I am really sorry, I just spoke to my colleague as i was baffled and curious, and have found out what has happened. We had one of the German technicians over from Lorch Germany on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. He was here to do some service training for our distributor service engineers.
They used various machines to show service techniques and diagnosing faults etc, Unbeknown to me, they used the brand new M-pro machine which I sent to you........part of the training was stripping down the wire feed assembly and euro connection! It would appear that it hasn't been refitted correctly!
As discussed on the phone, I don't want you to lose faith in our service, so I will organise a brand new replacement as a straight swap and send you some freebies for your trouble.
I am sure with a bit of tinkering that your can get up and running tonight as its an easy fix, but that's not the point and I want you to be reassured of the highest possible after sales care, which I why I want you to have a replacement as soon as it arrives.
thanks matt, that must be it i guess, i looked at the problem again thinking about how to make it work for now, and what i came up with was taking the screw that holds the euro fitting to the wire feeder out, and screwing the torch on, then screwing the screw back in, it has worked as a temporary fix, but to me it looks like the euro torch fitting is actually too short..... not that it's assembled wrong, appart from the lose screw, that held the fitting in place, i'll add a couple of photos to show what i mean and the position the fitting has to bolt into the feeder to work, there is a grove in the tube that fits into the feeder and the screw is clearly supposed to sit in that grove, but if the fitting is pushed far enough back for the screw to fit in the grove the torch won't fully screw to the fitting, it fouls the body, i don't really see how it's an assembly problem, it must be the wrong fitting, could it be that a fitting from a different machine was fitted?
photos first is what it looked like to start with, with it like this the tube fouls the roller and the torch fouls the body, next 2 are with the screw removed and the fitting moved to where the torch will fit with out fouling the body, clearly not in the right position but it'll work.... could this euro fitting be from, maybe a different model, fitted to this by mistake? anyway, i think your solution sounds perfect thanks if the freebe could be an upgrade to the Lorch earth lead that'd be excellent, I had paid for an SWP one they had instock and was loathed to pay another £15 for the Lorch one after i'd already paid haha, well actually my back account was empty.... haha
thanks for the fast help anyway, here are the photos, gunna go see if it all works apart from that now....
I don't think the wrong one was fitted because as far as I know they only did the euro fitting training training on the M-Pro and not on any of the larger machines.
Until I get it back we won't be 100% sure what's gone wrong, but along as you can get welding this weekend is all that matters for now.
I'll organise a 50mm2 ground cable and you can keep that ML 3800 torch for your bigger jobs (torch is worth about £90 on its own!) just need to get some 0.8mm M8 tips.
ahh weird, i can't really see how this euro fitting could work properly on this machine, unless the feed tube was cut down and the wire feed moved forward about 6mm.
i just had a go with the machine, it's working ok though i felt a slight roughness from the feed while welding, excellent performance though, i think i'll leave it for tonight and have a practice tomorrow..
could do with a manual haha i had a look through the functions, no idea what changes what after you press and hold the button! the spot and stitch things will come in handy i think!
one other thing.. I think 6mm on full power is a bit pessimistic! haha
wow thanks a lot matt thats awesome!! can't thank you enough for the excellent communication and service, and sorting this out right away, most things i'd have had to wait till monday just to talk to someone
so i got some 0.8 tips for the ML3800 and had a go on some thick ish scrap, didn't bother cleaning or anything, i'll do some better test in the future, might try a comparison between the lorch and my old SIP hahahaha anyway i'll attach a couple of photos of the weld on 8mm plate, spray transfer, 0.8 wire, 95/5 argon/co2 14lpm might not have been enough with the huge shroud, full power, showed as 200amps ish and 28ish volts, never used a machine with v/a meters before, why would the amps reading be 200 on a 250 at full power? is it the wire size/arc length? highest i've seen it show was 214 haha i'm guessing the meter will only show 250 on short circuit transfer with thicker wire and 75/25 gas?
Put some 1.0mm wire in and you'll do 250 amps no probs. I've pulled over 260-270 amps with one with 1.0mm steel wire and argoshield light on a 252 before
ahh nice thanks that's what i thought it'd be, cause if you close up the stick out/arc length the amps go up, i'd like to find a 20l rent free version of agrosheild universal or heavy to have a go with, but it seems pretty rare, i'm on a rent free 95/5 mix at the moment, can't justify the rent on another bottle at the moment, bad enough with the tig and o/a, though i'm hoping to get rent free oxy propane, and that'll drop the cost dramatically, i think the o/a is almost £200 a year rent for both bottles :O and thats only the half size bottes.
btw, planning on building a bridge with it in the not too distant future about 18ft x 8ft not done designs yet, but the existing bridge needs replacing asap, hoping to get the chance/extra pairs of hands to help finish my new workshop first haha..
Them welds you have done look really good. Your gas mix is fine, Argoshield light is just a brand name, it's pretty much the same mix as what your using anyway, so no need to change
awesome thanks a lot! any idea when the replacement machine will be at E & M? just wondering cause i'm away friday to monday.
gunna try to get my hands on some 1.0mm wire next too, gotta try everything out haha
i'm enjoying mig welding a lot now, it was always a bit of a chore with the sip comparatively! once i got my tig i just started avoiding mig work as much as possible haha
thanks for everything!
edit: oh yeah and will the ML2500 be in the shipment with the new machine?
Yes, as far as I know everything was on the same delivery. I saw that there was a pallet for E & M that left Germany last Friday, its usally 3-4 working days from there, so I would think Wed or Thurs.