Michael Moore
Titanium
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2004
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
I bought my Miller Synchrowave new in June of 2007. It probably has less than 25 hours total time on it in my home shop. It has worked fine until now.
A few days ago I was doing some aluminum welding and the machine started acting up. Sometimes it would work OK, sometimes it would barely start a weak arc and that would blow out as soon as I started to depress the pedal, and now and then as soon as I tried to start an arc it would blow a crater (as though I'd gone full throttle) and the arc would then go out immediately. Yesterday I was going to do some steel with DCN and it wasn't working at all when I tried to start an arc. I didn't try to do anything in DCP or AC.
When I turn the machine on it shows V 209, A 882. On DCP and AC it then goes to V --- and shows the amps it is set at in A. On DCN after 209/882 I get V -5 and A (blank, no display) which then goes to V HLP and A -11.
I've pulled the cover. The spark gaps are fine and I'm not seeing any obvious signs of arcing/blown capacitors/dangling wires. There is what I presume is a conductive grease on the blades in the main polarity switch. The switch hasn't been moved a large number of times.
HLP -11 is "output selector switch is not in correct position". That only shows up on the DCN position. Sometimes when the welder would stop working there'd be a -5 shown which is "rectifier assembly has overheated". This could happen even with the machine having only a few minutes of use from cold.
I can't find in the manual what the transient 5 in the V display might mean when in DCN.
Any ideas on a next step?
I'll admit I'm pretty bummed out. I'd had an old Miller 330 that I replaced with this new Synchrowave when the 330 died in the middle of a project. I'd been hoping that spending the money on a brand new machine would get me trouble-free operation for a very long time considering how infrequently I use it.
thanks,
Michael
A few days ago I was doing some aluminum welding and the machine started acting up. Sometimes it would work OK, sometimes it would barely start a weak arc and that would blow out as soon as I started to depress the pedal, and now and then as soon as I tried to start an arc it would blow a crater (as though I'd gone full throttle) and the arc would then go out immediately. Yesterday I was going to do some steel with DCN and it wasn't working at all when I tried to start an arc. I didn't try to do anything in DCP or AC.
When I turn the machine on it shows V 209, A 882. On DCP and AC it then goes to V --- and shows the amps it is set at in A. On DCN after 209/882 I get V -5 and A (blank, no display) which then goes to V HLP and A -11.
I've pulled the cover. The spark gaps are fine and I'm not seeing any obvious signs of arcing/blown capacitors/dangling wires. There is what I presume is a conductive grease on the blades in the main polarity switch. The switch hasn't been moved a large number of times.
HLP -11 is "output selector switch is not in correct position". That only shows up on the DCN position. Sometimes when the welder would stop working there'd be a -5 shown which is "rectifier assembly has overheated". This could happen even with the machine having only a few minutes of use from cold.
I can't find in the manual what the transient 5 in the V display might mean when in DCN.
Any ideas on a next step?
I'll admit I'm pretty bummed out. I'd had an old Miller 330 that I replaced with this new Synchrowave when the 330 died in the middle of a project. I'd been hoping that spending the money on a brand new machine would get me trouble-free operation for a very long time considering how infrequently I use it.
thanks,
Michael