Lincoln SP-175Plus

[Chadnutz]

Here's the deal... You have two 120V legs going into your house. Some 120V circuits branch off of one leg and some off of the other. your 240V circuits for the dryer, heater, etc come from both legs. AC powered devices do not need a ground to operate. The ground is for safety. They do, however, need a neutral line. Sometimes when a breaker box doesn't have a ground, people just hook the ground up to the neutral bus. If your dryer has a three prong plug, then it contains two hots and one neutral. If it has four, then it also has a ground. If your welder has three, then it's the same thing. If it has four, then it has a ground. If the outlet is three pronged and the welder is four pronged, then you just don't hook up the ground and it will still work. Again, the ground wire is only used when something shorts. It provides the path of least resistance. You may need to go to Central Electric in Bryan with sketches of the plugs if you can't bring them in. They will have the correct male and female ends for you and they will also have the insulated 3 or 4 conductor wire for you. If it is four wire, it should have black, white, red and green. If it is three conductor, it should have red, black, and white or two blacks. BLACK IS HOT!!!!! BLACK IS NOT GROUND!!!! White is neutral. Do not reverse them. You can also just make the cord for your welder longer and then you'd only have to buy the male end and the plug that fits into your dryer outlet.

Got it?

In edit: It looks as though your dryer outlet is 4 conductor and your welder is three conductor. The 90 degree prong is the ground. You could just buy some three conductor wire and don't use the ground. If I were you I would just buy a plug that fits that outlet and wire it all the way back to the welder. If you do it this way, you could include a ground wire by getting a 4 conductor wire and connecting the ground to any part of the frame of the welder..