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mig welder upgrade help

Started by 47sawdust, December 20, 2019, 09:28:31 AM

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scsmith42

I've had two Optrel's, my current one is the Crystal 2.0.  The clarity is incredible - notably better than any other hood that I've tried.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

Tom King

It took a month, or so, for my 255 to get here.

I decided to build a cart for it, both considering the price of the Miller one, and lack of storage.  After looking at the Harbor Freight one, I decided I would like more storage.

I use the little 120v flux core welder to build the cart.  Tool cabinet is from Home Depot.

I bought the best, made in the USA 5" casters I could find.  I was concerned that there may be a trip hazard to the side, with four swivelers, but it's really okay.  The plan was to change the back to a solid axle, if it seemed tippy at all, but it's not.  I'll be the only one using it anyway.  The casters really do operate nicely, both rolling, and locking and unlocking.  It's absolutely easier to park in the shop.

Found some nice brackets that hold the shielding gas tanks without them rattliing around behind chains.

Two metal water hose holders are to allow separate places to coil the gun hose, and ground.  Hoping it should be kinder to the gun hose liner than a narrow strap.

There is even a little holder for the Mig gun, that allows it to fit under the cover.

Nothing sticks out past the sides.  Helmets in the bottom drawer, leather clothes and gloves in the next one up, magnets in the next drawer, etc.  I even have one drawer with nothing in it yet.

I hope to put it to work tomorrow.



 

 


Walnut Beast


Crusarius

that is by far the nicest welding cart I have seen. I love the toolbox idea. usually they are just a catch all shelf with a bunch of hooks and very disorganized.

Walnut Beast

The 255 Miller welds good enough in 1/2 plate

 

mike_belben

millers do just weld nice without much effort. for the money they sure ought to. 
Praise The Lord

Crusarius

out of all the tools in my shop I think I would kick and scream the most if someone tried to take my big blue box away. I love my miller!!!!!

mike_belben

i wanted a 250amp miller back when i was upgrading from a small 220v machine but the money went twice as far in a hobart 230, and the boards and parts are about half the price of a miller.  we had just scrapped a not so old miller dynasty 300 off the robotic barrel lug welding line at work over the extremely expensive parts and i just couldnt pull the trigger. 

happy with the hobart.  it will do what any of you needs unless you are turning out goosenecks and buckets every week. 




Praise The Lord

Walnut Beast

Quote from: Walnut Beast on February 25, 2021, 09:55:23 PM


 Pulse mig on the way
There is something to be said for transformer welders. Not vary happy with this welder! It wasn't welding very good. Lots of trouble with voltage running to high. They said it's probably the good old circuit board that's made in Mexico. It's at a Miller service center now. Really bad customer service!! I experienced it and several sources confirmed over the last year Millers customer service is really really bad. Two phone calls to Miller and left call backs and email and have never heard a word back. Other guys said you must have gotten a lemon because it's supposed to be a really good welder 😂

scsmith42

Quote from: Walnut Beast on July 11, 2021, 03:17:31 AM
Quote from: Walnut Beast on February 25, 2021, 09:55:23 PM


 Pulse mig on the way
There is something to be said for transformer welders. Not vary happy with this welder! It wasn't welding very good. Lots of trouble with voltage running to high. They said it's probably the good old circuit board that's made in Mexico. It's at a Miller service center now. Really bad customer service!! I experienced it and several sources confirmed over the last year Millers customer service is really really bad. Two phone calls to Miller and left call backs and email and have never heard a word back. Other guys said you must have gotten a lemon because it's supposed to be a really good welder 😂
Between 2003 and 2007 I purchased three new pieces of miller equipment. I had to spend over 5K on board repairs and mandatory repair upgrades to 2 of the 3. All of them were left unplugged when not in use so it was not a problem of voltage spikes. My LWS told me that they were seeing all kinds of premature board failures on Miller equipment made in the mid 2000's.

