I'm just wondering if anyone here has had experience running a inverter TIG welder off of the 240V output of a 6/1 with an ST5 gen head (mine has an AVR)?
I ask because I have somewhat successfully run a Harbor Freight Inverter TIG welder from a 4KW Generac w/3600 rpm Briggs engine.
When I say somewhat, I mean it welded fine at a reasonably low setting (110 amps) doing just a stick job, but I was a bit nervous and turned th e welder off between short welds. Everything went well, and then I got more confident and didn't switch off. After about 5 minutes of very intermittent and short welds -- mostly positioning things, I saw and smelled some smoke coming out of the welder, and shut it down, thinking the worst.
I opened up the case and saw no blackened traces or wires, nothing obvious at all. Finally noticed what looked like maybe a huge air cooled wound power resistor or coil (not sure what it is) had a little of the varnish looking slightly different than another one, and it seemed in the position where the smoke came from, and I felt a little residual heat in the chassis there, so I guessed this might have been the cause.
I reconnected the welder to mains 240, and it started up fine and welded.
So, I'm a little hesitant to run it off of the Metro now -- although that's supposed to be one of the reasons I got it. I hate to experiment, where you find out the answer to a question by burning out a $500 welder, so I really wonder if anyone else has had experience with a welder on a Listeroid/ST5.
In trying to figure out what happened, I did try it again very briefly on the Generac. It also works there still, but I switched it off before heat could build up in that reisistor/whatever. Everything seemed cool afterward.
In reading more about 240v operation here on the Listeroid, I've started to wonder if what happened on the Generac had anything to do with voltage regulation -- maybe on one leg only?
The Generac has a 4 prong receptacle for output of 240 and split 120. The welder has a 3 prong plug and was hooked to a receptacle fed from the generator outlet and was wired with equipment ground to the ground prong, and black and red to the two hot lugs. White neutral was not connected.
I don't know how the Generac is regulated -- whether the 240 is regulated, or whether only one leg of 120 is regulated. Is it possible that I had the floating neutral problem, or that I miswired the plug and outlet, and the welder got too high or too low a voltage?
Or, is this possibly a 240V generator waveform or noise problem that the inverter welder can't cope with? And should I expect the same or worse with the Metro/6-1/ST5 head?
Thanks for your help.