Hello Justin, this might be a real shot in the dark, but one of the employers in the town where I teach has a system that I believe was purposed for something of the nature of what you are talking about. This was originally used at the Trojan Nuclear Plant in Rainier, Ore. and then surplused from there to the company that currently owns it. Unfortunately, the owner of the company and likely the one who was planning on using it, passed away a couple of years ago. They had contacted me a while back to see if I could identify it and possibly give them an idea of worth and purpose. I seem to recall that it was capble of weld arc monitoring, to what degree I couldn't say. If you have any interest I can likely get you some contact information that would allow you to contact them and make a "deal". Best regards, Allan

Note: I have no idea of this item's functionality or whether it will work for what your interest is. Simply thought that I'd throw it out there for your consideration.

If you're handy with electronics, you can do with with a couple of LEM coils and a DAQ.  The details of how you want to monitor will dictate the requirements of the DAQ.  You might be able to simplify (comparatively speaking) the setup and just record voltage at the torch, but it will be possible to fake out (though not easily) using that method.  Depending on what the DAQ wants as an input, you may kill it if you try to measure raw voltage off the torch.

Ive used JustArc for my welders, I just scared the welders into not zeroing out the data. Plus told them it was for welding metrics 0n bidding future jobs
Know of others who use Just Arc but raised the power supply out of reach of the welders.
good luck

Hi Justin

If I understand correctly, you only want to know when the machine is actually running, not measure actual parameters. If that is the case, then I think that measuring the current at the input will surely be the simplest. I am no electrician, but I think the electricians should have a unit they can attach to the DB that measures power usage for each of the feeder circuits to the machines. Should be easy enough to convert power usage to "arc-on" time if the parameters remain relatively constant. The advantage of this is that there is nothing obvious that is connected to the machine.

Regards
Niekie

Well, you have heard of placebos...............hook aevalds' machine up a few times and don't say anything and your productivity will sky rocket.

Other than that, you must already have a good idea who isn't cutting the mustard, or you wouldn't want to test your employees.

Walk up there to the tank, and hook that bad boy up, and exclaim that you are testing the weld speed against statistics in the "aws manual", and see what happens..........I'll bet you see a difference in attitude.

If You can calculate the arc time from primary power kilowatt hours used, this device will keep track of that for a small price.
It is intended for single phase lines, but since You don't really need actual KWH, it will give a relative reading.

http://www.theenergydetective.com/

You could also wire hour meeters to the contactor circuits of the power supplys.