alu sailboat buliding

[Dmaxer]

Ze,

You may have already seen this, but here is a link to what is described as a free download of the technical manual for your sick ESAB welder. http://elektrotanya.com/esab_luc_400.../download.html . Good luck!

[zeyang]

Thanks Scott.
I gave up that ESAB LUC 400 machine. Checked everything according to the technical manual i found on www.welding.co.uk. Good technical manuals but my shallow knowledge in checking components on the mainboard stopped me for doing more. I wish i took electronic class in school instead of german. :-)

but one good news. I got hold of 2 more esab machines during weekend. One Esab LUC 500 and once LUA 400. Its been used as welding machines in a school.

He said he didnt know if they were working so i got them cheap, but they did sort of. The feeder (esab A10-MED44) only run in reverse! But i had one from the broken machine (A10-MEH44) which runs ok. First time i have 2 roller feeder. Maybe i solved my problem of feeding aluminium once and for all.

The LUA400 has a A10 MED 30 feeder (single roller) With a PAD3 puls arc device (remote)
It seems to work ok. Only done 5 minutes test to check sofar.

The LUC500 is a mig/tig machine with orignally A10 MED44 feeder which is broken. I had a MEH 44 from the old broken machine and that seems to work ok. Tig doesent seems to work but i have the my lincoln TIG machine i really like so its not a big deal.

After 5 minutes welding i kind of like the LUC500 better. The remote box has quite a few adjustment possibilites for AlMg. Its a little strange to weld MIG again when im been TIG welding for quite some time.

Then some pictures.

a: The machine on left is the LUC 500. This is big brother of the LUC 400 i didnt manage to run. Its more or less same inside but this has a tig on front (which doesent seem to work on this machine) The lua 400 (on left) is connected to A10 MED30 one roller feeder. with a pulsed arc PAD 3 device. Seems to work ok.

b. 2 roller feeder (MEH 44) from the old esab machine. Seems to work ok.

c. MED 44. Only run in reverse. the yardfeeder 20 is also dead. Cant regulate speed.

Both machine is from late 90'ties so probably 15 years old.

All in all. Im back in business again.

ze

[zeyang]

ive been playing with the powerwave 450 again. and same problem.. it works a little bit sometimes then stoppes or just start to give way too much or to little power.

it is pottiy. it was a good machine.
ive been looking around to find some repair manual but with no luck. Anyone have ideas where to find?

ze

[zeyang]

It seems im into running a welding graveyard with 5 industrial machines more or less not working properly.

and here is another one up for sale which should work according to seller.

Its a lincoln cv 400. with LN 27 wirefeeder. its not pulse but thats not critical. I really liked those LN wirefeeders. Its lightweight and can carry 7kg of alloy spool.

Anyone know about this machine? is it in same league as PW 450 and or is this a better construction?

I really wonder about professional welding places. Do they have to hire a welding repair guy for every 10 machines they have Is the quality of lincoln and esab bad or is it just me who is unlucky running into second hand machines with known problems?
I have no experience with other brand but i was wonder about going for kemppi or milller next time? (miller is hard to find over here though)

ze

[zeyang]

Newsletter April 2012. .

Dear Sea Gypsies,

Still some time until we are ready to put the seeds into the soil. Its
more or less -5 degrees C during night last weeks but daytime is above
zero.

The days have been spent welding and welding and when we havent done
welding we have spent time troubleshoot welding machines. They have a
tendency to break down unfortunately. So we bought 2 more big
machines. We also got hold of another ton of lead. There seems to be
no end to how much lead we need for ballast.

Ahh yes. We got more chickens on the farm. one of our hens found out
we need some easter chickens this year and she missed by 2 days. Not
bad. The small one is a little shy so its hard to take a picture
without getting attacked by the angry mother.

Today it will be traditional easter-dinner here on the farm with
people from near and far. Wish you all fair winds and following seas
and hope you all have a peacful easter.

picture from last weeks.

a: our chickens are enjoying longer and warmer days.
b: two more welding machines arrived on the farm.. It seems we cant
get enough welding machines.
c: Our easter chicken arrived 2 days before easter.

[zeyang]

hi,
any electro guys here?

Ive spent days trying to figure out why 2 of my welders doesent work (that is) all seems to be unstable. sometimes they weld ok. then they stop (no spark, no feeder) but still runs.

i wonder if the electrical system (3 phase) 230 volt. doesent give enough power.
could it be one of the phase who is not giving enough power for welding but enough for starting the machine?

how can i check this?

all my welders drives me crazy.

one example. yesterday i was welding for hours without problems, today machine starts but its not feeding wire. Of course it could be machines but all bigger machine have problems. the smaller ones works ok. (powertech 250, tig 250)

unfortunately i dont have another place to test them with 3 phase.


ze

[Joshfromsaltlake]

Originally Posted by zeyang

I really wonder about professional welding places. Do they have to hire a welding repair guy for every 10 machines they have Is the quality of lincoln and esab bad or is it just me who is unlucky running into second hand machines with known problems?
I have no experience with other brand but i was wonder about going for kemppi or milller next time? (miller is hard to find over here though)

Hi, Ze.