My last major purchase was a Lincoln and I couldn't be happier with it.
I still use the Millers, but they sure left a bad impression.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

Tom King


mike_belben

Wow.  Thats quite a legacy to bring down. 
Praise The Lord

Bruno of NH

Quote from: scsmith42 on July 11, 2021, 07:59:59 AM
Quote from: Walnut Beast on July 11, 2021, 03:17:31 AM
Quote from: Walnut Beast on February 25, 2021, 09:55:23 PM


 Pulse mig on the way
There is something to be said for transformer welders. Not vary happy with this welder! It wasn't welding very good. Lots of trouble with voltage running to high. They said it's probably the good old circuit board that's made in Mexico. It's at a Miller service center now. Really bad customer service!! I experienced it and several sources confirmed over the last year Millers customer service is really really bad. Two phone calls to Miller and left call backs and email and have never heard a word back. Other guys said you must have gotten a lemon because it's supposed to be a really good welder 😂
Between 2003 and 2007 I purchased three new pieces of miller equipment. I had to spend over 5K on board repairs and mandatory repair upgrades to 2 of the 3. All of them were left unplugged when not in use so it was not a problem of voltage spikes. My LWS told me that they were seeing all kinds of premature board failures on Miller equipment made in the mid 2000's.

My last major purchase was a Lincoln and I couldn't be happier with it.
I still use the Millers, but they sure left a bad impression.
I have been told the same thing about the Miller units from a welder friend.
He lost circuit boards as well on high end units
Lt 40 wide with 38hp gas and command controls , F350 4x4 dump and lot of contracting tools

21incher

I bought  a brand  new Hypertherm plasma setup for my cnc table and the mainboard went in less then an hour. Luckily it was under warranty.  No problems since the board was replaced. Any brand can have problems.  My Miller 210 is about 20 years old and has been a trouble free machine.
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

Walnut Beast

Quote from: scsmith42 on July 11, 2021, 07:59:59 AM
Quote from: Walnut Beast on July 11, 2021, 03:17:31 AM
Quote from: Walnut Beast on February 25, 2021, 09:55:23 PM


 Pulse mig on the way
There is something to be said for transformer welders. Not vary happy with this welder! It wasn't welding very good. Lots of trouble with voltage running to high. They said it's probably the good old circuit board that's made in Mexico. It's at a Miller service center now. Really bad customer service!! I experienced it and several sources confirmed over the last year Millers customer service is really really bad. Two phone calls to Miller and left call backs and email and have never heard a word back. Other guys said you must have gotten a lemon because it's supposed to be a really good welder 😂
Between 2003 and 2007 I purchased three new pieces of miller equipment. I had to spend over 5K on board repairs and mandatory repair upgrades to 2 of the 3. All of them were left unplugged when not in use so it was not a problem of voltage spikes. My LWS told me that they were seeing all kinds of premature board failures on Miller equipment made in the mid 2000's.

My last major purchase was a Lincoln and I couldn't be happier with it.
I still use the Millers, but they sure left a bad impression.
I was looking hard at Lincoln and wished I would have went that way 😂!  Miller welder update. The Miller technician at service center said he can't figure out what's wrong with the unit and Miller engineering is supposed to be calling him on it. I said get me another new one! He agreed they need to do that. But here we are still no update. I will never buy another Miller 

