[Olivero]

I've done it when there was no other way to get through but I would not recommend it, I have no idea how it affects the breakers or if they would even trip so I don't use it regularly as I don't trust it.

[Artie F. Emm]

Can you research the Total Harmonic Distortion for your generator? I've heard it's ok to run an inverter from a generator with less than 5% THD.

[Tom Osselton]

I've done something like that for a compressor till I got a proper breaker. I just used two adjacent breakers and put a cut off nail through the lever to trip them both although only one may blow it is much better to ger the proper one.

[mpete53]

I have looked and its hard to find THD numbers even on new generators, Finding them for a 15 yr old machine would be next to impossible. That said I don't want to chase using that as a power supply

Mark

[Otto Nobedder]

Mark, I can talk you through this, and how to do it (relatively) safely, if you want to go this route.

I hesitated at first, because you asked "if" it could be done, rather than how to do it, which suggested you have little experience with residential wiring. The benefit is, 220V at 15A has twice the power capacity in Watts. (Actually slightly more, because efficiency goes up.)

Steve S

[Oscar]

If I was working at the same place all the time a 220 feed would be a good option, but I don't.

As for a generator, I have a 5kw with a 220 outlet but am hesitant to use that as a power supply since my welder is an inverter unit and have read they need a very clean power supply.

Have any of you used their inverter welder on a basic, non inverter generator?

Mark

Both my inverter welders run on my Troy-Bilt 7 kW generator. It is not designated "clean power", but the specs I have sought out say it puts out less than 6% THD.

As for getting 240V from two 120V extension cords whose hot-wires come from different legs of 240V input service, yes it would work but it would have the downfall that was mentioned earlier: if there is a fault, there is no guarantee that both breakers will trip at the same time.

[Otto Nobedder]

... if there is a fault, there is no guarantee that both breakers will trip at the same time.

There's two work-arounds for that, too. If your breaker switches are drilled, you can work from stacked breakers and use a small nail to link them (cut the nail so it doesn't interfere with the next breaker down). If they're not drilled, you can get linking clips to tie them together. Either way, one tripping will open the other.

I'm not recommending it, but it can be done.

Steve S

[cj737]

If I was working at the same place all the time a 220 feed would be a good option, but I don't.

As for a generator, I have a 5kw with a 220 outlet but am hesitant to use that as a power supply since my welder is an inverter unit and have read they need a very clean power supply.

Have any of you used their inverter welder on a basic, non inverter generator?

Mark

I have numerous times. I made a pigtail connector from my welder to the Generator since my portable welder has a proprietary, hard wired plug on it. I've TIG welded with it, stick welded with it, and even done some aluminum MIG. Worked fine.

Running a 100' extension cord will reduce the available power along that cord.ertajnly upscale the gauge of the wire if you must run that far. I use a heavy 50 ex'tension cord and use 25' work cables. That gets me pretty far when I need to be flexible. I also installed an extra 220v outdoor plug on the house, conveniently directly below the main panel. This allows me to deal with work outside the shop with my extension cord and still get 220v. Total cost was about $80.

[Granddaddy]

I have only ran a transformer machine on a genset but I have a friend who has 3 inverter machines that have been run off of coleman and coleman like generators for well over ten years almost daily and none of them have missed a beat so far.

the biggest problem he had was when he first started he had to up the size of the breaker on the generator because the 30 installed from the factory wouldn't carry it, he up sized it to 50 which sounds iffy but it solved the nuisance trip problem and he has yet to hurt a machine so my guess is that he had a weak breaker. I just questioned him about it a few months ago because I was considering a mobile set up and he told me he has had enough success with it that he just bought another machine and generator to add another rig to his fleet.

hope this helps.

creek