Soooo is the lincoln up for sale?
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

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Originally posted by Glen:
Con:

- Certainly not on the same level of construction as the lincoln, but not that bad.

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quote:

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- The current readout only seems to work when welding, which is completely useless. But my lincoln and many other machines dont have the digital readout either so im not too fussed on that one.

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quote:

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- The plasma regulator and air lines are just beyond useless, factor in having to replace all that.

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- The welding clamp sucks and the cord is pretty short. Will be replacing those.

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Verdict so far, Great welder for the price! Will report back with some vids and pics once i have time to really get stuck into it

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I meant, on higher end machines when you set the current with the knob, it'll read out what you set it as without having to be actually welding. AKA you dont have to look at it while welding to get the current value.

BUT it turns out when you hit the button it flashes up, so thats good!

Jaemus - Haha yeah its for sale for the right price, but honestly, you might as well just buy an ebay $200 lift tig, cause i couldnt sell it for any cheaper than the ebay ones are new, and they work just as well more than likely.
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

'Kay so had some time today to set it up and bust out a few welds.

The air fitting is 8mm which is apparently, super uncommon. Had to grab the regulator fitting from the welding shop ($3) and the hose is just some PVC from bunnings

The set current does indeed show up on the meter when you hit the button, so thats good. And the current is set with a seperate knob on the footpedal which is pretty much ungraduated, but whatevs. All is well there.

The only AC setting is balance, it hasn't got square wave settings or wave form control, but it might have frequency... theres a frequency setting for the pulsed mode which goes up to a 200hz, so maybe that can be used on AC mode. still have to check that out.

Welds very nicely on AC and DC modes as expected so happy with that. Boy does this thing spew out some interference though. It causes my radio to have all its channels wiped even on DC mode

I also think my machine needs the spark gap checked. It seems to have a hard time getting an arc going, though that may be my filthy scraps of metal i tested it on lol, none the less, i wouldnt mind cracking it open and having a look inside

The clamp, 240v power cord and torch cable are really blardy horrible and hillariously short too so those are next on my list of things to buy. Also got to have a look and see if i can replace the 8mm gas inlet fitting with a nitto quick change fitting so i can swap the argon and compressed air over super quick.

Rating so far: The accessories are pretty rubbish, but the core machine is excellent for the money. another $300 on top of it to change the cables/torch bits for good gear and you should have a great machine.
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

Hopefully you will all forgive me for the triple post but this ones worth it surely.

After the laser and a plethora of other chinese machinery one would think i'd not be surprised by dodgy builds and so forth.

I was wrong

This thing is built like shit haha. Seriously. But it works so i can't hack on it too badly. I will fix it all up before using it again.

Before then, enjoy the engineering might of mainland China.

Lots of PCBs. I wonder if they just took all the boards from the other welders of lesser features and slapped them into this one machine. The likeliness of that is over 9000.





Here's the gas solenoid. I was hoping the 8mm fitting could be removed and changed to a nitto. Its actually part of the solenoid hanging out the back. Bummer. Take note of the fan wires being crushed behind the solenoid which is as a result, bulging out the rear panel. Thats kwality with a capital K people.



The spark gap. Is there a word for alignment in chinese? Unlikely.

Will have to find the correct gap value and use a feeler gauge to realign/reset the distance. That should fix the HF start.



uhh..



UHHHHHH



This is my favourite. See the two bolt holes? THEY BE HOT GLUE HOLES NOW.



Speaking of hot glue. The manufacturers apparently love hot glue. So much hot glue. All the hot glue. ALL. OF. IT. It was literally impossible to capture the magnitude of it all in one single picture.




How do you even do that?

[/b]

I think these are the actual boards that carry the welding current. They seem to be made rather well. But have a look at all that flux/solder paste




This is the relay that swaps between the stick, tig and plasma cutter it seems. Least they put it in a nice little box.



Two transformers. The machine is advertised as an inverter. Do inverter welders even have transformers? Nice cable routing of the 240v wire. Slicing nicely across the laminations.



On the subject of routing. I don't even.




^ I love how they went to the trouble of putting the insulation over the 5v wires and forgot on the 240v ones. Good job guys. p.s. more hot glue.

this board wasn't bolted down at all.



And the worst offender is this board. It's so scarily twisted up i can't even begin to describe. The photos absolutely don't do it justice (can't get a good one of it).

The big braided wires haven't been shaped proper and its twisted the PCB a giant amount. How it hasn't broken.. i have no idea.

Reference it to the squares in the panel up the back.



This is the least bent side of it



The power wires twisting it up. Mother of god lol. Just so bad. Hopefully it doesnt snap in half when i reshape the power wires.

So yeah there you have it. Plan is to replace the main 240v power cord and reroute everything, remove the extreme amounts of hot glue and re shape / relevel everything so its not being twisted into a giant weldy pretzel. Should be just super then!