mike_belben

Another case of too much tech ruining a good brands reputation. 
Praise The Lord

Old Greenhorn

Quote from: mike_belben on July 16, 2021, 10:49:44 PM
Another case of too much tech ruining a good brands reputation.
Well maybe, but I think if somebody did a true root cause analysis on this issue which I have found to be prevalent across all industries I've had contact with over the past couple of decades, the resultant 'culprit' would surprise you. I'll try not to make this too long:
 Back a few decades ago equipment manufacturers had design departments that were staffed with Journeymen who had worked their way up in the business from the shop floor. They may or may not have had the education credentials to carry the title of "Engineer" but they dang sure knew what worked, what didn't, and why because in building, testing, and troubleshooting the equipment, they learned everything the hard way. If it didn't work, they knew they had to make it good before it went out. Engineering changes and rework are expensive so there was a lot of effort put into 'getting it right' before they built the first unit. Reliability and repeatability were key to getting a good product out that was also 'buildable'. Many of the good 'engineers' I worked with in the early 70's who were nearing retirement had actually started out as drill press operators, assemblers, lathe hands, etc. and over the decades worked their way up. They knew every aspect of the business because they had done it. (My own career plan was to follow in these footsteps, which I did until I hit the wall.) The same situation was true with shop foremen, plant managers, etc.
 In the 90's this took a decided turn and it began with upper management who switched from hiring Mangers from within the business to hiring managers who had the best 'credentials' from good schools. Those folks knew all about the latest stuff, charts, graphs, something called 'spreadsheets', computerization, etc. They could 'talk the talk' really well. Once those folks got in they in turn hired only college educated people for shop managers, engineering managers, etc. Experience and skill no longer mattered much, it was where you got your 'paper' from. Now I am not picking on the folks that work hard to get a good education, however what these folks all lacked was practical experience in making things work. Moreover, many had chips on their shoulders because they "knew" what would work and consequently would not seek or listen to input from experienced folks doing the work for decades. (A huge problem.)
 I lived in this world for 25 years before I finally got out. I would sit in design review meetings and look at concept models and point out things that needed to be modified before we built prototypes. I often got laughed at or asked to leave when I tried to point out the weak spots. The 'engineer' would say "We ran the FEA (computer based Finite Element Analysis) on this and it will work perfectly and safely" and I would tell him I didn't care where he stuck his FEA it would not work over the long term and will fail and somebody might get hurt (not to mention our reputation). In this example I was thrown off that project and kept off a few others as punishment for my 'negative attitude'. A year later it was in full production and shipping to aerospace manufacturers all over the world as designed. Within 6 months of the first deliveries, the phones got hot with calls from complaining customers about explosive failures, threats of lawsuits, etc.. We wound up taking all of them back, scrapping about 500 hundred castings in stock, paying for mold modifications (only about 15 grand), rebuilding tools for free with new cylinders, and generally loosing a LOT of money on a product that was very low margin anyway. Oh, and our reputation took a big hit for a long time. WHY? Because some smart ass could not have an open conversation about his design and use his own brain to think it through.
 So I have seen a lot of 'early adopters' jumping on technology to make things slicker or cheaper, but I also see that the common sense, testing to failure, and putting real world loads on new designs has gone out the window in favor of speed and profitability.
 That particular company BTW has now progressed to the point that they won't even hire a shop floor supervisor without a 4 year degree (ANY degree). These poor kids come in and are working in a manufacturing facility might as well be on Mars it is so foreign to them. Meanwhile a 20 year employee is working away there that could do the job standing on his/her head because they know every nuance of the operation but they don't have the degree.
 I believe our manufacturing problems are systemic, not related to new tech, but rather how that tech is applied. It is cultural. We are not 'training up' a proper workforce, we are focused on how the 'numbers' look and nothing else.
 Just my 2 cents. Sorry, I didn't keep it short, but I tried.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

mike_belben

Oh its a battle of the long winded woods piddlers is it?  Fine, yer on!  ;D



Me, my dad and my brother put in 70 cumulative years at a very reputable firearm manufacturer and youve just described the same scene that slowly turned it into a miserable us/them place to work.  


Hes got 38 years but shes fresh out of toyota lean training, is non white and used to babysit for someone on the board. She becomes team leader then cell coordinator then dept head then shift supervisor then plant supervisor, FUMU'ing the whole way.

It was plant wide.  Hes been in every department in the 50acre building but that one knows solidworks and we REALLY like those solidworks prints.  One by one the people that really made the business work just leave in disgust and it gets worse every year but somehow makes money on paper while quality slides and slides and slides.  The worse a change is for product quality, the bigger the executive board bonuses seem to be for doing it.  In my ten years president went from making $400k to around 6million. Many floor jobs in the plant had pay cuts or were slashed to bring in 3rd world unskilled workers who make just a little below the threshold that would eliminate their public housing, ebt etc.  So a person not on the dole really cant afford to take the job.  The company figured out how to exploit public subsidy. 

Anyways we are getting pretty far from welders.  Im in total agreement with you.  But i have to stand by my statement.  i got an avionics background in the marines.  I was in the radar altimeter, tactical antenna and identify friend or foe [IFF] repair shop, "Intermediate level avionics tech."  Not welders but the same sorta components manipulating the same sorta electrons.  

