Anyway, this welder has never been particularly powerful. It will spot
weld up to about 18GA; any thicker, and you should pack food and water
for the wait...WTF, it's HF after all. Right? Wrong.
It started loosing serious amps, and sparked/smoked from under the
lever. The switch stuck on also. I disassembled it enough to remove the
switch. No big deal. The switch is repairable. Fixed, I thought. Well,
the switch was. Still low current and sparking under the handle.
Round 2.
Found very high resistance in the braided strap connections supplying
current to the moveable jaw. Cleaned both sides of the connection, wire
wheeled the tong ends and brushed the sockets they mount in.
Now it rocks! Welds in 18GA take less than half the time they did when
it was new. Hit the switch, and it's right there.
I drilled out the tongs and tapped 3/8-24 for Miller tips. The OE tips
suck. The Miller package contained a squeeze tube of some white goo. Oh,
something to improve the power flow through the threads, I thought.
Wrong.
It's some sort of anaerobic thread locker. Assholes!
The new Miller tip screwed in 3/4 way and stopped. Dead. It would not
unscrew. I even heated the tong red hot; just snapped the tip off the
threaded end. I drilled it out to a thin threaded barrel and collapsed
it with a small punch. Didn't touch the threads. Damn I'm good
This is a good little spot welder for light stuff if you clean up the
current path and throw some good tips on. Just watch the duty cycle.
JR
Dweller in the cellar

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Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth
If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes
Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive
The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me
No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses
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Dependence is Vulnerability:
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"Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."