Welder Maintenance

[adritch]

I have a 10+ year old Sealy MightyMig 100 (I've had it for 10 years and got it off a friend who'd had it for a few).

Is there any routine maintenance that I should be doing on it? The reason I ask is that I spent most of yesterday welding in a new sill and floor repair panels and towards the end my welder kept cutting out. After a few mins it would then work again for another period so I presume that it has some kind of thermal switch and was possibly overheating.

It also seems to go from running good welds to spattering and as far as I can tell I have not differed in my technique between the two.

Any suggestions grately appreciated.

Thanks
Adam.

[rayofleamington]

It also seems to go from running good welds to spattering and as far as I can tell I have not differed in my technique between the two.

there are many reasons for spatter (including minute traces of that disgusting black underseal) but one of the welder problems that can cause it is a damaged plastic liner in the flexi-cable (called a torch liner??). The liner will get grazed everytime you change the wire, and badly damaged if any spatter gets on the cable reel, so will eventually need replacing as it stops the wire feeding smoothly.
You can get new liners from most places (even Halfords).

Also be careful not to pull the welder around using the torch as it will wreck the cable (I ended up needing a new one because of that - not cheap!). The damaged cable will cause intermittent operation.

For the thermal cut out, the more expensive sets have a built in cooling fan (often called turbo migs) and can run long periods without overheating. Mine has a fan so I don't know what is normal and what isn't for the non-fan ones.

[Cam]

there are many reasons for spatter (including minute traces of that disgusting black underseal) but one of the welder problems that can cause it is a damaged plastic liner in the flexi-cable (called a torch liner??).

Yes, I replaced mine with a Teflon liner for smoother operation after a spate of erratic wire feeding. Make sure your gas is set high enough and that is getting out of the nozzle corretly and with sufficient force.

Also 0.6mm wire is really prone to erratic feeding. 0.8mm is much better. Both myself and Ray have found this independantly and now use 0.8mm

For the thermal cut out, the more expensive sets have a built in cooling fan (often called turbo migs) and can run long periods without overheating. Mine has a fan so I don't know what is normal and what isn't for the non-fan ones.

Same problem here. Mine is a turbo set so I don't know what's normal for the non-fan types. Mine has never cut out yet. Not sure what the duty cycle is for your set, but if you are welding constantly for prolonged periods the you will be exceeding it and the set will cut out.

[adritch]

Just bought myself a reel of 0.8mm + tips + a couple of new shrouds so will see next weekend if this helps. Also bought a little book I should probably have bought years ago on welding so I can learn all the theory behind how I should set up my welder rather than just trying pot luck.

Thanks for the advice.
Adam.

[iwant1]

Hello all, we have a slight problem on welding a couple of days ago, the torch of our welder broke. I think that a small piece of weld dripped down into the shroud and burnt the end of the torch badly. when we tried to unthread the shroud, the end broke off. none of the usuals like machine mart have had any in stock. Any ideas where i could purchase one, bearing in mind i live around bristol? Its for a gas sip mig welder. Cheers, Ben.

[rayofleamington]

Any ideas where i could purchase one, bearing in mind i live around bristol?

when mine was playing up I looked in the yellow pages but it took a fair bit of effort to find anyone that did repairs on them - eventually I found a small firm in Birmingham, but on mine the torch and cable only came as one assembly and this was about £70 (without the fitting charge and other work etc..)

[custommartin]

Hello all, we have a slight problem on welding a couple of days ago, the torch of our welder broke. I think that a small piece of weld dripped down into the shroud and burnt the end of the torch badly. when we tried to unthread the shroud, the end broke off. none of the usuals like machine mart have had any in stock. Any ideas where i could purchase one, bearing in mind i live around bristol? Its for a gas sip mig welder. Cheers, Ben.

I think you mean the brass 'swan-neck' that the tip screws into and the shroud screws on???

I broke mine (also a SIP) a couple of months ago and ordered a new one from a place called 'Tools by Post' also known as 'House of Hastings' in Sussex - have a search on-line.
Cost about £15 including p&p (I think )

Good luck

Martin

[les]

If your welder has been unused for some time with the spool of wire in place, it is possible that the exposed coils have some surface rust which could cause splattering, according to the serviceman this was one of the problems with mine when I had it checked.

[Onne]

And fortunately, we don't have to weld all the time, remind me to get a course on welding.....

[Scott]

towards the end my welder kept cutting out. After a few mins it would then work again for another period so I presume that it has some kind of thermal switch and was possibly overheating.

Mine's the same.
Roughly 3/4 - 1 hour of welding on the highest setting & she'll shut down for 10 min or so.

I'm was going to fit a small computer fan inside it one day, but it doesn't get too much of a workout nowadays to make it worthwhile (except last weekend when it made a set of car trailer ramps & protested a couple of times - good excuse for a cuppa ).

[adritch]

Ben,

Try the following two sites, they seem to have a reasonable amount of spares and bits. Don't know if they're good value as I've not had to replace anything on mine, and think it's too old now to be able too.
Adam.

http://www.welduk.com/index.asp
http://www.thewelderswarehouse.com/

[Matt]

If its the swan neck machine mart sell them for clarke welders (slightly different from SIP ones but they do work, the tips seem to have different threads though)

[bigginger]

Any ideas where i could purchase one, bearing in mind i live around bristol? Its for a gas sip mig welder. Cheers, Ben.

Not specially helpful, but me too re. SIP and Bristol. After fruitless searching for torch spares that I could get hold of within a month, I've just given up on my 2nd SIP welder and bought a light industrial ESAB one, which I hope lasts a bit longer - put paid to buying that pick up that Nikki spotted (Boo!) but might mean finally getting one back on the road. I shouldn't say this, 'cos it'll be up for sale as soon as it's repaired, but the SIP ones seem built for very light duty, and the spares availability is appalling. That's the last one I ever buy, certainly.

[Cam]

Yes, that's one of the reasons I went for Clarke. They are fairly cheap and you can get all the parts from Machine Mart - which is only about 2 miles from me!

[Welung666]

Mines a Clarke Pro 90, also from machine mart! Great for the price to was only 120 quid... Bargain

[bigginger]

...well, after an afternoon using the ESAB (which was (gulp) about £500) I can only say that the difference in quality is staggering. I'm starting to think I might be able to weld one day - it's such a joy to be able to carry a weld run until you want it to stop, not having to stop when the wire feed decides it fancies a rest...

[Chris Morley]

I think the equipment we use should take most of the blame. I did some excellent quality welding (he says modestly ) when I attended a 10 week Brooklands college course, but the best results I get from my gasless MIG are agricultural to say the least - even when I try to weld the right way up!

[bigginger]

Hang on - my equipment seems OK now - what am I going to blame? Oh yeah, just remembered, I'll carry on telling people I'm a rotten welder!