Need help wiring a male cap

[Chain Bender]

on a 115/230V Chicago Electric welder. It's cheap, but it's been a great little welder for 10+ years. The power cord out of the machine has 4 wires: brown, black, blue, green. I never bothered to try to wire it for both 115 & 230. I'd like to give it a try, but have no clue which wire goes to which pole.

Please find below the receptacles on my 6500 watt generator. I'm just using them as references. Can someone help me fiure out wich wire goes to which pole on the male cap and what kind of wire(s) would I need to come out of my breaker box and how would I wire them in?


Disregard the 120V/30A picture.

tks,
CB

 

[grsthegreat]

Quite honestly any 240 volt welder (and 120 volt welder) usually only has 3 wires.

Can you open the welder itself up and see if all 4 wires are connected to something? Im thinking that one of the 4 wires may be capped off.

A 240 volt wire would normally have a black and red hooked up to power and the green hooked up to ground.

A 120 volt welder has a black wired to hot and a white to neutral and green to ground.

On the drawing you have the ground is supposed to be the prong with the twist in it.(labeled #1)

Im really at a loss as to what the 4th wire would be. I 3 phase welder would have 4 wires.....but that would be a major industrial welder.

in the diagram, w= neutral
g=ground
x & y are the hots

 

[Willl]

On the drawing you have

His drawing is of his generator, not his welder.

 

[grsthegreat]

His drawing is of his generator, not his welder.

i understand that, but he said his welder has 4 wires. this is whats confusing

 

[Chain Bender]

all 4 wirews are hooked up.

yellow/green isn't in the picture, but it is ground.

If I am correct I should be able to wire the welder to a 4 prong cap (in previous post) and plug it in to the 120/240 30 amp receptacle of my welder or any other receptacle so wired and be able to switch the machine back and forth between 115 & 230 volts.

Right or wrong?

CB

 

[Willl]

What is the model number for that welder ?

 

[Chain Bender]

What is the model number for that welder ?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

welder is out inthe shop and it is pouring down rain right now. Will let you know when it slows up a bit.

 

[grsthegreat]

ive never seen a welder like that one... very strange indeed.

My GUESS at this point without seeing a wiring diagram is the switch is used to swap one of the hot leads (blue or brown ???) with the neutral so the welder can operate on 120 volt. Not sure why one would do this, but without an actual schematic i would not have a clue of how this is wired. I would need to use my voltmeter to check what wire does what. I can t tell by wire color alone to be sure what they did.



i found this on another forum

Blue, brown, black and aqua/yellow wires? Sounds like international color scheme to me. Brown and Black are Phase(hot) colors, blue is neutral and green/yellow is ground. Chicago Electric is cheap Harbor Frieght crap from China. So, that would explain the intl. color coding rather than the black, red, white and green that we are used to. Still, I would be careful hooking it up, because that cheap chinese stuf is notorious for being misswired/labeled.
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Read more: http://www.doityourself.com/forum/electrical-c-d-c/318937-wiring-welder-plug.html#ixzz1xKUYVEX0​

if this is the case, then the black and brown would go to the x & y terminals of the male plug, the blue would be the neutral (W) wire and the green would be the ground.. So of you wired the male plug like disgramed above, it should work on your generator as you want.

And using the pic of the switch that you supplied, the switch DOES swap between the blue and brown wires, so i think that the post i quoted IS correct, and the blue is the neutral wire.

 

[Chain Bender]

What is the model number for that welder ?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chicago Electric Arc Welder 140, item #40388

 

[Willl]

Your manual.

 

[Chain Bender]

Your manual.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

thanks, Willl. I think we must have found the file about the same time.


115 volt ..............230 volt
ground.............green..................green
neutral.............white
hot..................black L1..............black L1, red L2
tied off wire......red.....................white

only problem with the above chart is that I have a brown and blue wire where the chart and other diagrams mention white and red.

Reminds me of the problem I had with a trailer brake harness several months ago.

 

[Chain Bender]

all 4 wirews are hooked up.

yellow/green isn't in the picture, but it is ground.

If I am correct I should be able to wire the welder to a 4 prong cap (in previous post) and plug it in to the 120/240 30 amp receptacle of my welder or any other receptacle so wired and be able to switch the machine back and forth between 115 & 230 volts.

Right or wrong?

CB

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Just a little more wisdom please.

I would like to just wire the little machine to straight 230 using a 3 wire 12/3. (white,black,green). would someone tell me (using the pictures above) which wires from the new cord I need to swap out with what existing wires (blue,brown,black,green). If I understand everything I think I know, then the male cap would be green/ground and balck/white hot legs. Am I correct?

thanks much,
Chain Bender

 

[rcowan]

Lee you ask hard questions.

Recently When I started a electric project that included a very old electric panel and unusual connectors, I took lots of pictures with the iphone and took the phone to the local friendly electric supply house.

They hooked me up pretty quick and didn't make fun of my lack of knowledge.

Stay dry bro
RC

 

[Chain Bender]

I agree RC, but I don't have an I-phone or a smart phone. Probably be easier to just pick the welder up and put it in the back of my truck and take it to the store with me.

How's that "dry heat" treatin you out there? It's 95/95 yesterday and today. To hot to take a nap in the shade!


good to hear from you.
Lee

 

[grsthegreat]

Whats heat? we've had 14 days (of the last 20 days ) of torrential rain. temps in the 40's - 60's.

Today was the first partially clear day in the past week. and it only got to the mid 60's.

we could use some sun and heat.