Inverter TIG Welders and Generators

Brian,

For what it's worth.......I recently purchased a generator/welder, 3KVA and 50amp and up DC welder for an outside railing repair job at a local apartment complex. I found that some of the railings were about 1/16" tubing. I already owned a small 115 volt MIG welder, and was able to run it successfully off of the AC outlets on the unit. Maybe it would be worthwhile to do something similar what I spell out here makes any sense at all. It sure worked for me and made the job easier.

Cheers!

You need to realize what the welder can do, current control wise.

Since you have a 2-3 KVA generator, this represents 1.4 to 2.1 KW -- therefore You need to know what is the GAP voltage of the plasma welding the such 2 mm, then you calculate the current that in this case you assume around 85 % of the max KW .

The plasma voltage if you are careful and keep a constant low voltage ( like 18 volts) then the current setting should be:

(1400 watts *0.85 ) / 18 volts = 66 amps -- you can do the other higher generator power limits.

NOW IF YOU DO NOT KNOW the plasma voltage You can measure it with you have some help.

You need a resistor (43 k to 51 K, 1/4 or 1/2 watt or more) and capacitor ( 10 micro farads at 2 X the open voltage of the welder ~ 40 to 60 volts ) and a digital voltmeter -- connect the resistor to the ROD holder and the capacitor to the grounded connected and tie the other end ( positive) to the resistor together -- the digital voltmeter there and the ground.

Make a plasma and keep the plasma going for about 5 seconds and when the voltage stabilizes read it and record for future use to know what to do.

You can move the electrode up / down and record those plasma voltage that You can use later to set the currents to be always at a power level limited by the power source .

I am assuming that you are using DC current.