Clarke welder - wire feed fixed
02GF74 - 19/4/09 at 07:36 PM
those with good memories will recall that I was having some problems with my Clarke MIG welder.
Namely it was making a good job of welding up the copper tip due to the wire feed being intermittent.
Well I have found the problem and fixed it. :lol: :grin:
Doing some parctise welds, the wire feed stopped to I remove the cover, disengaged the wire feed (io.e. lift the roller up) and press the trigger
about 50 times and wire fed ok!!! So replaced cover, wire feed starts to play up, maybe 1 in 10 times it stops.
WTF?!?!?!?!
Remove cover and it is fine!!
Turns out the monkey that assembeld the welder used 4.7 mm terminal connectors pushed on to 3 mm terminals, which do not fit well, and the
black (0 V ) wire was more or less hanging loose. 
Luckily I had some spare male terminals (maplins sell them) so fitted them.
This cost me loads of lost time as well as at least 5 welded up tips!!!
I mean, how difficult would it have been to fit the correct terminal insterad of the wrong one!?!?!?!?
So if you have a Clarke welder, and your wire feed motor starts playing up, check these connectors. Note my welder is about 20 yrs old so this may
have been solved.
BenB - 19/4/09 at 08:43 PM
Oooooooooooh, interesting. My welder is a bit jittery. Might well be the cause 
Excellent!!!
AdrianH - 19/4/09 at 08:44 PM
The small transformer on my old 90E has gone open circuit, I don't suppose you know the output value do you?
It was a great little welder for panels and exhaust tube.
Anyway most faults are generally simple ones, the skill comes from finding something another person put there to mislead you!
Well done.
Adrian
02GF74 - 20/4/09 at 08:27 AM
quote:
Originally posted by AdrianH
The small transformer on my old 90E has gone open circuit, I don't suppose you know the output value do you?
Pity I didn't see this when I had the lid off.....
Yes, there is a small transformer but I do not know the spec nor what it is used for exactly.
There is a small circuit that from what I could see is for controlling the wire feed motor - the speed depends on the switch setting and the wire
speed knob.
During troubleshooting I put a DVM on the motor - has label showing it to be 24 V but I measured the voltage across it was 34 V at the higher
settings, it may have even got as high as 40 V