Since I built my garage I have been feeding the electrics with a 13amp extension lead. It was never meant to be the case and was always a temporary measure until I sorted the feed cable (I am an electrician and it really is a busmans holiday for me) so today I decided to finally sort it out as I want to get a plasma cutter and the extension really is pushing it when welding so it really wouldn't cut it (scuse the pun) with a 16A plasma cutter. Been using this for ages. When I built the extension on the house I put a 30A cooker cable in the roofspace of the utility room to eventually sort the garage. I "acquired" about 25m of 4 core x 4mm steel wire armoured cable from work and that has been sat in the garden awaiting the time when I sorted it. I got hold of a 30m coil of galvanised catenary wire and 2 packs of bulldog clips and a bag of cable ties. I needed some sort of wall loop to anchor it so purchased 2 x 16mm wall anchors and 2 D shackles and welded a shackle on each wall anchor then fitted them into the wall. I then measured the 12m of wire required and fixed one end to the wall fixing then fitted 3 x bulldog clips to the wire loop to retain it. Then I clipped on the cable to the wire with tie-wraps every 12 inches then tensioned it and fitted bulldog clips on the house end. Looks like this. The difference in the supply is like night and day. My compressor starts on the button with no laborious running and knocking out the trip in the house or the fuse in the extension cable lol. The welder is another thing. Before I was using the Clarke 120 on full power and never always got full penetration at the rear and the weld always seemed to just sit on top. Not a problem with body panels but not the best on the chassis. This was the back of an old weld on a section I had chopped out. This is currently what it is doing on the middle range setting. Like I say, night / day. And this is the top. Much better. I wish I'd sorted this years ago..............and now I can get me a plasma.! O0