I'm not an electrician and only limited experience repairing my own miller machines. But intermittent shorts are the worst. It's like used cars there is a bit of gambling involved. I'm guessing that all your used welders have considerable hours on them. Also the heavy climate there, doesn't do them any favors, with the cold and the humidity causing condensation. I though I'd just add my two cents.

Josh, Salt lake, UT, USA.

[zeyang]

Originally Posted by Joshfromsaltlake

Hi, Ze.

I'm not an electrician and only limited experience repairing my own miller machines. But intermittent shorts are the worst. It's like used cars there is a bit of gambling involved. I'm guessing that all your used welders have considerable hours on them. Also the heavy climate there, doesn't do them any favors, with the cold and the humidity causing condensation. I though I'd just add my two cents.

Josh, Salt lake, UT, USA.

thanks. this drives me nuts.
My power-company is coming over today to check for volt drop in the grid.

The problem is: sometimes they weld ok, then they suddenly stop or give too much power or too little power.
Yes. its second hand machines and probably have thousand of welding hours.

But electronic is electronic. It should be a way to locate why its not working probably.

There is a company selling 3 big lincoln machine (also used) , but im running out of storage space soon :-)

ze

[zeyang]

Ok. the powergrid guy was here today and checked the power. (and also left a logger)
He is 99% sure its not the grids fault.
He will do checking next week to see potentional power drops.

That means more or less that 5 machines is dead
Lincoln PW 450
esab LAR 500
esab LUC 400
esab LUC 500
esab LUA 400

Thats pretty impressive list of dead machines. :-)


Out to buy more machines..



ze

[chimmike]

Is the voltage supply/wavelength supplied the same as useable by the welders?

[zeyang]

Im getting both more and less confused.
I moved the control box from LUC 500 over to the LUC 400 and now that one is working sort of.

I was thinking. Is the feeders who is fooling me??? Or better, is the control box, (wirefeed/power) together with a feeder makes the system confused?


ze

[roadkillbobb]

Originally Posted by zeyang

ive been playing with the powerwave 450 again. and same problem.. it works a little bit sometimes then stoppes or just start to give way too much or to little power.

it is pottiy. it was a good machine.
ive been looking around to find some repair manual but with no luck. Anyone have ideas where to find?

ze

Hi, usually with electonics, if a componant is burnt out it wont work at all, so an intermittent problem usually means a loose or un soldered conection, try opening up the machine and dust it off and check all the circit boards for any cracks or loose solder joints, sometimes just poking around with your hand and fingers moves the part back into position or scrapes any corosion that could be in a connection..http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us...r-manuals.aspx try this link to start a search for manuals

[zeyang]

Originally Posted by roadkillbobb

Hi, usually with electonics, if a componant is burnt out it wont work at all, so an intermittent problem usually means a loose or un soldered conection, try opening up the machine and dust it off and check all the circit boards for any cracks or loose solder joints, sometimes just poking around with your hand and fingers moves the part back into position or scrapes any corosion that could be in a connection..http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us...r-manuals.aspx try this link to start a search for manuals

Thanks. I got that one. But its only usermanual. Im looking more for a technical manual. ESAB have this online. They have a step by step fault-check with multimeter, oscilloscope.
Pretty useful if you are an electrician.

Anyway. Im pretty sure it could be the feeder together with control box who is fooling me at least for 3 of the machines.
I will check that lincoln for solder connection. Would go a long way to get that running again. Its a good machine.
The last one could be just plain half dead. And its also older than the others. (it worked a little)

anyway. im not giving up these machines yet.


another thing is: i think its time to get some welding certification. Its 2 systems out on the market now. The CWT and the ISO 9606-2. Which one is more useful? is it region based?
Do you have ISO 9606-2 in US at all?


ze

[Dualie]

we have it but it is very little used. I would say 99% of all welding certs in America are done to AWS criteria

[SabreKai]

I'm no electronic genius either as far as welding machines go but I would also check the boards and see if any of the electrolytic capacitors show signs of leaking. They get old and the seals go eventually. Look for an ooze around the base of the can where it sits on the board.

I'm 10 days and a wake up from launch. I did the fitting work myself but ended up hiring a welder to do the work for the engine mount and the underwater fittings. I'm getting too close to launch and haven't had a chance to use my mig machine in over 2 years, so a professional seemed like the brighter idea. Keep the water out eh? He did a very nice job, tomorrow I'll start sanding the rust spots and epoxy priming them. If you get bored some day have a look at my building blog. www.sabredancing.com.

