New from NC

[ozzmonaut]

Hello all. I do a range of welding at home from bicycle frames to car frames to any small projects that come up. At work, I weld anything from 5mm fittings to 5/16" wall tubing conveyor frames, and any other projects that come up. I am probably not one to ask for welding advice though, as my welding is generally done out of necessity rather than as production or for looks. As long as it is burned together I'm good. However, I am hoping to get some advice on repairing a very old Miller AEAD 200le. The Arc3 welder repair shop could not figure out what is wrong with it. And the 200le manuals and tech info online do not match up with what is actually under the hood. So if you can point me to where I should post info about this thing to try to figure out how to go about getting it working again, I would much appreciate it. Thanks

[CAVEMANN]

Welcome! If ya think your welding sucks, you should've seen my dad's, he had eyesight problems from cataracts when he was pretty young, he'd lay acrappy bead AND miss the joint by a quarter inch.

[ozzmonaut]

I guess my welding isn't too terrible. On thicker stuff I can lay a constant bead and the slag falls off on its own. Thinner stuff just depends on which welder I use. I have a cheap 110 mig with fluxcore. I have this 200le. At work we have a 1960's Lincoln Idealarc wired for 480. I use it more than anything because I can go as low as 30A for welding element coils together for our furnaces. Or I can turn it up and use rods to cut through 1/2" stainless to remove fan cores. And it works great for everything in between. The problem is that most of my welding is by default hidden from view once installed, but is in extremely high-heat installations and definitive penetration or attachment is a must.

Edit: We did just get a new Lincoln mig wired for 208. It works pretty dang good, but I am more of an arc person, so I use it only in certain circumstances.

[scsmith42]

Welcome to the forum! What part of NC are you in? I'm located about 30 miles SW of Raleigh, and Arc3 in Sanford is my LWS.

[ozzmonaut]

I am in Mount Airy. Arc3 is our LWS as well.

[ozzmonaut]

I think once they received thus Miller, it went to their repair center in Greensboro. They were not able to definitively narrow down the issue. They said that it would be $700 for the parts they wanted to try, and that it may or may not fix the problem.

[CAVEMANN]

I think once they received thus Miller, it went to their repair center in Greensboro. They were not able to definitively narrow down the issue. They said that it would be $700 for the parts they wanted to try, and that it may or may not fix the problem.

The available knowledge on this forum is incredible, there's sub-forums different brands and often excellent help available in them.

[scsmith42]

I am in Mount Airy. Arc3 is our LWS as well.

You are sure located in a pretty part of the state!


Re the bicycle frames, aren't a lot of the high end ones brazed?

[ozzmonaut]

I mostly just do custom work on steel frames. I hosted a custom and vintage bicycle show here for 3 years. Brazing needs to be the next thing I learn. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, we recently bought a farm with a neglected house on it. So for now much of my time will be spent getting that ready to live in and some minor work in the barn and fields.