SIP migmate issues again.

[Maddog]

Hi chaps.

Have started to rebuild an old trailer today. Fired up the welder and after a few mins of welding on and off it stopped feeding, now it's done this before and usually a light tap with a foot gets it going again... But tonight it stopped for good. I know it sounds like a loose connection of some kind, but I've been through the whole welder with a fine tooth comb and all seems well. I've also previously modified it with an additional cooling fan so it doesn't get too hot. I don't think thermal cutout is the issue anyway as its only around 7 degrees here anyway.

Any ideas what else could cause this. Could it be a problem with the motor? As its not even trying to feed. I've previously had the motor out and connected it to a battery and it spins ok. Don't really want to replace it as its not a bad little welder when it works and it was free.

Cheers.

 

[Sean]

correct tip for the wire if the tip gets hot it can bind
also if its been run with a plastic liner the debris can collect in the swan neck liner add act as a hot melt glue, sticking the wire in the liner ( later torches didnt have the narrow wire liner in the torch) try taking the tip off and see if it feeds.

The relay on the board eventually burns, its the blue translucent lego brick thing on the board you can see the black arc dammage inside. There is also a big square relay that spews green slime on some batches.

both are available from Maplins and the like couple of mins with the soldering iron.

beyond that its fiddle all the lucar terminals on all the switches and make sure all the nuts and bolts on the plates and wires are tight.

 

[mike 109444]

correct tip for the wire if the tip gets hot it can bind
also if its been run with a plastic liner the debris can collect in the swan neck liner add act as a hot melt glue, sticking the wire in the liner ( later torches didnt have the narrow wire liner in the torch) try taking the tip off and see if it feeds.

The relay on the board eventually burns, its the blue translucent lego brick thing on the board you can see the black arc dammage inside. There is also a big square relay that spews green slime on some batches.

both are available from Maplins and the like couple of mins with the soldering iron.

beyond that its fiddle all the lucar terminals on all the switches and make sure all the nuts and bolts on the plates and wires are tight.

Think you will find that is a transformer not a relay that spews.

Sometimes a hard fault is easer to fault fine than an intermittent one.
Have you retried powering the feed motor from a power pack/bat charger (leave in machine, just unplug motor )

 

[Maddog]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Just tried it again this morning and seems to be working fine.

Now, whether this is down to it being left over night and had time to cool properly or just putting it away on the trolley jiggled something free/made connection.
I did give it one last test though before I left the garage last night, so would suggest something to do with thermal cutout.

It's just so intermittent.

 

[Maddog]

Spoke to soon... Wheeled it out of the garage to the trailer and sure enough stopped working again.

Took the covers off and it seems there is a dicky connection on the spade/piggyback connectors somewhere behing the buttons.

wiggled it and it worked, then stopped, worked, then stopped...

All the connections seem fine and tight tho, so i am going for the (blue) relay and/or transformer thingy.

i'll report back when job done.

cheers.