[Schumi]

I've come upon an odd situation.

My friend moved here from the UK and gave me his MIG welder that he had shipped over here because he didn't have a place to use it. It's meant for UK power, so it is 230v with a 13 amp rated heavy duty plug with a ground, a load wire, and a neutral wire. So I understand it that in the UK, there is a 230v-240v 50hz feed on that load wire, return to 0v on the neutral, and ground is ground. The machine claims it can take a 50 or 60 hz frequency.

I have a step up transformer that I use for my coffee machine from Germany, but it can only do 2000 watts, which I have used to weld with this MIG machine but the transformer is topped out and sounds like it doesn't like it. It was expensive, so I'd rather not burn it out.

So I am wondering- could this MIG be wired up to either side of a US 230v outlet- from a dryer/range plug? On those, again, as I understand it- there are two load wires and one neutral and no ground. The two loads are 115v each, but out of phase with each other which would make 230v across the two. If I wired the UK MIG welder's load wire to one of these 115v, and the UK neutral wire to the other 115v, would this work? Then the nuetral return line would not be connected to anything. I have read about people doing this with heater kettles and such but not something with a transformer in it like a welder. And then my next question is what to the with the case ground- I checked, the ground from the welded just bolts to the outer case, so I'm assuming I could just tie it to a wall panel screw to ground it.


Do I have this right? Any concerns? I know it's not 'to code' but that's not something I am concerned about. Breaker gets shut off for and everything unplugged whenever I'm not using it anyway.