introduce myself

[TheGary]

Hi, My Name is Gary. I live in Wisconsin. I am retired form the maint. field . Before that I was a welder in a pattern shop for 15 years. I am now starting a welding buisness and was in need of modernizing my equipment. Time is money so my old 60's eara tig welder and sutch need to go. I ordered a 60 amp plasma from everlast last week so it should be here any day. I will also be ordering a 250 EX soon if I like the quality of the plasma setup. Oxy acyt still has its place but gases have gotten so expensive that the plasma will pay for itself very quickly. I started my buis. about 2 months ago and made a few calls to people I have done work for in the past and things have taken off quicker than I thought so I have been rushed to upgrade faster than I expected. I am shoping for a low hours trailblazer 302 also so I can run the plasma and hopefully the 250ex in the field also. Then I can dump my old Miller big blue that only has 3500 watts of auxillery power.

[DaveO]

Hey, Gary, welcome to the forums! Sounds like your new business is getting off to a great start, way to leverage those contacts!

[Mr120]

Good work done previously breeds good return business and referrals. Looks like you've hooked yourself a really nice business. Welcome to the forum.

[DaveO]

I am shoping for a low hours trailblazer 302 also so I can run the plasma and hopefully the 250ex in the field also.

Hey, Gary, before you finalize your generator purchase you may want to check your specs- the plasma cutter and the 250 EX both require 11,000 watts of continuous clean power to operate off a generator. Can the 302 provide that?

[TheGary]

The 302 has 11000 peak 10,500 watts contstant. That is plenty. Remember that load is at wide open on the plasma and the welder. I might not be able to go wide open but how many times do you need to go wide open. If I need more power I will just use the trailblazer for welding. It is multi process so it will be fine. I run my Thermal arc 250 inverter off of a 5000 watt gen. all the time , I just have to be carefull not to run it too high of amps. I am going to set up the 250Ex with an air cooled tig anyway so I wont be tig welding over 200 amps. The only reason I want the 250EX is for the duty cycle and the fine tuning for ac tig. The trailblazer series has about the cleanest power you can find in that wattage so if it wont work , I don't know what would. I run my Thermal arc inverter off of a cheap chinese gen. that I paid $350 for . I can't tell any difference running the Thermal arc on it or pluged in in my shop as long as I do not run too many amps that I overpower the gen.

[DaveO]

Good enough, sounds like you've thought it through and have had experience with that sort of thing.

[everlastsupport]

The 302 has 11000 peak 10,500 watts contstant. That is plenty. Remember that load is at wide open on the plasma and the welder. I might not be able to go wide open but how many times do you need to go wide open. If I need more power I will just use the trailblazer for welding. It is multi process so it will be fine. I run my Thermal arc 250 inverter off of a 5000 watt gen. all the time , I just have to be carefull not to run it too high of amps. I am going to set up the 250Ex with an air cooled tig anyway so I wont be tig welding over 200 amps. The only reason I want the 250EX is for the duty cycle and the fine tuning for ac tig. The trailblazer series has about the cleanest power you can find in that wattage so if it wont work , I don't know what would. I run my Thermal arc inverter off of a cheap chinese gen. that I paid $350 for . I can't tell any difference running the Thermal arc on it or pluged in in my shop as long as I do not run too many amps that I overpower the gen.

You should be just fine. Shoot for as close to 50 amps 220vac at the outlet as you can get, the inrush can be close to that when you fire the 250EX up. It looks like you have 50amps peak so all good.

[TheGary]

Well today was a good day. I did not make any money today but I got my new plasma cutter and I found a Miller 302 EFI with 27 hrs on it and went and picked it up today also. The EFI model has 12,000 watts peak power so I should have plenty of power to run the 250 EX wide open if I need to. I have not run the plasma yet but I did unpack it to make sure there was no shipping damage. Hopefully tomorrow I will give it a short run.