IMO, the success of an electrical machine is reduced linearly as its complexity increases.  When youve got a bird parked for a priority one and 7 or 8 trained technicians cursing the thing with the specialized test set and publications and meters strewn all over and no one can go home until its fixed (thats how the military works).. And they just cant figure it out even while pop and swapping cards from a known good unit..  Well.   Its officially just too complex in my opinion.  

Or the other end.  Its easy to figure out what went bad.  But that board is proprietary, one supplier has it locked up, its backordered, theres 200 people waiting in line and its $1900 plus labor, no warranty on a $3800 machine.  

Thats where wizz bang welders are today.  Bells and whistles are a liability that increase obsolescence in everything.  Aircraft, autos, equipment etc etc.  If you can build it with a PLC instead of a computer, do it.  If you can use a switch to a relay instead of a PLC, do it. If a heavy amp toggle switch can replace the relay, do it.


Anything that simplifies a circuit and anything that uses generic shelf stock parts rather than proprietary will be economically fixable until the parts run out and they probably never will.

Washers and driers are a great example. Can fix the same dryer from baby diapers to adult diapers if you want!   ;D
Praise The Lord

Old Greenhorn

Geez Mike, I wasn't trying to use up all my words in one shot. :D I just used what I needed to make my point. You brought in a whole lot of other grievances that I too harbor from affirmative action to nepotism. I have been, or seen others shafted by the same issues. But we were talking about mis-application of untested or poorly understood newer technology.
 Yes, I fully agree a LOT of things are over designed these days to give the sales force some new talking points on which to sell product when in reality they are peddling unfixable cheaper junk at higher costs (I am thinking of GM's BIG sales pitch back in the day for 'unibody construction' which I took as a euphemism for 'unrepairable'). Designing for the long haul, high maintainablility, reliable performance seems to be a thing of the past. It always bothered me that my last employer referred to the tools they made and sold for $1,300-1,800 were considered disposable tools (not worth repairing). I can't speak for others, but if I spent $1,500 on a tool, I am not throwing it out and buying another one when the performance drops.
FWIW, I am pretty certain I have been through the plant you referred to back around 2007 or so. Very big place, easy to get lost, nifty technology being used in some areas and 150 year old tech being used in others. I enjoyed the tour, but I could never have worked there. Security made us empty our pockets in boxes before we entered (got it back on the way out) and you could barely bring in a piece of paper, full escort the whole time, and the kicker for me was many employees were locked into fenced working areas and could not get out to take a leak without some kind of special permission. Quality control there seemed to me to be at a very high level. In fact I was there to look at some particular brands of CMM's they were using that we planned on buying.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

mike_belben

If it was in springfield, thats the one. 
Praise The Lord

Old Greenhorn

Yup, massive place with underground tunnels connecting the various dungeons buildings. ;D  I did enjoy the store and range that was open to the public on the other side of the complex. Been there, got the T-shirt, literally.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

mike_belben

Oh were going full derail now.  How many pages is it?   Eh what the heck some guys will love an insider story about the magical place their pistols came from.


For 28 years, One single person maintained every shooting range in both plants alone, among many many other tasks.  Tours show just 2 or 3 but there were a dozen and change total.   18 of those years was my father. Several hires lasted just a few months before they hired me to do it and i did for 10.   My father went back to the machine repair side from facilities and finished out 41 or 42 years total.  

Anyway, quite a few people shot themselves at the public range, one whom i grew up with actually. I worked alone on 3rd shift about 6 years i guess.. and that building would talk to you.  I brought quite a few other employees over for genuine overnight haunted house experiences.  Lots of people wouldnt work there.  The connector tunnel at the main plant was nothing compared to the ww2 half that the public never saw on the other site.

It looked like a mental facility corridor with tiny metal meshed one way glass lining the hall on each side and you felt continual eyes on you because you couldnt see in, the rooms saw out. The glass went into extremely creepy soundproof pistol rooms shooting into a little window sized door in the opposite wall to reduce the heating envelope. It may have originally been an interrogation center because thats exactly what it felt like.  A perfect set to shoot horror film. No props needed.  And to creep itnto the max, someone let a highschool art department paint a 3d city grid mural on one wall of an underground corridor with people and city blocks.  You always thought they were moving around.  A real head game.


