vintage military welder needing help with age

[Maintenancelady]

Hi all, I work for the National Park Service in the maintenance shop and we have a beautiful welding machine that still works. We want to get her generator up and running but we have no manuals on how the wiring should go. They are a bit burnt. :-) Because it was donated to the park ages ago, well before I was born I'm presuming, the manual may have gotten lost.

I tried all ways to look up the serial number, and model number and no results. I am glad that I found this chat forum to possibly get some help from you all.

She is a hobart brothers welder generator, spec. no. 3741, ay. No. 8BW-1563, MODEL: SMR-200, Serial: 8BW-18276 or 8BW-1257

Please help me on how I can get her dated, and if you would know what possible military branch would have had this machine. We were told that it MAY have been on a ship, but that hasn't been confirmed.

Thanks all

[Sberry]

What wiring is the issue? That is quite a machine in its own right,

[yooper]

What wiring is the issue? That is quite a machine in its own right,

I think he wants to get the generator portion working to energize the 120 volt receptacles on the front panel , my question is why ?
This is in a building with power , receptacles on every wall I'm sure ...

[Sberry]

Isnt the whole thing a generator?

[yooper]

Technically , 2 generators , one for AC receptacles , the other for the welder .

[Maintenancelady]

Hi all that responded.
Thank you for the compliment we are honored to have such a beast in the shop. We wanted to wire it for the generator portion that yooper mentioned because our building cannot hold power for long, for a new air pressure coooled Hobart plasma cutter, it just keeps tripping the control panel. So we figured the machine could hold the power better for that plasma cutter.

would any of you know around what years the machine was made?

[yooper]

What do you mean " building cannot hold power for long " ?
What " control panel " is being tripped ?
...This welder is being driven by a electric motor , why not fix the circuit in the building ?

[Maintenancelady]

Yooper- I am sorry I did not clarify. When we are using our plasma cutter it will trip the breaker inside the building within 20 seconds of use. We would like to upgrade the system, but our electrical panel does not have room for an upgrade. So that is a big project that we would have to contract out.

So, we were thinking of just running the big machine as an outlet for the plasma. Since it already has its own separate power source. We just can't find the year of the machine or any kind of literature for it.

Even with our plasma cutter plugged into a 240V outlet it still shuts off on us. So we are wondering if it needs something extra to perform better, it is a brand new machine with maybe 30 hours of use on it since 2020.

[yooper]

Is the motor driving the welder a 10hp ?

What voltage is the motor , 240 or 480 ?

[Dale M.]

Seems to me the thought process is a bit wrong.... To run welder/generator it will take more power from commercial/building supply than to actual fix the power problem for plasma cutter.... The amount of power requirement for plasma cutter off commercial/building power is going to be less than running the welder/generator to run plasma cutter.....There is actually a power loss factor in running an AC motor to power the welder/generator that is going to supply power requirements for the plasma cutter

If welder is non operational now, what is possibility to rob the power circuit of welder/generator to power plasma cutter....

[yooper]

This is what I was getting to , if that motor is 240 volt , just put a subpanel there to feed the plasma cutter ...

[Sberry]

Where are you located, you need someone to take a look.