Smoke'n'sparks
New Member
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- Northern Australia
Hi everyone. I live in a remote part of northern Australia and thanks to this forum I finally worked out this year that the Cigweld 165 Turbo I bought new in 2007 is actually a Clarke. I knew that the thing was made in Italy and that CIG, (an Australian company now owned by Esab), was just rebadging their products with a different cover but it took this long to work it out.
So I'd love some help with it. A couple of months ago I was wonderfully successful in attaching a Chinese spool gun to it and then in one of those awful moments of inattention reattached the wiring back the wrong way and fried the PCB. Some hours later on I found a Clarke 150en PCB on US eBay identical to mine and about three weeks later had it installed and my lovely welder back in action, both with solid wire and with the spool gun.
Then I did a little welding with fluxcore, (with the correct polarity), turned it off, and a bit later that day started it up again and when I tried to start welding it made a horrendous burrrrrrr sort of noise and tripped the circuit breaker. With the breaker reset, when I turned on the welder it made the same noise.
So . . . this was several weeks ago, and now, while trying to troubleshoot the thing, it's fine just switched on but now makes this noise when the gun trigger is depressed, with some nice bright flashes from the relay that lives under a clear plastic cover on the PCB. The noise seems to be coming from one of the transformers.
And I'm stumped, because I can sort of figure out how these things work, but any deeper into electrics and electronics and I'm helpless! (Because I can't see anything moving!)
So I'd love some help with it. A couple of months ago I was wonderfully successful in attaching a Chinese spool gun to it and then in one of those awful moments of inattention reattached the wiring back the wrong way and fried the PCB. Some hours later on I found a Clarke 150en PCB on US eBay identical to mine and about three weeks later had it installed and my lovely welder back in action, both with solid wire and with the spool gun.
Then I did a little welding with fluxcore, (with the correct polarity), turned it off, and a bit later that day started it up again and when I tried to start welding it made a horrendous burrrrrrr sort of noise and tripped the circuit breaker. With the breaker reset, when I turned on the welder it made the same noise.
So . . . this was several weeks ago, and now, while trying to troubleshoot the thing, it's fine just switched on but now makes this noise when the gun trigger is depressed, with some nice bright flashes from the relay that lives under a clear plastic cover on the PCB. The noise seems to be coming from one of the transformers.
And I'm stumped, because I can sort of figure out how these things work, but any deeper into electrics and electronics and I'm helpless! (Because I can't see anything moving!)