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Run a welder off a Phase Perfect Converter?

baran3

Cast Iron
Joined
Jan 28, 2007
Location
Littlestown PA
Is anyone running a 3 phase welder off a Phase Perfect converter? Is there anything to worry about damaging the converter? I have a Miller 350P mig welder I picked up that is 3 phase. I hooked it up to a backup Phase Perfect unit about a year ago just to test that it worked then it has sat in storage. I have not turned the Phase Perfect on in over a year. I recently decided to sell the welder and I got to turn this backup Phase Perfect unit on and it is not working. Has in internal fault alarm. Could the welder have caused this? I only hooked it up welded for 30 seconds then shut it off. I am hesitant to hook it up to my main Phase Perfect unit since I don't know if there is any chance a welder is not a good thing to run of a Phase Perfect. Anyone have any experience or feedback on this?
 
Is anyone running a 3 phase welder off a Phase Perfect converter? Is there anything to worry about damaging the converter? I have a Miller 350P mig welder I picked up that is 3 phase. I hooked it up to a backup Phase Perfect unit about a year ago just to test that it worked then it has sat in storage. I have not turned the Phase Perfect on in over a year. I recently decided to sell the welder and I got to turn this backup Phase Perfect unit on and it is not working. Has in internal fault alarm. Could the welder have caused this? I only hooked it up welded for 30 seconds then shut it off. I am hesitant to hook it up to my main Phase Perfect unit since I don't know if there is any chance a welder is not a good thing to run of a Phase Perfect. Anyone have any experience or feedback on this?

I've done more dumb s**t, and faster than most, but there's No Fine Way I'd ever connect a device MEANT to strike and maintain an arc, then also interrupt it to a Phase-Perfect or a VFD that wasn't already built-in by design to a welder, specifically FOR that welder's service.

As such "fit for the purpose" things ARE, whole tribes of multi-power-source electronically-aided welders, cheap or dear.

Better to have used PM members Peter Haas and Dave Kamp's welder modification for single-phase operation? Or an RPC hard to hurt with anything less than a sledgehammer?

Too late now, what with the welder sold and the P-P injured. Send it back to Phase Technologies for repair if a newer "white case" model.

Pray another PM member who is working on it finds a "field expedient" solution if an older "blue case" model, 'coz those have been out of ANY OEM repair coverage for many years.
 
There is not supposed to be any switching between the load and the VFD output. If the load is disconnected the VFD may be hit by the output power cascading back into the vfd.
Striking an arc and then stopping the arc is the same as switching a motor off and on after the VFD outputs.
If you had a BIG line reactor after the VFD it might have helped a little?
Bil lD
 
There is not supposed to be any switching between the load and the VFD output. If the load is disconnected the VFD may be hit by the output power cascading back into the vfd.
Striking an arc and then stopping the arc is the same as switching a motor off and on after the VFD outputs.
If you had a BIG line reactor after the VFD it might have helped a little?
Bil lD

A P-P CAN, and most DO ...stand a whole shop full of CNC or ordinary gear being switched ON and OFF.

"Worse" more than "same thing".

Those more gentle arcy-sparkies do not ordinarily carry the fast rise, "pink" if not also "white" in-the HAZ noise, wide-spectrum hash of any sustained arc, be it stick, MiG, or TiG, it's initiation pulse, HF or not, nor its quench and the welder circuitry's unload spike.
 
I bought an old green 3 phase MIG welder (Linde I think) a few years ago and powered it with my Phase Perfect PT-380 (30hp) with no ill effects that I saw. Haven't needed to use the welder in a few years though, but the PP still works fine.

Probably best to ask Phase Technologies to be sure.
 
I bought an old green 3 phase MIG welder (Linde I think) a few years ago and powered it with my Phase Perfect PT-380 (30hp) with no ill effects that I saw. Haven't needed to use the welder in a few years though, but the PP still works fine.

Probably best to ask Phase Technologies to be sure.

I contacted Phase Technologies yesterday and they said there would be no issues running a welder. I likely called them to ask when I first hooked it up I just don't vividly remember asking them. So if the welder didn't cause any issue then what would cause an internal fault when the unit was just sitting there for over a year? It was not tied into my daily operating 3 phase power system in any way. The single phase power was always disconnected by a breaker. Only way anything could come back to the unit would be the ground.
 
I contacted Phase Technologies yesterday and they said there would be no issues running a welder. I likely called them to ask when I first hooked it up I just don't vividly remember asking them. So if the welder didn't cause any issue then what would cause an internal fault when the unit was just sitting there for over a year? It was not tied into my daily operating 3 phase power system in any way. The single phase power was always disconnected by a breaker. Only way anything could come back to the unit would be the ground.

I'm down to just the one P-P - newer "white cased" 10 HP. New owner "right here on PM" has found my older "blue case" 10 HP still in working order, too. IIRC, I had paid about $1,200 for it used, with freight? Used welders - even good ones - one can find for a third or less of that.

Even so .. what with all the fragile 'tronics inside? No Fine Way I can see taking any risk at all to run a welder when there are so many other affordable means to do that.

Around $400 gets a body a welder that is at least half-decent, new prices.

Ten HP P-P was around $4,000 delivered, new.

Ten to one $$$ risk ratio? Not on my dance-card, thanks!

Just sayin'.... but $4,000 worth of "just sayin'"

Y'all RICHER f**kers can roll yer own. Dice or joints. Either one.

:)
 
Uuugh no jokes about that. This is the time of year when I have to empty my peanutbutter/glycol trap bucket like three times a week between the mice and the chipmunks.

Seriously I'll pull 20 corpses out a week!
 
Uuugh no jokes about that. This is the time of year when I have to empty my peanutbutter/glycol trap bucket like three times a week between the mice and the chipmunks.

Seriously I'll pull 20 corpses out a week!

Same here... and then there are the raccoons... don't get me started on raccoons...
 
Same here... and then there are the raccoons... don't get me started on raccoons...

Yeah but.. raccoons are Unionized, even serve a proper 'prenticeship, pass various tests within their own organization, and come to know their shit to a very high level. Rooftop level, even!

So at least one can negotiate with a raccoon in good faith.

Initial contract offer and discussion opener:

- 3' X 3' sheet of DIY shiney-wood Earthed / tied to white lead, 120 VAC.

- Galvanized ash-can atop set on an insulator at the base, any handy capacitor wired to it off the black lead, 120 VAC.

There must be more political turmoil back at the raccoon Union Local's Hall than cannibal-dates for the Democrackedup Purdy Numbulation for Pretzelbent.

The comically acrobatic volunteers regain their nature about four to six feet out, motor-off back to the Hiring Hall, never seem to send the same negotiator to that partic'lar bargaining table twice running.

Best of all, rest of the work cell under the same Momma Shop Steward give it all a miss with a sympathetic walkout. Can't exactly call that a "wildcat", strike. Not even sure the Eastern Bobcat would honor a raccoon pocket-line. Might just et of 'em? You'd have to know the likes of Bain Capital?

But that's how yah know that at least the raccoons have a Union.

Proud card-carrying Brother craftsman never did have to be told the same bad-news TWICE!

Bad-news we always got in ONE go, any of paycheck, nose, neck. ass, or weary feet!

:(
 








 
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