Duty cycle is a reference to amount of amps vs time in a 10 min cycle..so a 50% duty cycle would be able to use X Amps for a 5 min time period with a 5 min rest / cool off time..100% would be able to use X amps listed for 10 mins per 10 minutes etc..alot of the cheap Chinese welders have only 20 % duty cycles..2 mins of use per 10 mins..
I have a harbor freight mig welder, I've owned it for about 4 years. I weld for as long as I want with absolutely no regard for the rated duty cycle. Welder still works correctly as far as I can tell
@@unigrampa it's probably a older transformer type on 220-240 volts by the sound of it then..I really enjoy the old transformer type welders such as a Lincoln tombstone 225amp..and a idealarc 250 round top 300amp machine thats 350lbs of transformer..Just can't kill them..truly multi generational equipment that just works..sure the newer machines are small, lightweight and packed with features but they also happen to have low lifespans and made in China..I mentioned duty cycle as you misspoke about duty cycle in your video saying something about Sine wave balance which has nothing to do with duty cycle..
@@unigrampa you mentioned duty cycle in 1st few minutes of your video touching and reading duty cycle off the amp metering slide mechanism face plate of the 60s/ 70s large transformer stick welder..that's why it stuck out so brightly as it was gross misinformation given to the audience by yourself and figured you and others may find value in knowing the actual meaning of duty cycle.. pulse modulation and sine wave balance features are several decades past the manufacturers date of that dinosaur stick welder and even now days I cannot think of a stick welder that has those features to date, as those features are associated with IGBT technology and typically used for tig welding..unfortunately there is more misinformation about welding then correct information..examples such as " mig welding " that uses mixed gas such as C25 75%argon/25%Co2 in the USA or 80%argon/12%Co2/8%Oxy in the EU/UK is actually MAG welder the A for Active gas the I for inert gas, as very, very few people use 100% argon to Mig weld ever.. Cheers Mate..