[BradTN]

Originally Posted by zeyang

hi,
any electro guys here?

Ive spent days trying to figure out why 2 of my welders doesent work (that is) all seems to be unstable. sometimes they weld ok. then they stop (no spark, no feeder) but still runs.

i wonder if the electrical system (3 phase) 230 volt. doesent give enough power.
could it be one of the phase who is not giving enough power for welding but enough for starting the machine?

how can i check this?

one example. yesterday i was welding for hours without problems, today machine starts but its not feeding wire. Of course it could be machines but all bigger machine have problems. the smaller ones works ok. (powertech 250, tig 250)

unfortunately i dont have another place to test them with 3 phase.


ze

I've seen erratic behavior from machines when the jumpers are not set correctly. I would think that you would have already done this but... Have you checked that your jumpers are set correctly ? Are you getting voltage spikes that could be damaging the control boards etc? Strange that you would have so many bad machines.

In my area, there is a 3 phase machine in a local scrapyard that apparently had trouble with the rectifier, as that is what seemed to be dismantled. Otherwise it looked like a good machine. I know that on a single phase machine, if the rectifier gives out, it will tend to still weld, but very choppy and erratic.
If you can't see any bad capacitors or other obvious signs and your sure that your wiring is OK, then maybe it's time to call in a pro welding repair person.

I hope you get it sorted so you can get that boat wet.

[zeyang]

Newsletter May 2012.

Dear Sea gypsies

Spring has come to the farm! And then came summer, and then a few
blustery days of fall, and finally last Friday and Saturday it snowed
again. But that will be the last snow of the year, we hope - the mild
weather seems to have returned, the trees are leafing out, the
wildflowers are springing up around the river, the bees and the
neighbors have come out of hibernation (again), and we are hard at
work.

This week we mixed a few tons of lovely manure compost into the soil
of the north field, and planted eleven rows of potatoes - by hand -
which should give us about 300 kilos of potatoes in the fall to feed
hungry sea-gypsies all next winter. Next week we'll plant carrots and
onions, and move some tender warm-weather starts to our new greenhouse
- radishes, bok choi, spinach, parsley, beets, and sugar peas so tall,
they might start climbing us if we don't get them out of the kitchen
soon.

Work on the boat has really picked up recently. We've been distracted
with planting, and replumbing the bathroom, and building coldframes
and the new greenhouse - but now that the potatoes are in the ground
and the sea-gypsies are in the bath (phew), we are back in the
boatshed all the time. Our resident woodworker is about to start work
on a wooden dinghy from a traditional Norwegian design, just as soon
as he gets the greenhouse finished. And we cast two tons of lead
ballast, a very medieval process involving a wood-fired furnace in the
yard. The boat will eventually carry five tons, so there is more
casting to do as soon as the scrap yard has more lead for us.

Inside the boat we're sealing off the keel with aluminum plates - the
bow is nearly done, and then we can put in the last of the bow ribs.
In the stern, we're wrestling with engine placement - it needs to be
high enough to fit the cooling system and the primary diesel tank
underneath, but low enough that the propeller clears the stern.
Hmmmmm. Fortunately there's plenty to do while we're thinking about
it - like put on the deck! The boat will start looking dramatically
different very soon and we're all pretty excited.

As always, there's room for more in our big sea-gypsy tribe - so if
you like planting, weeding, shoveling, soldering, sawing, nailing,
welding, grinding, sewing, cooking, drilling, knitting, routering,
getting headbutted by chickens, watching 2-hour sunsets, measuring,
cutting, re-measuring, thinking, re-re-measuring, making bread,
reading sea books, eating waffles or knot-tying, drop us a line!


Picture from last weeks.

a: Sea gypsy girl making psykedelic chair-protection for the chairs.

b: Shaping wood with router

c: Potato-planting.

d: lead melting girl finished melting 2 tonns in one week.

[zeyang]

finished weld up the bow, but then the machine stopped working. (again)

Im pretty sure its the fiberoptic cable between the machine and control box. The light seems to be a litle blurred. Sometimes the box works sometimes not.

Anyone know places to buy fibrecable and connectors?

ze

[rlitman]

That looks like an HFBR plastic optical fiber, from a 1MBd industrial fiber assembly (that's what I find when I cross link the HP parts).
Anyway, most of the ones I see that fit that only include the round center section, and don't have that side clip. Instead, they're held by the fingers of the receiver.
Something like this should work:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-AGILENT-H...item3a6e7f171e

But these include that extra clip (if you feel like you need it):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Eska-Mitsubi...item3cbbc8a2e5

You could look for HFBR-ELS005, where the 5 is the length of the cable, in meters.

