Couple of questions about my sip t130p

[Craigybaby37]

Hi I'm new to the forums and have a couple of questions regarding my sip t130p welder as I would like to get the most out of it.

Question 1: The welder I have has 6 power setting on 3 switches the instructions don't say anything about the amps for each setting? Does anyone know what they are roughly?? The switch on the left has high and low, high being the highest setting from what I have worked out but if you press the switch onto low does it then let you use the other 2 switches I have never been able to work out what way round the switches go to achieve different power levels?

Question 2: may be to do with question 1 but here goes. Welding 4-5mm steel on the highest setting (left switch on high) is fine but if I am welding something thinner like some thin walled exhaust pipe I turn the welder onto a lower setting but when I pull the trigger the welder just spits every second or so there is no nice crackling/sizzling noise? I have checked the earth and it was fine as when I turned the welder back onto high setting and tested on thicker material it welded fine but as soon as I turned onto lower setting it was spitting again?

Question 3: last question here thanks for baring with me so far, this is regarding the auto/manual wire speed feed. The instructions say about an automatic feed speed pre set for each power setting but it can you can manually over ride it......there is no switch to do this to select auto or manual so is the manual or auto done my putting the speed feed dial onto as low as it can do??

Thanks for any help in advance

Craig

 

[mike 109444]

Craig welcome. Q1 (and Q2) If your manual does not tell you Easest way to find what the power setting switches do if you have a basic volt meter able to read between 10 to 50vDC. clamp one lead of your meter with the earth clamp of the welder and back off the wire feed roller (so it won't feed wire!!) then other lead of meter on the copper tip at end of tourch now set welder to what you think is the lowest setting and make a note of the switches eg hi /low = LOW 1 / 2 = 1 3 / 4 = 3. when you press the trigger you will get a reading of say 14vDC now go through the other possible combinations and you should end up with a list going from say 14.0v to 20v spread over the 6 combinations. As your welder is quoted as going as low as 25amps then the lowest will be 25amps! There should be a data plate on the welder indicating the highest power in amps then you just share the value by 6 to get a rough ideal of the power across the range. Ref the welding thin exhaust pipe, could the exhaust pipe be coated? galv (zinc) or even metal sprayed (ali) both of which will give poor welds. Try you welder on some good CLEAN sheet steel of same thickness as the pipe wall and see if it's still same?
Q3 don't know how they select this on the machine but could be the wire feed knob pulls out to select manual/auto or turns right round till it then clicks off? Don't force the knob just incase it's not this!
There should be other members with same machine try a "search" at the top of the page for your model and if you can find a recent post maybe PM the poster.

 

[Craigybaby37]

Thanks very much for the reply that's realy helpful information I will post up the results with the voltage when I get a chance to test it as I have a multi meter so that'll work fine.

I will try the feed adjustment knob to see if it pulls out, failing that I was going to try putting it as low as it will go so that its off the scale and see what the feed speed is then putting it on minimum so that the dial is still on the scale but at its lowest point and see how the speed varies.

 

[Craigybaby37]

So I've just been in the garage and done the checks. The voltage trick worked brilliantly and now I'm clear on the switch combinations for the different power levels.

And for the feed speed I put the dial as low as it will go and I can only presume this is the preset feed speed for each power level as when you select a higher power setting you can hear the wire feed motor speed up each time you select a higher lever.

 

[Wozzaaah]

The wire feed speed changes automatically as you change the power setting and you adjust the knob to fine tune it.

 

[mike 109444]

Good to see you sorted the power switch settings. As for the auto / manual wire feed guess you could be right. Machine probley takes a feed from the power being feed to the weld to feed the wire feed motor and so as the power goes up so does the feed to the feed motor (think that makes sense!). You will find when you change from .6 wire to .8 wire the power and feed rate will need tweeking. Worth making a few notes of what wire size works on what power setting when welding a particular thickness of metal.

 

[Craigybaby37]

Yea that's what I was thinking of doing by making some notes on what settings for different thickness of metals etc and either laminate them or just keep them safe for reference as I don't realy weld regular enough to remember all the settings in my head.