Back to the little rooms. Only the shooters end is climate controlled.  Beyond that is natural temp.  Sometimes these steel plates i wrestled were sweating summer moisture, sometimes they were iced.  

Well in that little open shooting window is just black space. You shoot into a black unknowable room behind that..   Beyond the darkness of that black room was a catacomb of sandbanks sort of like in an apocolyptic abandoned parking garage with sand hills walled up between the columns.  When shovelling out sand i always figured id dig hoffa up eventually.

That was the old half of the public site, built by the gov to test 50 cals and such.  1inch deflector plates.  The building was called "The academy."  It was huge and unmanned at night except me if i had to do a repair.  This old builing lived in secret behind that nice new store you saw, behind a false wall.  There was 300yd long pitch black underground rifle ranges at the far end and the shot up car body and manequins for police training were always good for an eery feel behind you.


Some spots had no lights, cobwebs, building banging and clanging at you..  Hear footsteps but no one around.  I worked very close with the guards and they all had stories of zone motion alarms but the camera shows nothing in the hall yet the zones are going off in sequence as if a person walked down it.  Every guard and memaintenance worker had a ghost story.  You swallowed your fear or bid elsewhere..  The elevator went up and down on its own on one guard.  3 stories. All blacked out when you walk in fishing for the light switch. 

 So back to range work.  that wasnt a fun hole to crawl through into the black abyss of your own fear.  I always expected eyes to shine back at me.  

There was a common job i dreaded called throatplates.  These 1x4 ft steel wings would deflect bullets into the slit leading into a decel chamber of one sort or another to a lead conveyor.  Theyd get bowed and id have to pull them down, go back to main plant, press them straighter and get them back up. i had to lay up on this 45* steel plate that i could barely stay on and jam my arm through a steel slit to reach bolts i could only feel.  In a haunted house at 2 or 3am alone, where heavy doors open on their own once in a while. There were times i was just waiting for something to grab that arm from the abyss and rip it off.  Hairs on my neck stood up quite often.

My final years were on weekend 12s.  Fri/sat/sun.  Me, my dad and brother (and obviously many of our long time friends) all had an overlap on Sunday.   We had "sunday dinner" at lunchtime.  It became quite a to-do.  We knew where the cameras were, All the buttheads and nobodies were gone and it was just us good guys, sorta the heart and soul of the plant. Guys who didnt say oh not my problem when a disaster happened just before clock out time.  If the place was on fire this was the crowd that would be secret unsung heroes on monday when the bigwigs are patting the safety butt hole on the back who put some papers in a binder a few years ago and hasnt worked since.  

Anyway i had the company truck and the guards all buttered up. One of has the keys to conference room.  Guys would talk all week about what to have this sunday.  Dole out chores andnshopoing lists, pass around a scrap of work order with your contribution,  crockpot this or that, soda chips whatever. We had huge spreads secretly in a leather chair conference room and the sunday guards only wanted sunday because we always brought out huge plates to them.  Immaculate clean up, everything back in its place and none are the wiser until next sunday.  It woulda got us all canned by the beancounters but it was the only reason half of them stayed that extra year or 3 when they coulda retired.  Comraderie.  The only part i miss of that company.


There.  It took 7 pages but i brought welders back to food!  :D
Praise The Lord

GRANITEstateMP

mike, got any pics of the Sunday food spread???

To not go too far off the rails, I use a nice ol' Miller. It's either a real late 90''s or very early 00's
Hakki Pilke 1x37
Kubota M6040
Load Trail 12ft Dump Trailer
2015 GMC 3500HD SRW
2016 Polaris 450HO
2016 Polaris 570
SureTrac 12ft Dump Trailer

mike_belben

Ya know.. Ive got 16 THOUSAND pics in this phone and none of that sadly.  Dont think theres any in my old one either.  Too bad.  Lotta good times. 
Praise The Lord

Walnut Beast

New Miller 255 update. Finally picked it up. The Miller tech replaced the whole circuit board after a month of calling the engineers at Miller and doing various tests 🙄. The Tech said the Miller engineers wanted the bad circuit board back since they have not seen this problem before. The Tech welded with it for 20 minutes and said all was good. So hopefully it is 😂

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