Auction bought TIG, anyone know what it is?

[eSCHEn]

Bid blind on and won a welder at an online auction for an old hire company. It didn't come with a good piccy and was listed as a MIG unit. I went to pick it up a few days later and it's a DC TIG unit and was wired for 415V

Got the thing home and by buggery it's heavy. Gotta weigh 40 Kg at least. Gutted to see the 415V plug on the end as I'm on normal domestic supply but the luck was with me and I saw on its back that it can do 110/240/415 by swapping some jumpers inside, yay! Needed a few other bits to get it back into service but it seems to work well now

Does anyone know anything about this unit? I've searched the forum and Google but can't find anything that seems relevant.







I'm very new to TIG; am I correct in thinking an arc welder has the same sort circuit inside as TIG? The reason I ask is I see people converting their arc units into TIG machines but I was wondering if you can dot he reverse and convert the TIG to do arc? Of course you'd need the rod clamp and some rods but I dunno if that's okay to do. There's a wee icon on a switch on the front of my machine that looks like a TIG torch in one setting and arc in the other, dunno if that's related though.

The gas hose that comes out of the torch dinse connector fouls against the earth lead. It's a tight squeeze to get the earth lead in and I'm concerned it'll damage the gas hose in the long run. Do you get 90 degree M->F parts for them? I'd like to sweep it downwards out of the way if possible.

Last question - the three knobs at the top. I know the left hand one is ampage and the right hand one is gas time after the power goes off but what's the middle one for? If it's useful I'll replace the pot on the PCB as I don't think getting a new knob is a goer (it's got a weird setup and the end looks snapped off).

 

[Robotstar5]

Middle knob is (current) downslope time

 

[ben8vgte]

Yeah that will arc weld easy to swap over all tig set do, swap the earth lead over to the other side, add a lead with stick holder and the switch on the left under the amps dial selects tig/arc use

 

[Jrstainless]

Looks like it can run off 240v also.
It's a dc tig and a stick welder
Doesn't look like its Chinese either
Happy days
Jr

 

[doubleboost]

Looks to be a nice unit

 

[Wallace]

Has echoes of a Technical Arc machine with the knobs and knockers on the front, the screen printing on the back looks Chinese as does the pronunciation under "ATTENTION!". If it's heavy then I would think it likely to be transformer based.

 

[Jrstainless]

Omg I can read Chinese and I didn't even know it Lol

 

[Wallace]

Omg I can read Chinese and I didn't even know it Lol

What did you have for dinner tonight?

 

[Jrstainless]

Pizza for tea!
But I did have a Chinese for dinner chicken shezan or summit I cannot spell or pronounce but it was marvellous.
I'm a real sucker for takeaway

 

[bill_gj]

I chew my take-aways

 

[zardoz]

You can change to either 415v, 240v, 110v. Looks pretty damn versatile. Usually only the newer Miller or Lincoln, machines can do that, and then its either 415v and 240, or 240v or 110v, rarely all three.

 

[PTvor]

It looks as if Multi-Mig (UK) were in business from 1990 to 2001.

https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/02507020

I'd guess it's a rebadged unit made by Telwin/Cebora/CEA or similar.

It would be interesting to see some pictures of the inside.

 

[eSCHEn]

@Robotstar5:

Great, thanks for that. Should help stop blowing holes at the edge of the weld


@ben8vgte:

Cool, always wanted to do some arc and it'll save on the price of Argon.


@Jrstainless, @doubleboost, @Wallace:

Cheers all for the info.


@zardoz:

Yeah I was cock-a-hoop when I saw it could do 240v. Especially after I was so bummed out when I saw the 415V plug on it when I got home (SWMBO had picked it up when I was at work).


@PTvor:

Awesome, that's really helpful. The PCB looks like circa 1999.


I'll post some pictures of the internals when I've got them uploaded.

Thanks to all for your help.

 

[eSCHEn]

Right side, top and left side:








Closeup of the power block to swap voltages, currently set for 240V:




PCB Detail:




Internal Layer of PCB:




Couldn't get any better photo of this as the dials are stuck for good and I didn't want to lever the boards back any more:




I had to lift this into the kitchen to strip and photo it so I thought I'd weigh it - I'd thought it ~40kg but it's actually 57Kg lol.

 

[Bill Edwards]

Nice buy.

 

[penfold]

It really needs a 32A socket installing as the peek current for full power is 30A, even at 100(?) amps it wants 20A supply so you'll be popping 13A fuses like popcorn. Nice looking machine with a robust duty cycle.

 

[eSCHEn]

Yeah a 32A socket is in the future pipeline when I get electric into my shed. Currently I've gone up to 6 / 10 on the power dial with no issues and that seems plenty for the steel I'm working with now. It does have a tendency to trip the MCB when you first power it on as it's presumably got a high inrush to fill the caps?

 

[PTvor]

Thanks for posting the pictures of the insides.

I don't believe welders like this have a big bank of capacitors to charge from the mains, unlike inverters. I can't see anything which looks like big capacitors in the photos.

It may depend on where in the mains cycle it's switched on.

 

[daleyd]

I think it's the inrush to the transformer rather than capacitors that's responsible for the tripping.

As you turn it on there is effectively a short circuit through the transformer until the inductance builds, it's only for a fraction of second but it can be enough to trip things.

Looks like a big solid machine though!

 

[500e]

C or D type trips