a little surprised to hear the flux core wire worked, since your material was thin. Guess I'll have to expand my expectations and try FCAW on thinner stuff.

[johnnymg]

Glad to hear it- I'm a little surprised to hear the flux core wire worked, since your material was thin. Guess I'll have to expand my expectations and try FCAW on thinner stuff.

I turned the voltage WAY down to 15v and the wirefeed at an indicated 90. It almost felt like was "soldering" at that point.