Electrical arc welding is widely used in construction, automobile welding, pipe fabrication and repair and maintenance. If you’re not careful, however, damaged equipment and cables can cause injuries and electrical shocks. To avoid such mishaps, it’s important to repair or replace damaged welding consumables and components on time. Welding cables, in particular, need to be checked for any issues periodically. Also check: welding cable
If your cable is damaged beyond repair, you can always buy a new welding cable online. However, it’s best to know how to fix these cables if possible, so you can prolong their working life.
Repairing a damaged welding cable is a fairly easy process if you know what to do. If you don’t, however, this step-by-step guide can help you learn the process easily. To better understand why it’s important to repair damaged cables promptly, let’s begin by taking a closer look at what they are and why they’re crucial to electrical welding.
Table of Contents
What are Welding Cables?
A welding cable is a kind of electrical cable that is used to power electrodes in an arc-welding machine. These cables generally include copper as the conducting metal, with ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) as the insulation around the copper strands. The use of metal strands makes welding cables flexible, so you can use them to power electrodes conveniently. The voltage rating for these cables is generally 600V.
A Step-By-Step Guide To Repair Damaged Welding Cables
Occasionally, on account of regular wear, the welding cables in your welding machine may suffer tears and cracks in the insulation. The copper strands could also be damaged or broken, leading to poor conductivity. If the extent of damage is heavy, it is best to get your welding cables replaced.
However, in case of some minor damages, it may be possible to repair the cable, at least temporarily. Here’s what you need to do if your welding cable requires some quick repair when you are in the middle of a weld.
- Locate the Damaged Area
Inspect the welding cable thoroughly to identify the damaged area. If there is more than one area that needs repair, ensure that you proceed to tackle all of them before you resume welding. It’s very important to know the extent of the damage before you go ahead and start to repair the wear and tear.
- Tape the Area Securely
As a temporary measure, you can only secure the broken or damaged area using some tape. There are different kinds of tapes that you can use to secure the cracks or breaks in a welding cable, such as Teflon, vinyl or PVC tapes. Whichever kind you use, make sure that no area is left unsecured. If the taped area is too stiff, you can improve the flexibility by using a plasticizer.
- Complete your Welding Job
Once you’ve temporarily fixed your welding cable using some good-quality tape, you can proceed to complete the welding job you were in the middle of. This is not a permanent fix for broken or damaged welding cables, because the tape will become brittle over time, leading to shorting of the circuit or electrical shocks.
How to Repair a Welding Cable Like a Professional?
If you’re not looking for an ultra-short quick fix, you can strip and solder the wire to repair the welding cable. However, this is not something you should attempt as a beginner. If you’re not sure how to do this, it’s a job best left to the professionals. The broad steps involved are listed below.
- Cut out the Damaged Section
Identify the damaged section of the welding cable. This will help you understand how much of the cable you need to cut out. Then, use efficient wire cutters to cut out the damaged segment. Make sure that you cut out a little more than the section that is broken, so you have room to solder the sections back together.
- Strip the Wires
Once you’ve cut out the damaged portion of the cable, you need to strip the insulation off the cables. Use wire strippers to do this efficiently. You need to remove the insulation at both ends of the cut, so it’s easy to solder the cut ends of the copper wires together.
- Slide the Insulation onto One Segment
Before you connect the cut ends of the wire via soldering, you need to slide a piece of heat shrink tubing aka insulation onto one segment of the cable. This way, after you’ve soldered the wires together, it’s easier to slide the insulation across the repaired segment and secure it. Ensure that you keep the insulated segment further away from the repair area, so the tubing does not melt when you solder the wires.
- Solder the Wires Together
Use a soldering iron to join the wires together. Make sure that the connection is secure before you proceed to the next step.
- Slide and Secure the Insulation onto the Repaired Area
After you’ve secured the cut segments of the wires together, the circuit will be complete once again. All that’s left to do is slide the heat shrink tubing over the repaired area to insulate the rest of the wire. You need to use a heat gun or a lighter to heat the tubing and let it shrink snugly around the repaired area.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that repairing damaged welding cables is, at best, a stop-gap measure. To ensure adequate safety, you need to get damaged cables replaced rather than merely repaired. The steps outlined above can be useful if you are in the middle of a welding job. Once you’ve completed it, it’s best to contact a professional service provider to repair your welding cable or replace it altogether, so you can prevent any potential electrical accidents at your welding workplace.
