Adding a 50A welder receptacle/subpanel?

[Caver Dave]

So, our shops PO's brainiac brother ("electrical engineer" ) conned him into a 100AMP FLUSH mount panel.
There are 1 each: 60A (stove), 30A (air compressor), 20A (well pump) double pole breakers and the rest of the slots are full of 20A single pole breakers (lights/receptacles)

After a couple of years of disconnecting the 220V stove plug (of course it's *behind* the fridge), connecting an adapter cable (4-prong to 3-prong) and then unwinding the 35' extension cordage diagonally across the shop... TIRED of tripping over the cord (6/6? Sxxx), tired of it being 6" short of where I need to weld and then undoing to return the stove to service (shop is also our guest quarters/entertaining space) ...

Thought adding either another 50A receptacle or a subpanel (near current panel = where I weld), swapping a couple of the SP 20A breakers for piggyback style (to gain space for 50/60A DP breaker) and snake the wires out to a SURFACE mount receptacle/subpanel could be lightyears faster/cheaper than involving a contractor to swap the existing panel to a larger 200A panel?

Doable?
OR is there a better/faster/cheaper alternative?

 

[braxton357]

It could possibly trip the main breaker if you had everything going at once but it should be fine. I personally would bring it out of the wall in an LB and run conduit with #6 thhn over to where you want an outlet ( or do a blanking plate over a deep quad box and put a cord grip in the middle do away with the outlet). Buy some 20a mini tandems and double up a few of the lighting circuits, put the 50a breaker in and be done.

 

[Caver Dave]

It could possibly trip the main breaker if you had everything going at once but it should be fine.

I figured that could happen, but would take a perfect storm

I personally would bring it out of the wall in an LB and run conduit with #6 thhn over to where you want an outlet ( or do a blanking plate over a deep quad box and put a cord grip in the middle do away with the outlet). Buy some 20a mini tandems and double up a few of the lighting circuits, put the 50a breaker in and be done.

Great feedback brother!
Was gonna put the outlet (needed for both welder & plasma) on an outboard stud (bookending the panel) and since I'd need a hole in the drywall (to drill the stud for wire pass-thru from panel cavity), will likely add some horz supports and could flush mount a deep quad box?

 

[Jeffncs]

I was in a similar situation except I didn’t have 220 at all in my shop. I ran 3/4 grey conduit from my main panel into my garage and pulled 6 gauge which terminated into a 6-50R (3-prong receptacle). Last week, I added another receptacle to that same circuit to run my plasma and compressor (combined <40A).

I started going down the road of adding a sub panel but that became a lot more work for something I truly didn’t need. Do what works for your needs and keep it simple.