noob needing some help.............

[biggee2014]

afternoon guys n gals
im after a little bit of help with my welder.
its a Clarke gas/no gas one (just a small hobby kind of one), not sure on the exact model as previous owners spray painted the thing :s
I bought it not working as it was mega cheap, so far ive managed to get it to feed wire but when you try to weld with it it only keeps feeding the wire doesn't actually weld, tracing the wires back to inseide the main thick black wire that goes into the lance is attatched on to the brass block but inside the welder itself it was taped up to the flex cable and not attached to anything. where should this attach to?

if anyone can help it would be great

thanks

 

[Flapdisk]

It sounds to me that someone has already identified something very expensive has failed and sold you the remaining junk mate. Probably the selenium rectifier or the transformer is knackered

 

[biggee2014]

are they easy to get a hold of? pricey? easy to fix?
cheers

 

[shenion]

Pictures would help identify things.

Hehe, flapdisk, selenium rectifiers have not been used since the '70s

If the feed works, the rectifier is fine as it is powered off the weld power. The line from the torch would either go to a set of terminals in the wire feed area or to one of the rectifier plates.

 

[biggee2014]

ive got a few pics that hopefuly might help out a bit, in two of the pics you will see the big wire im talking about, runs from the torch to the loose end.

 

[rtbcomp]

There should be 2 thick wires going to the rectifier from the transformer.

A - 2 more thick wires from the rectifier, 1 each to the two sockets at the bottom of the front panel.

or

B - 1 thick wire from the rectifier to one socket (most likely +ve) and a third thick wire from the transformer to the other socket.

The thick wire that goes to the torch will terminate in a plug to be connected to either the + or - sockets, depending on the required polarity. The earth return goes to the other socket.

 

[biggee2014]

im going to sound completely daft, which part is the rectifier?

 

[rtbcomp]

That aluminium square thing - it's actually made up of several components.

 

[shenion]

Looks like it was broken off. See if you can finde where on the plates it connected to. It might be the back plate.