OK I won an older Craftsman 230amp welder (AC only) for $10 on ebay, even with shipping its well under $100

Is it possible to confabulate something to plug it into my dryer (4 wire) outlet? with reasonable safety.

If not, whats recommended to set up a proper outlet in my garage, I have spare breakers up to 50 amp but have no clue as to what wire I'd want...I priced some at the Despot, it ain't cheep!

I had to do this when I got my welder, not hard at all. Get a 4-pole dryer cord that fits your outlet, and a surface mount welder outlet(6-50R iirc). Welder outlet is 2 hots and 1 ground. 4-pole dryer plug is 2 hots, 1 ground, 1 neutral, so you'll need to tape off the neutral. I broke off the pin for that wire also to be safe. There is a catch. Dryer outlets are 30A and that welder probably needs 50A at full output, so you wont be able to turn it up all the way without popping the breaker. As long as you keep the 30A breaker on that circuit, it will protect the wire and pop before theres a problem. It would be much better to add a dedicated 50A circuit for the welder, but this will get you by. HD or Lowes should have all the parts for under ~$30.

Ahhh but which wire is neutral? I do have a spare dryer cord...its got white, black, green and red

The 3 wire setup on the welder has 2 hots, white and Black, plus a ground, green....of course these colors have no bearing on the color code on the dryer..... and I kinda don't want to plug in the spare dryer cord to test the bare wires on the other end?

I wonder if I stilll have the manual for the dryer someplace...I'm sure the neutral wire is standardized.

Dryer cord, white is neutral. White is neutral for everything in household wiring. Black/Red are hot, green is ground. You better be able to figure it out from that =)

I'm no electrician, but if there's only three wires on the welder they function as
(2) (hots) and a neutral( return)..

I wouldn't hook the neutral on the welder to the ground at the dryer plug.
It's just bad juju, IMO.

More than likely , the house ground does hook up to the neutral bus- at the circuit breaker panel.

The neutral house wire is better able, tho, to carry the return- than the thinner ground wire.

That green wire on the welder is definately ground. A device which only uses the 220 side of things tends to not even be wired for the neutral leg. the two hots are 180 degrees out of phase, its actually two 110 lines to neutral, or 220 against each other. If the machine doesn't need 110, usually it won't have a neutral hookup.

Damn, I'm so wishywashy.

I'd say Drip has got it nailed. Forget what I said.

Any idea on the duty cycle for the welder? 10 or 20%?

Hopefully , there's 10 gauge wires going to the dryer plug now.

I wouldn't mess w/ a bigger breaker than 30 amps( what's there now?).

That would require bigger wire( 6 gauge, I think) to handle the 50 amp breaker.

NEC states that the neutral bus is to be bonded to ground at the panel. The neutral supposedly only sees unbalanced current. Having said that. The neutral is the "return" in normal circumstances. The colors are correct. I've had the crap knocked out of me on job sites where the neutral wasn't bonded correctly. Depending on how long the cable is, you may need to go to an 8ga wire and upsize the breaker due to resistance losses in the cable it self. My old man is a master electrician, I just need to take the test for my journeyman's card here in colorado.

Here is my attempt at simplifying what you need to do. You have a welder with three wires Black=hot, White=hot, Green=ground. And you have a 4 wire dryer outlet Black=hot, Red=hot, White=nuetral, Green=ground. Take the two hots of the welder and mate them to the two hots of the outlet. Use the Green ground of the welder, with the white nuetral of the outlet. Don't use the green of the outlet, because the wire is to small. And don't put a bigger breaker in the box without upgrading the wire size to match the amp load.

My head hurts, here is a re-cap in my words to check understanding...

Red and Black are hot OK
Green is ground OK
White is neutral BUT I should hook it to the ground.

Here is what I'm thinking I'll do.
The spare dryer cord I have has the standard 4 prong installed on one end and the other end is bare wires. Is there any reason I can't just get one of those clamp on 3 prong sockets that matches the cord on the welder and hook it up:

Black and red to the hots

Green and White to the ground.

BTW I gather then that the L shaped socket/prong are going to neutral..?

Plug in welder, test and use sparingly--because its in the basement and fumes are nasty.

Sound good?

Aw heck, if I'm going to this much trouble...
I should just run a 220 out to the garage..I have a spare 50A breaker, what size wire to run though? It'd probably be needing to run about 75 feet.

50 amps at 75 feet necesitates using #6 stranded.

#6 stranded aye.

Thanks!

A new twist....Father in law (who is usually pretty sharp about such things) says this welder is 115 30A ... I'm not sure I agree w/him I can believe the 30A part but I'm not so sure about the 115 part...I'll try to post a pic sooner than later.

I have this welder...very similar actually.

You do NOT use the neutral wire, drip has it nailed. The reason the dryer has a neutral wire is because it has 110 volt devices. DO NOT tie the neutral to ANYTHING. The neutral and ground can only come in contact in the main box (this is code in Texas).

So the welder gets two hots and one ground, that's it.