Hi Everyone :-)
I mentioned to a mate I may like to play with a TIG
Not sure if he missunderstood...but I now seem to own a poorly TIG that does indeed need playing with
It's a CEA Tigtronic 165
Bright yellow box at one time - looks like its had a hard life
I assume its a DC only unit and it only has basic controls (not all of which I understand)
Anyway - the guy that gave it me got told it "needed a new relay" to work from the guy he bought it from
It sat in his garage for a while and he didn't even get as far as putting a mains plug on it - so he couldn't tell me anymore history than this
The power switch was set to 415v (bearing in mind it didn't have a plug fitted when I got it)
I opened it up - yup quite dusty and amazed at the sizes of transformers and lack of much else in there
The mains wiring had been attacked at the switch and it only had seemingly been wired for single phaze (only blue and brown wires connected - the black wire had been snipped off)
Ok so I wired a plug and set the switch to 240v
Plugged it in - no magic smoke...ok switch it on
Get a green light to say its getting power..the fan spins
Grabbed the multimeter and popped it to volts (auto ranging and auto detection of AC or DC)
Turned the power knob to its lowest setting and pulled the trigger to see if I was getting anything
Indeed my multimeter made some odd noises (like a HF whine)...but that was about it - no voltage shown (had noticed my meter was acting a tad odd last I used it so I wondered if it was just having a moment)
I have emailed CEA to see if they could forward me a user manual or circuit diagram or anything that could be of use/interest...but not heard back from them
Anyway tonight I decided I would just suck it and see if it would strike an arc to see if it is worth me buying some pure argon and consumables to play with - fully prepared to make a mess of the tungsten it came with
I hooked it all up popped some clean scrap steel in the clamp
Popped my auto darkening visor on and pulled the trigger....hmmmmmz
I get very sparking rather than plasma producing arcing - but its more like at the power level you would expect from say a lighting arc on a gas oven/hob or a spark plug
It buzzes away and makes micro lightning- but just no balls - metal melting is a long way from what it was capable of- my autodarkening mask certainly wasn't even getting triggered ...LOL
I made sure the power level pot was wound right up and tried again...no difference - wiggled the pot to different level's and still the same
Now something is very obviously amiss and could do with some pointers
I guess if one of those transformers is gone - its scrap as they look proper expensive to replace
The board looked pretty basic - not a lot to go wrong with it
No visually burned out components - nothing surface mounted either so I'm not that scared to attempt testing stuff
I will try and video it - the sparking could be comfortably viewed with the naked eye..not that I did - as I was in fear the machine would suddenly wake up and decide to blind me if I attempted it
Had arc eye once - never again
Sorry its a long post but I would dearly love to try and get this working and a try at TIG
Regards
Rob
I mentioned to a mate I may like to play with a TIG
Not sure if he missunderstood...but I now seem to own a poorly TIG that does indeed need playing with
It's a CEA Tigtronic 165
Bright yellow box at one time - looks like its had a hard life
I assume its a DC only unit and it only has basic controls (not all of which I understand)
Anyway - the guy that gave it me got told it "needed a new relay" to work from the guy he bought it from
It sat in his garage for a while and he didn't even get as far as putting a mains plug on it - so he couldn't tell me anymore history than this
The power switch was set to 415v (bearing in mind it didn't have a plug fitted when I got it)
I opened it up - yup quite dusty and amazed at the sizes of transformers and lack of much else in there
The mains wiring had been attacked at the switch and it only had seemingly been wired for single phaze (only blue and brown wires connected - the black wire had been snipped off)
Ok so I wired a plug and set the switch to 240v
Plugged it in - no magic smoke...ok switch it on
Get a green light to say its getting power..the fan spins
Grabbed the multimeter and popped it to volts (auto ranging and auto detection of AC or DC)
Turned the power knob to its lowest setting and pulled the trigger to see if I was getting anything
Indeed my multimeter made some odd noises (like a HF whine)...but that was about it - no voltage shown (had noticed my meter was acting a tad odd last I used it so I wondered if it was just having a moment)
I have emailed CEA to see if they could forward me a user manual or circuit diagram or anything that could be of use/interest...but not heard back from them
Anyway tonight I decided I would just suck it and see if it would strike an arc to see if it is worth me buying some pure argon and consumables to play with - fully prepared to make a mess of the tungsten it came with
I hooked it all up popped some clean scrap steel in the clamp
Popped my auto darkening visor on and pulled the trigger....hmmmmmz
I get very sparking rather than plasma producing arcing - but its more like at the power level you would expect from say a lighting arc on a gas oven/hob or a spark plug
It buzzes away and makes micro lightning- but just no balls - metal melting is a long way from what it was capable of- my autodarkening mask certainly wasn't even getting triggered ...LOL
I made sure the power level pot was wound right up and tried again...no difference - wiggled the pot to different level's and still the same
Now something is very obviously amiss and could do with some pointers
I guess if one of those transformers is gone - its scrap as they look proper expensive to replace
The board looked pretty basic - not a lot to go wrong with it
No visually burned out components - nothing surface mounted either so I'm not that scared to attempt testing stuff
I will try and video it - the sparking could be comfortably viewed with the naked eye..not that I did - as I was in fear the machine would suddenly wake up and decide to blind me if I attempted it
Had arc eye once - never again
Sorry its a long post but I would dearly love to try and get this working and a try at TIG
Regards
Rob