Electronics > Mechanical & Automation Engineering

TIG welding machine with OK repairability rating?

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coppercone2:
I decided to repost in this thread because the issue with the machine was solved after like a year.

What I am saying to anyone here that might be attempting it and does not feel like searching for tons of threads to get the whole picture is that with this kind of machine you might find this

1) multiple failures around various circuit boards
2) boards that absolutely require replacement or very heavy repairs. I am saying like that the char areas are bad enough where in some places you can mill it out with a dremel and fill with epoxy, possibly replace a trace.. but there might be heavy damage that involves say.. remaking a 1.5x2 inch piece of PCB with lots of traces. That was my biggest hangup, I had a PCB that looked to my experience OK, but something was causing fets to sometimes melt/pop. I suspect it was contamination. I replaced the board because the amount of board area that needed fixing was high. I gave it a few go's replacing parts and... attempting more cleaning/repairs between the attempts, but it was just gobbling up parts.
3) you need to be willing to pay for solvents/cleaners/coatings, that is there might be alot of degraded conformal coating on the PCB. I had to strip and recoat a few PCB.
4) the non spray conformal coating can rework, the spray can will wrinkle the old coatings
5) there is alot of 'iffy' stuff that you should fix like yellowed conformal coating that is a big pain in the ass.. because unless you just ignore degraded components, you will suddenly have ALOT of extra work.
6) tons of cleaning, an old machine will have metal dust everywhere. It needs disassembly, washing and baking.

MadTux:
Stuff from europe:

Old (gen 1/2) EWM and anything with it inside: utter garbage!

Lorch IT G/GW (gen1) inverters: great repairability (lots of available 20-40$ Mosfets), but power rails on DC/AC stage too weak, put big copper bars there, and have fun for long time.
Later Lorch V25/30/40... less simple construction and more integrated DC/AC stage, what makes them less repairable.

ESS/Cloos Insquare: Simple and best HF start, IGBT modules might be difficult to get, if broken.
Sweld (rare Swiss machine) is similar design/construction (half wave DC/AC converter), but without any microcontrollers.

Fronius MW450: Beautiful construction but lots of custom parts and PLDs

GYS stuff: lots of epoxyied PCBs and horrible to repair, from what I've heard so far.

Chinesium TIG: Inside they are all the same, not too difficult to repair, but breaks down all the time.

Overspeed:
Hello

Tig as all other welder shall be stored in a dry place , often they stay in shop cold / not heated and humidity generate catastrophic failure

Regards
OS

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