Lincoln V205T welder

I have been offered a Lincoln V205T welder that trips the breaker when it gets plugged in. I am thinking this could be a serious short in the power switch or somewhere before the boards but really have no clue being that I am electrically challenged. It's not free and I am willing to take a bit of a chance here and would most likely be sending the unit to a professional for repair so that cost would be considered as well. I have never won the powerball either. What do you folks think?

I know next to nothing of Lincoln welders and even less of this particular machine, other than that it’s an inverter machine and painted red on the outside. That being said, obviously the machine doesn’t function in the way it’s supposed to. And for whatever reason the current owner isn’t interested in making it function the way it’s supposed to. Maybe they’ve already replaced this machine and just want to cut their losses or maybe they have more specific information that leads them to believe that the repair is not cost effective. My experience with inverter welders has generally been the latter. They just aren’t cost effective to repair and are ultimately ticking timebombs. They’re getting better with each revision, but the reality is inverters rely on lots of electronic wizardry to work and it seems to have the tendency to either all go at once or to all be on a potted board and not repairable at a component level. Machine doesn’t work, scrap and replace the board at a cost around 3/4 replacement of the entire machine. Sometimes it’s even worse. I had a Miller XMT 350 VS... turned the machine on one day to a error code. Left the machine on while researching the code. PC board malfunction. Took the board to the local welding repair where they quoted me $2200 to repair a welder I bought for $2k WITH feeder, MIG torch, 300’ of camlock-equipped leads and more. They offered me the repair or purchase of a Miller XMT 304 for $1100. The welding repair shop gave me this rationale for the expense of repairing the 350 VS: the board was bad and had to be replaced as a unit. Additionally, in that generation of Miller welders shorting the board would ultimately overload the capacitors. Prolonged overloading of the caps would cause them to explode, spraying the inside of the machines case with whatever goop capacitors are filled with. So while the board was only $1250 or so, with another $250 or so in labor to replace, the remainder was to clean the machine of the capacitor juice that had gotten into everything. I’m guessing said juice had dielectric properties that wouldn’t play nice with a freshly repaired and serviced machine. The outlook of the welding repair shop was that the repaired XMT 350 VS would be effectively a brand new machine, a reset as it were, but that they would see it again to perform the same repairs before it was all said and done. The term “ticking time bomb” was one I picked up from them, I’m simply not that clever. The XMT 304 I went with would have the same problems eventually, but I could kick that can down the road if I chose to. I did. It’s been three years in service without issue. I do expect to replace the PC board in it at some point. The lesson I learned was that if an inverter machine doesn’t work immediately, TURN IT OFF IMMEDIATELY!!! Save the hassle of blown caps. And price of the same.

To your machine specifically, I would run. The repair shop could prove the XMT 304 turned on and operated as advertised. It was worth the money they were asking. Your seller cannot or will not do the same. Maybe it’s a simple fix, maybe it’s a really big, awkward paperweight. Seems to me any amount of money is too much for a paperweight when I dig up rocks in my backyard every time I mow.


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As mentioned above, I would run. The typical cost for just a board alone in an inverter machine would start at $500 and could go much more. Given the fact that you have no idea what is wrong with it, the machine really has no value.

A dead inverter machine is nothing more than a mystery waiting to tap your wallet. You need to get it free or take a pass.

Thanks for that information. Helps to make a decision.