remember, duty cycle is the number of minutes in a 10 minute period the welder can weld, the remaining time it must be cooling. it doesn't matter whether you weld continously for 1.5minutes or spot weld for 20secs numerous times within that same window, duty cycle (15%) remains the same (welding technique does not change this). The welder will only operate 1.5 minutes worth of welding in every 10min window, regardless of whether its continous or not.

why does this matter you ask? well, the stuff we do, say fabricating a front or rear heavy duty bumper may require lots of long seam welding (i know lots of the stuff i've done does). So say you have 10mins of total welding to do on that bumper you've just made. well, 15% duty cycle, it now takes over an hour to weld it up as opposed to 10 minutes of welding at 100% duty cycle. sure, you can be doing other things during the cool down period, but how often do you wanna be stopping and coming back? thats duty cycle.



be careful, when talking about 220v welders, 12 might not even be sufficient. I realize his particular welder only pulls 15amps, and you could probably get away with a short 12 extension cord, but most 220v welders will pull close to 40-50amps... way too much load for 12 guage.

Another words, use extreme caution when putting a welder on an extension cord, making sure you have the right guage wire for *your* welders input requirements and the distance you're spanning.

-Rob