Greetings all. I am new here. I am a retired guy who does a little metal work now and then. MOSTLY I do woodworking. I make furniture and I fish. In fact I am just finishing my 3rd boat. Its an 18 foot fishing boat with a hard top. But the reason I signed up with this forum is because I am having trouble with my welder. I was working on a mount I am making for ham radio (I do that too) in my pick up. I began welding two parts together and WOW. My Miller tig welder went on FULL BLAST and I was unable to turn it down. Lightening bolts and TOOOOOO much heat. I was able to finish up by using an oxy-acetylene torch I have.
While I was trying to weld with this thing the circuit breaker tripped on me (50 amps). It must have tripped just as I was pulling off of the work because I did not notice it until I tried to turn the machine back on. No fan... so I checked the breaker. My welder is an older Miller Syncrowave 180 SD. I took the covers off and blew the dust out of it. I looked around inside to see if there was anything obvious, but I did not see anything. I thought whatever tripped the breaker would leave something black and burned in there, but no. This welder has a potentiometer which controls the amperage and that is mounted on a PC board. I turned it all the way down but it still ran "full blast". There is one PC board which controls all the functions I suppose. I did not remove that yet. I am afraid it might be a bit expensive. I am wondering if anyone here may have an idea of what could be wrong?
This welder also has stick welding, straight and reverse polarity. That is stuck on full blast also. I live up in the mountains a few miles outside of a very small town and there are no welder dealers anywhere near me for about 100 miles. I will take this into a dealer if I cannot figure this out myself, but I would rather save myself all the expense. Thanks for reading all about my troubles.
While I was trying to weld with this thing the circuit breaker tripped on me (50 amps). It must have tripped just as I was pulling off of the work because I did not notice it until I tried to turn the machine back on. No fan... so I checked the breaker. My welder is an older Miller Syncrowave 180 SD. I took the covers off and blew the dust out of it. I looked around inside to see if there was anything obvious, but I did not see anything. I thought whatever tripped the breaker would leave something black and burned in there, but no. This welder has a potentiometer which controls the amperage and that is mounted on a PC board. I turned it all the way down but it still ran "full blast". There is one PC board which controls all the functions I suppose. I did not remove that yet. I am afraid it might be a bit expensive. I am wondering if anyone here may have an idea of what could be wrong?
This welder also has stick welding, straight and reverse polarity. That is stuck on full blast also. I live up in the mountains a few miles outside of a very small town and there are no welder dealers anywhere near me for about 100 miles. I will take this into a dealer if I cannot figure this out myself, but I would rather save myself all the expense. Thanks for reading all about my troubles.
