As I have difficulties getting the answers right from the distributors mouths I would like to hear what has been told to you...
Oxford i mig range..states on their web site. Every Oxford welding machine is offered with the following guarantees: 2 year warranty all items 5 year main transformer warranty (the heart of the machine) 20 year minimum guarantee of spares availability. Which makes the backup support outstanding.
id say id agree except for that last part theres no guarantee parts are gonna be available in that time, due in part any business can go under and i havent heard of any company hoarding parts by insurance purpose to be able to repair a machine in 5-20 years insolvent business sells all parts off to other companies or simply dumped in the scrap bin
Well this is true, but the Oxford brand name for welders has been around for a while now. But I suspect most parts will be available from the likes of RS Components, to carry out running repairs...
Yep what he said. TecArc are a small manufacturer using off the shelf components so nothing fancy or bespoke to them apart from the transformer itself. It's a safe bet that if they ceased trading the machine could still be repaired by a competent electronics engineer.
Having looked inside mine, I dont actually think youd need a real whizz kid either. If specific parts are no longer available Im sure a more modern equivelant could be worked in.
I'm looking forward to having a peek inside mine, when I get the call from Tom to say it's arrived....
Maybe I'll have to wait for at least 2 years before I take the covers off to blow the dust out then???..........
Anyway, there is no such thing as you guessed. The sellers/distributors will tell you nice stories about rescued machines more than 10y old, but talk is cheap and the name brand machines are not. Industrial users might not care much but it is bad outlook for garage user who would like to keep it working for a long time. Particularly important for all those inverter boxes filled with magic smoke trapped inside the expensive PCB-s.
I've been told by two repair shops that Lincoln don't stock spare boards for their Invertec V series TIG welders, this was a few years back. If they die, then you're relying on someone finding old stock, or cannibalising another machine. Quite bad when you can still see them on the shelves at a few distributors!!! On the other hand, they apparently stock parts for their newer TPX stuff. It took a few months to get, though, when they had to replace every board in our 220tpx under warranty.
