Marquette 12-183: Wire won't feed

[Jimal Temus]

Hello,
I'm new to this board and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I have an older Marquette MIG that I use around the house. I've replaced the torch and a couple other small components, and it worked pretty well...until the other day when the wire stopped feeding. I'm still getting the high current power (I can make sparks if I pull the wire out manually). Trying the obvious first I checked the switch in the torch before replacing the circuit board that controls the wire feed speed. No luck.

BEING EXTREMELY CAREFUL, I tested and confirmed that there is no power going to the wire feed motor. I'm not comfortable poking around inside the case on this thing. Can anyone offer a suggestion on something to try before I have to fork out money for a new welder?

Thanks,
Jim

[phila.renewal]

If you are not comfortable poking around (which is wise if you haven't really done it before), find a LWS that does service and I'll bet they can fix it for you at reasonable cost.

Where I am, an outfit called Cunninghams has tech staff, load banks, etc. on site and they can fix just about anything.

[Jimal Temus]

Thanks for the information. I'll get in contact with my local shop the next time I have a spare moment.

Thanks again,
Jim

[Jimal Temus]

Problem solved. Turns out that one of the power switches on the front had a dirty contact. I did all kinds of troubleshooting before stumbling onto the cause. Welder seems to be working fine now, though with all my troubleshooting I now need to readjust everything.

Thanks,
Jim