Switch wiring

[boydy1989]

Evening all

Just a quick sanity check (!!)

When measuring the open circuit voltage of my mig, I am expecting it to increase as the power setting goes up, right?

'Cos if this is the case, having just fitted my new switch (thanks Rosepuds!) the old one was wired really wrong...

Ive double checked this too, and it was wired:
Pos 1: 43.2V 5th highest voltage
Pos 2: 50.6V Highest power (6th)
Pos 3: 37V 4th Highest
Pos 4: 33.7V 3rd Highest
Pos 5: 29.9V Lowest (1st) (Has never worked for me, as the switch was knackered...
Pos 6: 31.6V 2nd Highest

 

[mike 109444]

Assuming your switch is a rotary type then yes I would say it's not wired correctly and you should look to rewire as per the readings you have!
To be double sure if you know that you have fitted the wires in the same order they came off then label (relabel ?) with the original number and in brackets what yo believe is the corrected position, That way it could be put back to ori if all else fails
Thus P1 (5th)
P2 (6th)
P3 (4th) .... etc
Make sure you have fitted/refitted any bridges/links on the switch as well.
You may notice that the wires go in sequence except maybe the 5 and 6 That is what I have found from a couple I have seen. It's to do with the internal makeup of the switch assembly
.

 

[boydy1989]

Hi Mike, thanks for the input

I did re-wire it as per my measurements, and seems to make sense now.

Double checked all the bridges and connections, as the connections are all colour coded spades and I took photos of the old one before I took it off.

I've even drawn up lists and circuits to make sure that I'm not doing something dense, but it genuinely seems that it was wired up wrong...!

Knowing the gent who sold it to me (pete23 on here) it's likely that he aquired it the same way, so someone has had a fiddle with it before....

Oh well, its headed to a mate house tomorrow where my gas bottle is to give it a whirl - it may explain why the power settings didn't always do quite what was expected, and why it was always quite hard to weld thin metal up with it...!

I'll let you know...