Welder trolley.

[tonyfoale]

A week or so back I bought another MIG welder. It is a medium size one and so is portable. I have a bigger industrial one that I bought new in 1976 which is far from portable. One of the first jobs that I used the new one for was to make a trolley for itself. I just wanted a simple support with the only "special features" being some cable supports. The electrical socket on the bottom rail is not connected to anything, it is there simply to stop the plug wandering when not in use. I think that a lot of things should come with such a dummy plug.
The only things that I had to buy were the casters, 16 euros for 4. Everything else came out of the scrap box.

[Frank S]

Tony are you using this baby mig strictly as a gas-less unit? I don't see any provisions for a bottle

[tonyfoale]

Tony are you using this baby mig strictly as a gas-less unit? I don't see any provisions for a bottle

Frank,

Yes just flux in wire. I much prefer using 75 Argon/25 CO2 gas but the main benefit to me of this "baby" machine is its portability. I just have to undo a fastener under the unit and I can lift it off the trolley and stick it in the boot of my car, no worries with lugging along a gas bottle. I haven't used flux cored wire much before but it seems to do a pretty good job, although it seems more sensitive to voltage and wire feed settings than I'm used to with gas shielding.
Actually there is provision for a small bottle moulded into the shape of the rear plastic cover of the welder.

[Frank S]

I do like your trolley, it was just that I didn't notice provisions for a bottle I have a couple of the small or as I call them baby mig machines one has .023" wire with 75/25 on it and on the other I keep the .030" flux cored gasless wire then there is my medium sized unit that I might have .030" ER70S6 solid wire or .045" duel shield flux core depending on application I might use CO2 or the Argon/CO2 mix. I much prefer my 450 or 600 amp machines but since they are 3 ph and require up to 15 KW to run them I haven't been able to use either one in quite awhile since I didn't have a generator large enough to pull them and my rotary phase converter is nowhere near large enough to supply the current.

[tonyfoale]

I do like your trolley, it was just that I didn't notice provisions for a bottle I have a couple of the small or as I call them baby mig machines one has .023" wire with 75/25 on it and on the other I keep the .030" flux cored gasless wire then there is my medium sized unit that I might have .030" ER70S6 solid wire or .045" duel shield flux core depending on application I might use CO2 or the Argon/CO2 mix. I much prefer my 450 or 600 amp machines but since they are 3 ph and require up to 15 KW to run them I haven't been able to use either one in quite awhile since I didn't have a generator large enough to pull them and my rotary phase converter is nowhere near large enough to supply the current.

back in 1976 I had a business making race motorcycle chassis and up till then I had always bronze welded them, but that was slow and it was hard to keep up with orders. So I went off to a welding equipment supplier armed with jigs and tubing to test different types of welders. I spent a day welding stuff with MIG and TIG and I found MIG much faster and it gave less distortion. So I bought a 250A 3ph machine. I don't think that the cheap single ph. machines were around at that time. Back then MIG was more commonly called CO2 welding and initially I got a bottle of CO2 but I didn't like it, it seemed very harsh for the <= 1.5mm tube that we were welding. I complained to the welding supplier and he suggested the Ar/CO2 mix, that was a revelation and we never looked back, the production rate increased dramatically. When I moved to Spain in 1987 I brought the welder with me but I only have single ph. here so for many years I didn't use the machine. My work then changed and I wasn't involved in making stuff anymore. Gas and gas bottles are also very expensive here, another disincentive. Two or three years ago I needed it and I worked out a way of connecting the 3ph. transformer to work OK on 1ph. I got a small roll of flux core wire and after messing with the settings I managed to get it working reasonably well. As my work has mainly been thin walled tube I have always used 0.8mm wire and never got anywhere near 250A.
Maybe I should write up the 3ph. to 1ph conversion and post it here? Of course the "baby" machine is 1ph as it comes.

[Frank S]

My small machines in my opinion are really pretenders @ 140 amp max output current since they run off of the 120v 15 amp plug house current, but for what I use them for they work just fine. At least there in Spain your standard voltage is 230 for single ph so a 150 to 170 amp machine will do just fine on the 13 or 15 amp sockets
My mid sized unit is a Miller 210 amp runs on 220v and needs at least a 40 amp breaker
I bet I've bought dozens of the Telwin machines while I lived in Kuwait Telwin is an Italian brand but made in Asia. Not really bad little machines ran on 415 v using 2 legs of 3 ph or as we called it 2 ph but for heavy production welding we could figure on replacing one after it had burned about 1500 KG of wire
My first experience with CO2 welding was back in 1971 with a huge Westinghouse machine about the size of a large refrigerator man how technology has changed over the years.
I would be interested in your write up of your version of 3 ph to 1 ph conversion especially if it is good for the heavy induction loads of the transformers in welding machines

[DIYer]

Thanks tonyfoale! We've added your Welder Trolley to our Dollies and Stands category,
as well as to your builder page: tonyfoale's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Welder Trolley by tonyfoale

tags: portable, welder, caster(s)