I spotted this Mig Welder round at a mate's place on the weekend. It is a you-beaut inverter type with a maximum welding current of 220A. It comes with a 32A D-Curve MCB as a main switch. To cap it off, it comes with what appears to be a factory-fitted 15A cord and plug.
Out of curiousity, we put the clamp meter onto the supply conductor and my friend did some practice welds. Wound up close to maximum, it laid down a nice thick run of weld with the clamp meter reading just over 30A.
Since this was connected to a circuit breakered at 20A, I was expecting it to trip after a little of this treatment, and was not disappointed, it took just over 2 minutes of this treatment.
Does anyone know the Australian/New Zealand regs well enough to tell me if this is legal? I am assuming that the maths goes something like 30A at 50% duty cycle equals a 15A cord, but I would like to know if the regs support this. Seems like an accident waiting to happen to me.
