Patent ID: 6906285

Claim:
A wire feeder including a motor driving a set of feed rolls to force a welding wire from a spool through a welding torch to a welding operation, said wire feeder having an input lead to be connected to the output terminal of a remotely located power source having an on condition and an off condition where a welding current is directed to said output terminal only when said source is in said on condition, a weld starting trigger with a weld start position located adjacent said torch to close a switch when said trigger is shifted to the weld start position, a circuit coupled to said switch to sense when said switch is closed, and a transmitter on said wire feeder, said transmitter being coupled to said circuit and being operable to transmit a starting signal to said power source when said switch is closed whereby said power source is shifted to its on condition when said trigger is in said weld start position.