Morning/Afternoon/Evening all....
Been a while since I visited here; I think my last post was asking about decent MIG welders... Well, I ended up with a Murex Tradesmig 230 - which is fantastic, and not the subject of this thread....
Problem with the Murex is it's a bit beefy, and turning it low enough to do thin car body panels can be a challenge. So at some point in the last 10 years, I also acquired (cheaply, fortunately) a SIP Migmate "Turbo" 150 (or maybe 130, I forget which). Turbo, because obviously that's better than not turbo... I am so adding a GTi badge if I get the thing working satisfactorily
Naturally, being an older SIP, the wire feed is atrocious - ranging from faster than a speeding bullet (no arc, max power, flat out wire speed, 48v on the wire feed motor, brushes sparking like crazy) down to stationary (pretty much any low speed, when the arc strikes - 0v registering on feed), which results in welds that wouldn't fool a blind man from outer space. I doubt it was that bad when new, but trying to fix it to "as new" seems pointless. May as well make it better....
So; £10 PWM controller of fleabay, I thinks, and a separate DC PSU, maybe fixed to 24v as that should give a decent top speed without going nuts (I'll use the Murex for anything heavy that needs welding). But then I go an read a few posts & come across some terms.... burn-back and slow start in particular. But, do I need to worry about these things? I will be putting a snubber on - either a relay (cheap), or solid state (also cheap, but a bit more complex) to instantly stop the motor when the torch is released; will the resulting sudden halt cause problems with the wire freezing in the puddle, or does the welder compensate for this by running the arc for a few milliseconds longer than you've got the trigger down? Slow start sounds fantastic (especially if the earth's a bit iffy), both for not wasting wire & also for not getting cold starts; but how much of a problem is it likely to be? Enough to think about fixing it?
Also, if there's any "comprehensive" threads regarding a PWM fix that actually works, then please do point me in that direction - I only looked at the first couple of pages of subjects, and they nearly all seem to be wire feed issues!
Cheers,
Ade.
Been a while since I visited here; I think my last post was asking about decent MIG welders... Well, I ended up with a Murex Tradesmig 230 - which is fantastic, and not the subject of this thread....
Problem with the Murex is it's a bit beefy, and turning it low enough to do thin car body panels can be a challenge. So at some point in the last 10 years, I also acquired (cheaply, fortunately) a SIP Migmate "Turbo" 150 (or maybe 130, I forget which). Turbo, because obviously that's better than not turbo... I am so adding a GTi badge if I get the thing working satisfactorily
Naturally, being an older SIP, the wire feed is atrocious - ranging from faster than a speeding bullet (no arc, max power, flat out wire speed, 48v on the wire feed motor, brushes sparking like crazy) down to stationary (pretty much any low speed, when the arc strikes - 0v registering on feed), which results in welds that wouldn't fool a blind man from outer space. I doubt it was that bad when new, but trying to fix it to "as new" seems pointless. May as well make it better....
So; £10 PWM controller of fleabay, I thinks, and a separate DC PSU, maybe fixed to 24v as that should give a decent top speed without going nuts (I'll use the Murex for anything heavy that needs welding). But then I go an read a few posts & come across some terms.... burn-back and slow start in particular. But, do I need to worry about these things? I will be putting a snubber on - either a relay (cheap), or solid state (also cheap, but a bit more complex) to instantly stop the motor when the torch is released; will the resulting sudden halt cause problems with the wire freezing in the puddle, or does the welder compensate for this by running the arc for a few milliseconds longer than you've got the trigger down? Slow start sounds fantastic (especially if the earth's a bit iffy), both for not wasting wire & also for not getting cold starts; but how much of a problem is it likely to be? Enough to think about fixing it?
Also, if there's any "comprehensive" threads regarding a PWM fix that actually works, then please do point me in that direction - I only looked at the first couple of pages of subjects, and they nearly all seem to be wire feed issues!
Cheers,
Ade.