Patent ID: 7294808

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 connected to the output lead of one remotely located power source of a plurality of power sources, said one remotely located power source having an on condition and an off condition where a welding current is directed to said output lead only when said source is in said on condition, a receiver on said one remotely located power source to shift said remotely located power source to said on condition upon receipt of a starting signal with a given code that is specific to said one remotely located power source, 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 position, a circuit to sense when said switch is closed, and a transmitter on said wire feeder to transmit said starting signal with said given code to said one remotely located power source when said trigger switch is closed whereby said one remotely located power source is shifted to its on condition when said trigger is in said weld position, said starting signal and said one remotely located power source have the same given code.