Miller STH 160 / 160L breaker rating

[PietZ]

Hello, I'm interested in teh Miller STH 160 and 160L. I'm in the Netherlands where 230V is the standard grid voltage. I have 16 Amp B-type breakers is my breakerbox. I'm wondering if I can run the Miller STH 160 or 160L on a 16Amp breaker without problems. The adviced breaker rating seem a bit overkill to me. Does anyone have any experience with running a STH 160 on a 16 Amp breaker? Thanks!

[elvis]

I assume you are actually talking about a maxstar 150 sth. Looking at the manual this machine need 14.2 amps at 230vac 50/60hz to run at full output of 150 amps. The duty cycle at this output is lower so keep that in mind. You should be good to go on a 16 amp breaker since the machine uses 8 amps input at 100 amps (100% duty cycle) of output. All of these numbers are for tig welding. Stick welding takes more input amperage to output the same amount.

[PietZ]

I assume you are actually talking about a maxstar 150 sth.

Thanks for your reply.
I'm actually talking about the STH 160 an STH 160L (www.millerwelds.com/om/o260311b_mln.pdf) The adviced breaker rating is quite high by european standards.

[elvis]

Interesting. I can't find information on that being sold in the US. Like most welders you can run it at a reduced output on the lower breaker. You will know when you turned it up too much because the breaker will trip. If you have the opportunity to upgrade the circuit size to better fit the welder requirements it would be a good upgrade.

[mbramble]

That manual states that at maximum rated load the STH 160 draws 30A and the STH 160L draws 22A. They recommend 35A/25A (respectively) breakers with associated minimum wire sizes.