Enjoy (Or not, whatevers)
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

I'm not sure if I should explode into laughter or cry a river because I want one of these welders

So... Glengineering are going to offer a rebuild kit for these?!
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Hahaha honestly if you just leave it in in your garage and dont move it, will probably never be a problem. Like i said it works as well as any welder i've ever used.

I'm just pedantic with fixing stuff D:
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

My.... my eyes.
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

um
wow
just... wow

itsahhummhowtheywhaaaidonteven

like, how much hot glue do you put in something before you just stop and go, maybe it'd be easier to actually dip the whole machine in a tank of it?

And routing wires? that just gets in the way of capitalism, man! why route wires properly when you can make 400 more welders in the time it takes to do one properly?
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

They will still have transformers, the difference is they should run at much higher frequency than mains and hence be much smaller.
*in theory*
The laminations look pretty thick for that though.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Once again the Chinese manage to prove there is *nothing* that they cant make a lot crappier and little cheapy-er.

I sa(l)vaged an (suspected chinese) IEC plug cord the other day for a 3 pin plug for a fluro batten. Got plenty of them around since they come with every elcheapo computer or computer power supply you buy.

Dug it out of the cables box, Cut the end off, thought, hmm, this 3 core flex is pretty darn lightweight gauge (about 20 gauge at a guess under all the plastic), oh well, its only driving a 28 watt fluro, Id hate to think what would happen if you actually used it to power a 1000watt Kambrook Kettle or something.

So, strip the conducters, twist the super thin "copper" for tinning, and.. "twing" it immediately untwists again as soon as I let go of it. "Huh ?". Twist, Twist, release, Sproing, untwisted... "WTF?".. Poke at the wires and bend them.. sproing, and they are straight again with not even a kink.

What *is* this stuff ? Its like braided horsehair, but it will *not* bend. Bend it 180, squeeze and release and twing, its dead straight again. It sure as hell isnt copper, Is this stuff even metal ? I half expected it to be some sort of Litz Wire or something, but it actually tinned ok once I left the stripped insulation on to hold the strands in twisted form (which Litz wire doesnt).

I wouldnt want to put any serious amps through it, its like metal coated fibreglass strands or something. Has anyone seen it and know what it is ?

It is actually powering the fluro, so it does conduct, but I was just shaking my head all day.. I mean I know copper is expensive and all and they probably pump these leads out by the gazillions, but cmon, some things you just dont mess around with. Its probably made of Oak Tree resin with copper powder coating or some bizzare advanced copper substitute that saves then 20c per lead or something..

Anyway, good job on the welder inside secret details, Not surprised on the build quality.. I too was thinking about buying one of them, or maybe this model - the taller narrower box with the angled control panel at the top edge - they claim its a "brand name" (that others are trying to sell chinese copies of !) . yeah right, they *all claim that about each other. Be interested to see a tear down on one of these..



http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BRAND-NAME-MITECH-200AMP-AC-DC-TIG-PULSE-INVERTER-WELDER-ACDC-ALUMINIUM-TIG-/330928116255?pt=AU_Welding&hash=item4d0cda521f

Id be surprised if it wasnt much the same though,

Still, if it works, I suppose its not too bad.. as long as you can find the seller in 9 months time if it fries under warranty that is,..

Those guys just never cease to amaze me.. have they no pride or are they just employing people who really have no idea what all these wires and bits do and are assembling them after 5 minutes of looking at a coloring book guide or something ?
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

Lol, magic wire. As a sparky I have to agree, there are some things you just don't mess with!
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

I've had a look inside the 160P dc tig at work and it looks pretty similar. At a guess they just grab the neccesary generic boards and slap them into a case.

But yeah, got some real cabling and the like on the way to improve this welder. It's still having trouble getting an arc started so that spark gap needs looking at.

Had my first go at Aluminium welding. Machine seems to do the job just fine. The balance control works as expected and the arc is nice and stable. The foot pedal is so very neccesary Didn't clean this age old aluminium up except with a going over with an old wirebrush thats been used on the.. everythings lol.



No doubt ill get my $900 out of the thing like all the other bodgy tooling over the years heh. Next step up would probably be an everlast. Also chinese made i believe but the welders on youtube speak highly of them. Not too pricey either.

http://www.everlastwelds.com.au/welders/?pid=PowerTig_200DX-348-pd.html
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

Okay now the problems set in heh. Took the HF board out to adjust the spark gap properly as the start wont work well at all on AC (dc is great though). No dice. Still does this whacky thing -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su7VucGwjeA&feature=youtu.be

Any ideas? Theres no blown out caps anywhere or any such like that. Apparently the HF start board is driven off the output of the inverter. So maybe some kind of diode/cap issue?

None the less im gunna swap it this week. And if there's no dice there i'll pony up the extra $500 to go buy the everlast. Such a piece of crap this thing lol
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www.demon50s.com - Minimoto parts
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyzerGlen - Videoooozzz

It's like theres a cap that's not big enough or something, or some circuit that cant charge one fast enough

no real idea tho
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls