mig lead safety

[bigwelder]

i had my lead short out and catch fire today my boss decided to fix the hole that was burned in it with duct tape. is it still safe to weld using this lead or should i refuse till he replaces the lead???

[df5152]

how did it short in the first place. I wouldnt use it ur just looking for trouble. have him replace it or fix it properly

[Teeps]

tell your boss to hold that tape on the ground wire with his teeth while your welding, unless he doesn't think it's safe?

[email protected]#$ A$$.

If you have to pay for it yourself, then put a new ground cable on. Just give him the bill if there isn't any new/thick grounding cable around the shop.

Not like it will be that expensive.

When it doubt, always replace.

[Sberry]

What happened to it in the first place? What did it short out to? You could cover a bare spot with tape untill its replaced, duct tape wouldnt be the best but about the worst thing that would happen is you short it again.

[cruizer]

Having a burn on your torch cable is no big deal. Problem is that if the gas tube also burned, (you'll notice lots of porosity), or if your trigger wires have shorted to the conduit.( Wire will be erratic, or may not work at all)

If the sheathing on your outer mig cable shorted, I like to use hockey or friction tape. It works the best. Electrical tape is OK, but tends to come off.

If your gas hose under the outer sheath has a hole it can easily be repaired by iether shortening the gun or by using a bicycle tire patch.

If trigger wires are shorted or broken, then you'll have to inspect each one separately, as long as they are isolated form each other and from the condiut carrying them, they are all right, Sometimes I just fold a piece of electrical tape under each one to isolate them, and wrap the unit up with friction tape.

I'm rambling on, never the less,who cares, you can use the gun again after breakage with no saftey concerns.

[dyn88]

heres a scenario for you- The lead shorted out, the machine is a 300 amp capacity, the gun is rated at 400amps(well used no doubt), Asuming the torch is well used and also well aged, you may have weakend the integrity of the power cord(copper wire within the sheath). No doubt the machine maxed out capacity (maybe more than 300) sending an incredible and damaging amount of current through that poor torch cable. now that the damage has occured the machine may try harder to send the correct amount of current to the arc. All this causing a snowball effect and now possibly overworking the machine and causing damage to it. The answer is yes replace the torch at the nearest possible time. also check the integrity of the ground lead and replace that if neccasary. I have used water cooled mig guns that are rated for 700 amps, and we pushed these babys up to 800-870 and over time you can see the voltage increase and the current decrease in the machine output which translated into a decrepidation of the copper cunductor within the power cable. By the way water temp never exceded 94 degrees wich was 4 more than the recomended(no max given). we ended up replacing power cables every 6 mos and grounds every year.(3#0)not cheap but cheap insurance.

[cruizer]

So Dyn88, are you saying to replace the mig gun every time it gets an abrasion and happens to short out on the "work" .

I've been repairing guns, subarc Squirt guns, Arc Air, and plasma torchs for many years and haven't run into the concerns you have. If the cable is badly cut, it's quite simple, and cheap to merely shorten the gun.

This fellow is obviously using the gun after the incident so it was unlikely that the internal gas hose was broken. so it is unlikely that much heat occured to the copper conduit. You smoke the copper conduit out, you definately would have also smoked your gas hose out as well.

I can't see the copper restance being an issue. You'd really have to melt your cable to have much of a problem.

I'll keep it in mind the next time I work on a Subarc squirt gun though.

[bigwelder]

thanks for all the replies. the machine is very well aged it is so old it has been refurbished 4 times to my knowledge. its an old lincoln im thinking i will tell the old boss that i want to unhook the lincoln and move one of the miller delta weld 300 machines in its place. i also had the machine arc where the gun lead hooks into the wire feed control. the machine has been run like there is no tomorrow. i hate to weld with the machine because i dont want to become the ground if the thing shorts out again. i think the problem was the fact that the ground cable was exposed right at the point where it hooks to the machine it came loose and the gun lead became the ground when that happened. also when i looked at the hole there was some kind of copper wire sticking out and the gas hose was not affected. i think im going to tell my boss where he can get some 1/0 cable to replace the old one. how hard is it to make a new lead using the old fittings and gun

[bigwelder]

tell your boss to hold that tape on the ground wire with his teeth while your welding, unless he doesn't think it's safe?

[email protected]#$ A$$.

If you have to pay for it yourself, then put a new ground cable on. Just give him the bill if there isn't any new/thick grounding cable around the shop.

Not like it will be that expensive.

When it doubt, always replace.

im not paying for sh** im lol on tellin him to hold the tape with his teeth

and yes u would be correct on the jacka** comment

[Sberry]

You are not going to be able to repair the cable assembly. You are also not going to die from electric shock. (because of this) Chances are some tape should do fine and if there is a problem it will be hot there after welding for a bit. You need to inspect the thing and see what kind of general condition its in, as was mentioned it could be shortened a little if its fatigued near the connection. On the other hand if this is a big outfit and time is an issue it may be cheaper to replace it.