[zeyang]

Originally Posted by rlitman

That looks like an HFBR plastic optical fiber, from a 1MBd industrial fiber assembly (that's what I find when I cross link the HP parts).
Anyway, most of the ones I see that fit that only include the round center section, and don't have that side clip. Instead, they're held by the fingers of the receiver.
Something like this should work:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-AGILENT-H...item3a6e7f171e

But these include that extra clip (if you feel like you need it):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Eska-Mitsubi...item3cbbc8a2e5

You could look for HFBR-ELS005, where the 5 is the length of the cable, in meters.

Great thanks. Spent whole day failtracing before I found it must been blurry light in the fiber. A 5 meter is perfect. This problem will probably solve the other machine i have also. A spare machine is pretty useful these days.

ze

[zeyang]

Newsletter June 2012.



Dear Sea gypsies

We're back to a full farm - the current crew of sea-gypsies hail from
Norway, Germany (times two), Finland, France/Belgium, the UK and the
US - it makes for lively, er, discussions in the evenings while we're
watching Euro Cup matches.

It also makes for rapid progress - in the last few weeks we've picked
the entire farm clean of rocks, planted two fields in a mixture of
cover crops (including phacelia, whose blue flowers are a favorite bee
snack), built and painted a fence around the yard, re-plumbed the
basement, fixed our fleet of bicycles, put in almost a kilometer of
fence around the biggest field, dug up half the far field looking for
a pipe leak, refinished a beautiful old door... and then, in our spare
time, built a model for the boat's dinghy, biked all over the area,
hiked down the river, spent a weekend in Oslo, foraged local plants
for dinner, built a campfire spot overlooking the valley, installed a
swing under the barn ramp, given each other mohawks, and baked about
forty loaves of bread.

And we're going to be parents! Kind of! One of our chickens has very
motherly instincts, and she's been incubating thirteen eggs - some
hers, some laid by the rest of our flock. We're expecting chicks in a
week or so.

All the farming hasn't left us much time for boatbuilding, but we
still managed to make some progress this month: the keelbox has been
welded shut in bow and stern, the last ribs are being bent to shape
and welded in, and the calculations for the curve of the deck have
begun. This week we'll finish the ribs and begin the wood patterns
for the deck frames.

We've been eating like royalty - everybody has learned to bake, and
the spring plants are out in force, so we feast on nettles, milkweed,
chaga mushrooms, dandelions, wood sorrel, and our own bread. After a
long winter of turnips, potatoes and carrots, it's wonderful to have
the green leaves that come with warm days, and the new dishes that
come with new comrades.


So, enjoy summer folks, and if you want to join us, just send us an
email.

Pictures from last weeks.

a: Sea-gypsy girl busy planning the route with help of the world-map
in background.

b: Fence-banging guys!

c: The Fencing-crew on the way to the field.

d: Enjoy a short rest after hours of rockpicking in the field.

e: Welding up the keelbox inside the boat.

[ponch37300]

I've read most of this thread but don't remember reading how this farm is funded? Any background on how you get money for materials and what not?

[zeyang]

Originally Posted by ponch37300

I've read most of this thread but don't remember reading how this farm is funded? Any background on how you get money for materials and what not?

bankrobbery!

ze

[mb_welder]

Possibly farming!

It looks like you guys have a lot of fun over there.

[zeyang]

Newsletter July 2012.


Dear Sea gypsies

The summer has been good and productive to us. Mostly nice and warm
weather for whole june which is more than you can expect up here.. The
potatoefield and carrot field grow nicely. The sugar peas in the
small greenhouse is now blooming and soon we will be self-sufficient
on sugar-pies (that is, if we dont eat more than one pea a day each)
:-)

Mid summerday arrived with nice weather and as normal we had a the
traditional midsummer party sitting around the camp fire eating burned
marshmallows and dreaming about life out on the deep blue sea...

Talking about dreaming.. We have been discussing the deck curve for so
long that we started to get nightmares about this.. but in the end it
looks pretty good. The deck ribs are bent in, and we are in the stage
of plating the deck. Sofar the curve looks really nice! The deck area
will be around 40m2 totally, means we will have space for a hammock or
two between the masts!

Ok, that was all for this month,, if you fancy join our constantly
bigger sea gypsy tribe, please drop us a line. Whish you all a warm
summer and hope you enjoy our pictures below.

a: Mid summer party with camp fire and burned marshmallows.

b: British metalworker. Carpentry is for kids! Big boys only work with
metal!

c: Our french plating crew.

d: Two pretty mermaids (US/Germany) working on deck ribs. Hard hat is
mandatory when you work under the boat.

e: Fishing from the pier behind the boatshed. One of these days he
will hopefully get a fish!