Spot welders......

[Bob Carriere]

Well Mother's day reduced my barn time but the progress was NIL !!!!!

I sheared a whole bunch of one inch wide strips in 18 guage...14 gauge ... and some 40 thou satin coated......

I cleaned the surfaces and held them tight at 90 degrees with wisegrips....
...also cleaned the tips...... readjusted for exact alignement and flat filed the contact to mate perfectly.....

Blah...... sparks all over and another crater.....

Seems that the top electrode erodes and throws out a perfect circle of sparks... the result is a cratered top weld and a smooth bottom surface where the spot weld is clearly visible but not distorded.

I tried various combination of light gauge together and mixed thickness.... same results....... and I am just cycling the switch on/off for what can't be more then half a second if not shorter.

also to be noted...... I have to twist the sample sheet metal as they are held fast fuzzed to the top and bottom electrode.

when I twist the spot weld to see the penetration the top peice being more cratered shears of on the outside of the button leaving apecfectly round 1/4 hole in the top piece.....tips at 3/16 at the tip......

According to the Miller "tekkie support" in Wisconsin ( he was more like an athletic support)..... his suggestion was to use a longer extension cord to reduce the amperage to the spot welder.....

Pictures..... I was so p****d I never bothered with pictures.....

The local distributor has offered to line up the travelling Miller sales person to lookover my spotwelder and run some demo in the Linde Gas training centre....... awaiting news....

I cannot understand why Miller would sell a spotwelder that needs to have the power cycled so fast that it becomes almost physically impossible to do.

Phil claims that he can literally see/feel the metal welding so I assume that he is holding the switch and counting "one thousand an one...." "one thousand and two..." and getting good results.....

Unless my China made Miller is defective or needs soya sauce....

Bob C.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Bob

What you are describing sounds like something else is going on. Tomorrow I'll video some spot welding and post so that you can see how my unit works maybe from that we can figure whats up with yours. Almost sounds like it is putting out to much power.

If you can get a demo out of the Miller rep using your gun it might be worth the time and effort in tricks of the trade.

HTP has (with my permission) referred prospective equipment purchasers to me to actually see their stuff in operation. Results in a sale for them in the three people who have actually come out. Funny thing is the people always seem to buy equipment one or two notches up from what I have.

Cheers Phil

[cantankrs]

Hi Bob,

Sure doesn't sound right. I'd be testing it at some power source elsewhere just to eliminate that (like across town, or in town - depending where you are), and then get it checked out by a service person unfortunately. I seem to recall about 2-3secs on the switch on our old model.

Regards

Alex