Shop Electrical Issue

I was out doing some welding this evening with my old lincoln tombstone welder, when all of a sudden it quit. I thought maybe i blew a breaker so i checked them, all were good. So then I start looking around, I have 2 strings of lights, one string with 4 bulbs, the other with 6. The 4 bulb string works fine, but the 6 is just hardly glowing(had to look REAL close to even tell). There is 4 recepticals in the shop, i know for sure one was working and one wasnt, didnt think to check the other 2.

The other thing i noticed, the welder was still on and if you listened carefully you could hear the fan turning. It wouldnt strike an arc or even make a spark.

Now heres the weirdest part, if i shut the welder off, the strand of 6 faintly glowing bulbs would go out or if i turned the light switch off, the welder fan would quit.

What the heck is going on here? Any ideas before i call the electrician?
 
You have lost one leg of the 220 V. Check at your circuit breaker panel for 220 volts. Problem could be inside or outside. Could be a bad main breaker.
 
I had same issue, bad underground leading into building. A high resistance like that can lead to a fire.

Nothing to mess with.
 
You didn't lose a leg you lost the neutral. This is shown by the one string being dimmer then the others. As said before, call an electrician.
 
Had the same thing happen 3 weeks ago on Victoria Day. 1 leg was very dim, but if I turned the water pump breaker off, the leg was completely dead. Turned out to be the meter base. It was from '78 and the one contact broke away from the base.
 
The welder fan is 110 v . It will run if you lost one phase the lighting problem sounds like a neutral . Without coming to your place with a wiggy hard to troubleshoot by internet. I agree with the call an electrician answers.If you hsve a wiggy start by checking output of breakers at the panel[you did] then neutrals. Sounds like you welder receptacle is part of a multi-wire branch circuit hence the neutral and lost phase symptoms but hard to tell.
 
If your outbuilding was wired properly and you lost the neutral, the welder would still work, and so would the 110 volt fan in it. An old Lincoln tombstone welder was wired to use both hot leads and the appliance ground. The fan was wired in a way which is now illegal---using one hot and the ground---but was standard practice for 110 volt accessories in appliances like welders and kitchen ranges at one time. I suspect that your building is wired so that the ground and the neutral are the same line, you lost one hot line, and the weakly glowing lights and welder fan are getting voltage through the neutral/ground line but don't have an adequate ground.

I mean, as long as we're guessing.

Stan
 
You have lost one side of your 240 line.The dead side is feeding thru the welder.You have a bad breaker or fuse, a broken feed wire underground or your overhead line has a break.
 
Wrong answer.The dead side can feed thru a water heater element thats turned on.A welder primary could crossfeed if the switch is left on.
 
If one leg of the two available in a 120/240 system opened the 240 volt welder wouldnt work buttttttttt if it had a 120 volt fan that got its power from the remaining good leg and the case equipment ground it could still run.

Likewise if one leg is open the 120 volt loads on it wont work while loads over on the other leg still can.

Id look at the lug connections in the main box where the incoming lines are, maybe one got loose and carbon arced between it and the lug yielding a high resistance voltage dropping connection. Or the break could be outside or no tellin where.

John T
 
Had that happen not long ago in my shop. Found where the shop lead goes in my main breaker box the one lock screw was not tight as it should have been. Tighten it up and all has been well since. Over time they can and will loosen up due to heating and cooling and amp draw so I would just all the connections in you breaker boxes
 
I had a neighbor call me one afternoon for help figuring why his well wasn't doing "right". End of story first, there was one leg of the buried 240 line that had shorted to ground.

After I checked the obvious things, fuses, control box, etc., I noticed a freshly dug hole in the yard. On asking about it they told me their dog had been digging there for several days. They would scold him and fill the hole in, only to have him dig it up again. Turns out that's where the break in the line was, making noise or whatever that only the dog could hear. He was simply trying to find it. It was buried about three feet deep and the dog had only got about half way there. After calling an electrician with the right tools to locate things he found the problem in just a few minutes.
 
On my Miller the ON/Off switch is a two pole GE 50 amp breaker at the machine. I lost one leg and the fan was still running.
 
If you ever get called to troubleshoot parking lot site lighting the first thing you do is look for the tree with the paper wrap. Thats the new one where the landscapers auger tore up the PVC pipe. Attach to to truck and pull it out dig there and fix tore up wire. Call landscaper to put his tree back gently. That dog was a good electrician for troubleshootin' .
 
But one of the things he noted was that the fan was still running. The loss of one live line and a 240 volt fan still running don't go together.

Stan
 
Fan will run on much less than 240V. It will spin just fine on approx 120V throught the neutral backfeed from the "dim light" side of the panel.
 
Stan get a pencil and draw a diagram of a 240 3 wire circuit.Open a fuse on 1 side.That side is dead until a water heater element turns on.Now the element feeds the dead side.Lights will come on dim and the fan motor will run wether its 240 or 120.I do think my Lincoln 225 welder has a 240 fan motor.I have run across the lost leg problem many times doing appliance repair.Happens a lot on underground service with aluminum wire.Ive found out side service lines open on one side.Happened in my barn shop.Fluorescent light came on very dim.Barn line has 40 amp fuses.Pull them and find one open.No problem , just an old tired fuse.
 
I have some information that may clarify or confuse the situation. I have one of those welders, Lincoln 225, plugs in to a 240 circuit with the three wires.

My fan made noise almost from day one with this thing. I thought it was supposed to be noisy until the fan stopped working. Took it apart and the fan was 110 and wired that way, connected to one leg and the neutral. I "rigged" it with a little brass washer on the shaft that worked for years. Finally, I replaced the fan with a square cooling fan, again, wired for 110 volts. The first one looked like one of the fans found in bathroom exhaust fans.

My new fan is now twenty years old and really quiet and the welder seems to be happy with it.
 

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