clarke 150TE - wire speed changing with power?!

[jazzbob]

Hi,

Recently reinstated my welder after about a year and bit the bullet and got a big bottle of argoshield and some new wire + wire liner etc. However (and I am by no means very experienced) I was unable to get the thing setup happily and sounding right. It was almost there but not quite.... (I've had good welds out of this machine before)

After much frustration I realised that the wire speed was increasing with the power which I had never noticed before. This was causing me to consistently overshoot the wire speed settings I'd have used a year or so ago.

Am I right in thinking the welder is faulty? - and if so, what is the cause?

Thanks

Jason

 

[the snooper]

no its not faulty the wire speed does increase with higher power settings obviously the higher the power the faster the wire melts so its increased to account for this

 

[jazzbob]

ah, I thought this was only a feature of more expensive welders?? - and I've never noticed it being like this before either.... mine is an old 150TE if that makes any odds

cheers

Jason

edit: Well, I had a problem the other day where the wire went constantly flat out. So I took apart the control board and cleaned everything up etc and reassembled it. Now looking at a recent clarke manual it says the wire feed is automatically adjusted (obv. with fine tuning on the knob)... is this the case with the older 150TE?

if this is so, then it appears I've fixed the wire control as my welder certainly never auto adjusted before!! lol - Hopefully this is correct, as it means I've simply massively over compensated the speed thinking that it had to be done manually...

 

[jazzbob]

bump

 

[Spot the welders dog]

Hi jazzbob,

I was interested in the auto or non wire speed thingy. So I dug out my 150TE manual and had a quick look: Can't see any mention of the machine having that feature.
The only part that I can see mentions wire feed is in 'Tuning your welder' - {paraphrasing} "Manually adjust the wire feed speed to fully on and manually adjust back to achieve a good arc..."

The manual dates back a few years (The service dept has a very old London prefix [0181]), so it may date to yours quite well?

Hth