Shop Electrical Improvement

I built a cart which houses my plasma, tig, mig.. All operate on 220v. I am tired of unplugging cords and switching things around when I move from my plasma to mig. I started to add several additional boxes in the garage to keep things all plugged in at the same time but ran out of breaker space in the sub panel..

Did some reading online about how to work around this and someone mentioned a rotary switch. Basically what I want is a rotary switch mounted on my welding cart which I can turn to the plasma, tig, mig. So 3 boxes with 50 amp 220 volt outlets and a rotary switch all together on my welding cart. From the rotary switch I will have a welding extension cord plugged into 1 50 amp outlet on the wall..

Anyone ever done this?


Thanks..


Tom

Haven't tried that, but it sounds like a hell of a good idea and not too hard to do.
The rotary switch sounds great to only being able to power up one unit at a time, but a little voice in the back of my head says "only switch the rotary when the main power is unplugged".

AZFairlane wrote:Haven't tried that, but it sounds like a hell of a good idea and not too hard to do.
The rotary switch sounds great to only being able to power up one unit at a time, but a little voice in the back of my head says "only switch the rotary when the main power is unplugged".

You can flip it powered up but not under a load they are pricey we use them at work but in a 480 volts

I guess one could mount a small 3 circuit box on the welding cart and install 3 gang box onto that.. One cord from the shop wall to welding cart.

I have a hot tub with a GFCI box outside. They refer to this being a electrical disconnect but i think you could use something like this to wire up 3 each 220v circuits..
May be cheaper than the rotary switch.. A person needs to remember to shut one unit off before firing up the next..

You would not believe the amount of disinformation you get from Home Depot and Lowes sales people.. Also watched some youtube videos on this and some are dangerous! I did find one person at Home Depot that was able to explain the 220 stuff to me.. 220v is basically 2 hot 110v. Each 110v is on a seperate leg and not on the same bus bar.
As one leg pushes electricity thru the wire, the other 110v pulls.. That is why you don't need a white neutral wire for it to work. The ground wire is for safety..

Any Electricans can chime in here to correct me.


Tom

If it is just for your use, do you even need a switch? Just run power to the cart, and gang the outlets, then just have one device on at a time????

Agree, if its all on a cart, long cord to cart, cut plugs off of portable equipment and hard wire to a board, or put 3 plugs down a parallel circuit and only ever have 1 on at a time.  Other two outlets draw no load.  Save yourself 4 or 5 hundred bucks for the switch.

One other option would be a small 100 amp panel box with 3 220vt 50 amp breakers and use the breakers to fire up the one you need with the 50 amp drop cord wired in as the main power supply in the panel on the cart