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I know it’s really thought, but for a few hours of work I’m just happy I didn’t light anything on fire. I’ll keep practicing and refining things moving forward (I might grind most of the welds out and lay them down again at some point). I am building a 20’ tall tripod tower to drop a 250’ weight from, for a testing project.
Use a drop to dial in your settings and make sure your fits are good to give yourself the best chance at success. Check a couple youtube videos to see what the puddle is supposed to look like. I've seen worse welds than yours in the field by people who charged a customer for them, so I wouldn't worry too much.
 
I know it’s really thought, but for a few hours of work I’m just happy I didn’t light anything on fire. I’ll keep practicing and refining things moving forward (I might grind most of the welds out and lay them down again at some point). I am building a 20’ tall tripod tower to drop a 250’ weight from, for a testing project.
Beware the force created when objects fall. A few years ago, I toured Capital Safety in Red Wing, MN for a tower climbing course. They demonstrated their tower that they built to test their fall arrest equipment. The tower was made out of 12" I-beam, granted they were testing with electronic equipment so didn't want any residual movement in the tower. What was very impressive, but also eye opening is they tested 250# test dummies from 10 feet, 6000# of force when the dummy hit the end of the line. With their fall arrest lanyards the force was reduced to less than 1500#'s IIRC.
 
Beware the force created when objects fall. A few years ago, I toured Capital Safety in Red Wing, MN for a tower climbing course. They demonstrated their tower that they built to test their fall arrest equipment. The tower was made out of 12" I-beam, granted they were testing with electronic equipment so didn't want any residual movement in the tower. What was very impressive, but also eye opening is they tested 250# test dummies from 10 feet, 6000# of force when the dummy hit the end of the line. With their fall arrest lanyards the force was reduced to less than 1500#'s IIRC.
Luckily I’m just doing a drop test where the weight free falls to the ground, so the tower only has to lift the 250 lbs. It is crazy how forces are increased when falling and how much force fall arrest system must withstand, to not fail.
 
Luckily I’m just doing a drop test where the weight free falls to the ground, so the tower only has to lift the 250 lbs. It is crazy how forces are increased when falling and how much force fall arrest system must withstand, to not fail.
So you are letting the dead weight hit the ground and not trying to arrest the fall? Should be good to go.
 
Slow week this week, but I have been working on this air manifold for the shop. 20 drops. Not very fun sticking sch40 to .065 tubing. 20230324_121045.jpg
 
Quick Q:

A friend was selling me on the idea, higher amperage, breaker, and wire to the welder - beyond the base welder specs may increase duty cycle? Is there truth to this, half truth, or no truth?
For instance, a Millermatic 211 runs on 30amp 10 wire. Bumping it to a 50amp 6 wire will not only increase options (quality plasma, larger welders, etc) the expressed thought is the duty cycle will increase. The 211 duty cycle is great as it is and not an issue. Curious if there is truth the comment.
 
Quick Q:

A friend was selling me on the idea, higher amperage, breaker, and wire to the welder - beyond the base welder specs may increase duty cycle? Is there truth to this, half truth, or no truth?
For instance, a Millermatic 211 runs on 30amp 10 wire. Bumping it to a 50amp 6 wire will not only increase options (quality plasma, larger welders, etc) the expressed thought is the duty cycle will increase. The 211 duty cycle is great as it is and not an issue. Curious if there is truth the comment.

I dont believe it to be a noticeable difference but I could be wrong. Never personally needed 50 amp for any of my projects

What particularly are you welding regularly where you need 50 amps? Not a lot of ship building going on in Montana.
 
More for the purpose to flip over to a commercial level plasma cutter setup. In the mean time my 211 does a 3/8 first pass fine.
At new location and about to run wire, etc. Don't want to limit though also, 6-8 wife is $$$.

Feeling it out. I've run 30 amp at prior location. I hadn't heard the duty cycle aspect before. Figured if so, someone here might have a bead on this info.
 
Quick Q:

A friend was selling me on the idea, higher amperage, breaker, and wire to the welder - beyond the base welder specs may increase duty cycle? Is there truth to this, half truth, or no truth?
For instance, a Millermatic 211 runs on 30amp 10 wire. Bumping it to a 50amp 6 wire will not only increase options (quality plasma, larger welders, etc) the expressed thought is the duty cycle will increase. The 211 duty cycle is great as it is and not an issue. Curious if there is truth the comment.
Duty cycle is internal to the machine. The only thing a bigger breaker could help with is if the machine was topping out early (we run into this sometimes in plants when we're running off 110, sometimes the machine will let you set more amps than the wall will provide, but it won't draw enough to pop the breaker). If you're drawing full power on your current circuit, upgrading it won't change anything except allow for larger machines in the future.
 
Now that I have the missing steel filled in Im going to grind the welds down and weld in some extra re enforcement and call it a day
 
Now that I have the missing steel filled in Im going to grind the welds down and weld in some extra re enforcement and call it a day
It's tough to see the repair but unless the welds are interfering with something, I would leave them be. Extra reinforcement around a weld is always good.
 
It's tough to see the repair but unless the welds are interfering with something, I would leave them be. Extra reinforcement around a weld is always good.

Plan is to grind them down flat and make sure its square. Then I'm welding in some plate to stiffen it up some more at the wear points. As you can see in the before photo that thing was pretty chewed up.

Basicly all I did was filled in grinded down flat to make sure the weld worked and laid a bead along the top of what got repaired. The other got two short beads as the bucket had a lot more material missing in the corner.
 
I guess I'm not seeing the perspective of the repairs. Maybe a couple pictures not so close up? In the end, your the one that has to be satisfied with it and the Bobcat really won't care!
 
Caribou Gear

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