i have a 180amp ,bought 2nd hand ,works ok for me ,no fancy stitch or spot timers,drive is lightwieght compared to say portamig and some of the others but works (fit for purpose)..at the right price could be a good buy ,try before you buy
there ok, a mate of mine has one, ive had ago and seem like a nice welder. which one you got? puts some pics up. cant remember the model name the one i used, it had euro torch with it though.
Here photos of my first mig , Thermal Arc GM180 recently purchased , was advertised as working but it was obvious from the original add it wasnt working as there were no knobs on the front and the earth clamp not even connected but for £60 I wasnt expecting much but how do people have the cheek , should have been described as 'spares or repair' . The first surprise was that it was made approx 1997 ( date shown on the pcb ) , was expecting to find it was a 1980s model which I would have been happier to find as the electronics would have been easier to follow and fix . Although it says Thermadyne USA on the name plate I believe this was made by Cigweld in Australia ( an associate company of Thermadyne ) . Fortunately all the missing bits were found inside the case including the contactor dangling down on its wires . So far after putting the bits back in place and switching on it seems to work , even the fan motor with its broken fan and burnt motor windings , the wire feed works well and the speed controller is ok . I cant fully test it yet as I think the dog has taken the torch which I left on the floor but now cant be found , probably in the garden somewhere .
I suspect this was a budget model , its not a high spec machine with its plastic wire feed / aluminium wound choke and a total of 19 button diodes in the main rectifier which I really dont like but its lasted 13 years and dosnt look like any have been replaced so maybe I should not complain . My main worry is the pcb which seems to be fully functioning but its surface mount components are difficult to replace and there is one unidentified integrated circuit on the pcb which although its probably not likely to fail if it does then the welder is effectively scrap or for spares so I need some help if anyone can post a circuit diagram for the pcb or knows what the ic types are and what they do . Hope to have it up and running within the next week and then see if I can learn mig welding any better than my arc welding which is hopeless .
The choke shown on the last photo is from a 450 amp TIG machine and it shows just how small the aluminium wound choke is in the Thermal Arc machine although it is helped by a large single capacitor .