Welder Power

Welder Adapters

Welding is not easy, it is hot, physically straining, and dangerous.  Most people don’t realize how important welding is in our lives.  Welders work on everything from cars to planes, pipelines, and buildings.  There will be a growing need for welders in the future and we want to make sure we can help you understand how to keep your welders powered and get the job done. 

There are four basic welding types you can choose from:

Shielded Metal Arc Welding SMAW, this type uses an electric current to form an electric arc between the stick and the metals. 

Gas Metal Arc Welding GMAW/MIG, this type requires a constant voltage and direct-current power source, it is also the most common process used by welders.

Flux Cored Arc Welding, this type was developed as an alternative to shield welding.

Gas Tungsten Arc Gas Welding GTAW/TIG, this type is the most common method used for welding together thick sections of stainless steel or non-ferrous metals. 

(Welder types credit - December 2014 https://www.lincolntech.edu)

Each type of weld requires a welding machine and those machines will require power.  Some people use their welders in a warehouse or industrial garages or shops where the wiring for a specific outlet is already done.  Easy just plug it in and get to work.  Others will work on jobs at their home garages, fields, outdoors and at job sites requiring some unexpected power sources. 

At home, you can use a range, dryer or generator to power your welding machine.  The common range outlet in homes is called a NEMA 14-50R, this is a 50 Amp 125/250 Volt receptacle.  We can offer you a WD1450650 Range outlet adapter to power your 50 Amp welder at home. 

The common household dryer outlet is a NEMA 14-30R or a NEMA 10-30R, depending on the age of your home, you will have one of the two outlets listed here to run your dryer.  We can offer you two options.  For the NEMA 14-30R outlet we have a WD1430650-018, 18-inch dryer adapter and for the NEMA 10-30R outlet, we have a WD1030650-018, 18-inch dryer adapter to power your welder.

The typical welder plug will be a 3-prong 50 Amp NEMA 6-50P or NEMA 10-50P, which will connect to the adapters listed above if you choose the proper adapter for your plug.  The NEMA 10-50P is a non-grounded older style plug, which we can provide you with solutions for, however, it is not as common. The range adapter WD14501050 is a good example of a compact adapter you can use for this style of plug.

The NEMA 6-50P is the more modern and grounded version of a welder plug.  You may have noticed most of the examples above have a 650 in their part number, the NEMA 6-50P is more common so we have more products solutions for this type of plug. 

The 50 Amp welding machines are most commonly used however you may own a 30 Amp welder, and we will still have a solution for you.  We have a list of products you can choose from like the AD1450L630, AD1430L630 and the AD1030L630.  These adapters will help you get power from your Dryer, Range and Generator outlet connections. 

Speaking of generators, if you have a Welder with a NEMA 6-50 style plug, we have a welder adapter kit that will connect to many different style generator outlets.  This will help if you are on different types of job sites where you may not know what type of generator you will be using each day. 

We have listed a lot of ways to help you get power to your welder today, if you have a problem powering your welding machine and we have not covered it here you can check with our AC WORKS™ Wisdom episode about welding, visit our Welder product collection on the website,  or contact our customer service team for a FREE consultation.