Older Lincoln welder at work having issues

   / Older Lincoln welder at work having issues #1  
R

rangerfredbob

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It's a big old Lincoln (idealarc? guessing '80's vintage) arc welder, don't remember the model off the top of my head but it's a big 3 phase unit with two voltage ranges, fine voltage control and some arc stability settings and a switch to reverse polarity... it's set up with a separate wire feed box on top... I can get a model on Monday but I know it's common so you guys probably know anyway...

Anywho, it's gotten moody and doesn't work consistently like this morning, very frustrating... would weld fine then it wouldn't penetrate the exhaust tubing I was welding on, pop, spit, sputter, get annoying... would usually get better if you let off and go back, eventually I just turned the wire speed down to give it some time to build heat which worked, then it started vaporizing the wire so I turned the speed back up, then burned through so I dropped the voltage a bit and it welded perfectly fine the rest of the day... when it was acting up I pulled up a piece of scrap and pulled the trigger to watch the volt meter and amp meter and they were wagging like a happy dog's tail...

Ok, rambling aside I'm assuming it's a dirty/loose contact somewhere on the power inlet side (the two outputs on the front are clean/tight) but haven't drug it out to look, in the 16 years I've been there it's had very little attention...

So, anything scary about pulling it apart? I'm assuming there's no giant capacitors or anything? Unplug it and go to town cleaning and tightening?
 
   / Older Lincoln welder at work having issues #2  
 
   / Older Lincoln welder at work having issues #3  
They all have capacitors, just keep your digits away or short them with a screwdriver. I'd say it needs the cabinet removed and blown out and the switches need some contact cleaner applied to them.

I remove the cabinets on all my welders regularly and blow them out and I keep them all covered when not in use.
 
   / Older Lincoln welder at work having issues #4  
Newer welders all come with 'fan on demand' Sadly, none of mine have that but I'm going to add a temperature activated switch on the main power supply inverter-transformer to 'update' mine. That way, they won't be ingesting dirt all the time. My TIG welder especially has 2 large fans that when they run constantly, are annoying.
 
   / Older Lincoln welder at work having issues #5  
5030 said:
Newer welders all come with 'fan on demand' Sadly, none of mine have that but I'm going to add a temperature activated switch on the main power supply inverter-transformer to 'update' mine. That way, they won't be ingesting dirt all the time. My TIG welder especially has 2 large fans that when they run constantly, are annoying.
Click to expand...
I had a service tech friend add a thermostat to one of my Migs back in the 90's to create fan on demand. The part was pretty inexpensive so he installed the thermostat and another one right with it in case the 1st one failed. Still working fan on demand to this day.
 
   / Older Lincoln welder at work having issues #6  
When it acts up, is there a loud buzzing sound coming from inside the machine? I've had three phase contactors act up due to contamination and do the floating buzz that doesn't allow full current, which as you'd expect, makes some pretty bad welds.
 
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