Looks like Mr. Bill going "Ooooooh Nooooo". For us old folks that used to watch the original Saturday Night Live.
Or us young folks who have grown up hearing our parents mock Mr. Bill anytime something semi-serious is wrong. You wuss. You should have seen the pig tail I had to wire up at work for our new welder (240v) the other day. Ok, I'll admit, I asked this other kid plug it in, and yelled out "Damn, it didn't blow up!". When he asked what I meant, I told him I had just wired it up and he was the first to plug it in. But back to the thread, I agree with Mr. bmcdaniel on that red wire. I would trim the exposed copper down a little and slide it under the screw further. Right now, it looks like alot of sparks and smoke waiting to happen if the cable gets pulled on or twisted the wrong way.
Where is the ground wire going? (the bare copper one) The white wire should be disconnected, and the ground wire to the terminal with the green screw. White is not used, you don't need it. What gauge of wire did you use? and how many amps does the welder draw? and what size breaker is that?
I'll go out there and trim up the wire a bit. It's not as bad as it looks in the picture though. It's 10 gauge wire on a 40 amp 2 pole breaker. The welder has a max draw of 42 amps. I haven't bought my MIG yet. Who ever wired up this house ran all of the commons and grounds to the ground bus bar. He even added an additional bar to the box. To get everything to work right he ran two ground straps between the common and ground bus bars. It's all fuggered up. As you can see in my pictures there are white wires and bare wires going to every bar. It's just a mess. I connected the bare copper to the outlet in the event that the outlet grounds out it will still be protected.
For a hardwired 40 amp circuit, breaker to receptacle, you should use 8 AWG wire. With welders, NEC allows you to undersize the portable electric cord because welders are considered intermittant duty. In my own garage I have a 50 amp breaker in the box but the undersized 10 AWG rubber cord with a receptacle on the end is attached right to the breaker box and is 25 feet long. With that and the 6' cord on the welder I can reach anywhere in the garage and about 15' into the driveway.
