The purchase of a welding machine for a do-it-yourself use is often a source of perplexity and doubts, the web is full of explanations and tips often in contradiction between them.
Inverter welding machine or not. What's the difference?
If we want to use a welding machine at our home, we must necessarily make the accounts with our electric supply contract. The house for home use is 3.3 kw, but if you don't know how much energy you have just look at any bill.
The counter is calibrated to provide up to 4 kW for 180 minutes and in the case of higher requests clicks immediately.
At this point you run to buy a 4 kW electrode welding machine?
Wait! There are still other things to consider.
If you have a standard 3.3 kW contract and you don't want to trigger the counter continuously arousing the ire of the roommates, you are practically obliged to buy an inverter welding machine and in 90% of the cases it will be an electrode welding machine
What does inverter welding machine mean?
An inverter welding machine, unlike traditional, allows to obtain low power consumption and small welders. Avoiding too technical explanations, we can simply say that consumption is proportional to the required power. By making a practical example, if at maximum power an inverter welding machine consumes 4 kW, with the selector adjusted in half will consume 2 kW more than sufficient to weld with the most used electrodes measurement which is 2.5 mm
Other aspects to evaluate.
Remember that at your home the available power is never the maximum one, for sure you have something connected to the power outlets, such as the refrigerator, and therefore the power available for your welding machine will be a little lower.
However, keep in mind that you will hardly use a hobby use welding machine at maximum power.
Let's not forget about the duty cycleBother For the amateur use that you will make yourself an average use of 25-35%, maximum 60%.