Hi Hohn
I have a Boa (not sure just what model, have had it quite a few years though). I have run it off of a couple different engine drives with good success. I have even done a couple right outside. That's a bear because any little breeze seems to find the bore. I run a Miller 12VS suitcase at the moment off from an Airvantage 500. Seems to work fine. I have run it off an LN-25 and an LN-7 also. Seems that the feeder makes no difference. I did have to put a burnback control in the LN-7. Your stubbing problem sounds as though you may need to up your voltage just a shade. I think I am running just under 17 volts on the Lincoln. I run .030 wire and sometimes have to put in 2 or 3 passes. Much after that it begins to get pretty lumpy though.
Hope you enjoy your new machine.
Bob

 

Hi Bob, thanks for the reply, have been sitting here just waiting. I can see we will fast become chums, if you don't mind. Sounds like you have has success with this bore welder. curious as to what brand of wire, and I assume you are talking lincoln engine drive. My problem maybe I seem stuck on miller products. Not knocking any manufacture. I have pretty much done everything by the books concerning set ups, wire, (wire cast) but seem to put my problems down to what I call (dirty electricity) from my power source. Just a brief moment in current pretty much screws my weld. Like I mentioned earlier, this machine has always performed excellent in the shop with the same feeder, rarely in the field. Thats what hurts. Honest Bob, I have never seen these welders run off of smaller engine driven trail blazers and every one says no problem. I guess I live on the wrong side of the tracks. Also tried this off of a Lincoln (G) ? 250 portable with the same results. Hope to have better results with the XMT 350. Anyways, if you are bore welding you must be machining (boring?) I am currently using york systems and have had excellent luck. Lots of tips and tricks as I am sure you already know.
Thanks, John

 

I don't know about the small engine drives. I currently am running a Lincoln Airvantage. I have also run the bore welder off of the Miller Airpak. Which I now have as a spare. Maybe something to do with the smaller machines. Although I can't believe it would make any difference. It's not like you are drawing major power. I run whatever wire I happen to get my hands on. Haven't really noticed much difference. I do use 70-6, not sure if that has anything to with it. Most of the time I buy Lincoln wire. It is the closest welding store so that is where I go. I have an excavator to do tomorrow for the John Deere dealer. I also do some work for a couple other dealerships here.
I run a York system also. I at some point in time am going to buy a Climax drive. My small bars will work in their dive. I like the setscrews that back up the tool bits. Makes it foolproof (almost) when it comes to adjust the tool.
I have already taken the first cut and found I was .005 oversize. Get more practice on my welding skills that way.:laugh:

 

I am getting the BOA 308, my buddy has one and it runs off a Ranger 10,000 without skipping a beat. I have a Trailblazer, so it should run better. Infro has a Bore Tech and seems to like it. But the BOA factory is close to me. As far as a boring bar setup, I would love a Climax, but to much $$$ right now. Lorenzo told me about the one he has, but the name escapes me as of now. As far as wire, my buddy runs whatever they give him at the LWS.

 

I am getting the BOA 308, my buddy has one and it runs off a Ranger 10,000 without skipping a beat. I have a Trailblazer, so it should run better. Infro has a Bore Tech and seems to like it. But the BOA factory is close to me. As far as a boring bar setup, I would love a Climax, but to much $$$ right now. Lorenzo told me about the one he has, but the name escapes me as of now. As far as wire, my buddy runs whatever they give him at the LWS.

Would those things do Aluminum?
Or would the wire get all birdnested because its Aluminum??.

...zap!

 

what exactly is a bore welder.............please excuse my ignorance

 

Zap
The conductor cable is about 6 ft long. You may stand a chance running aluminium. I would tend to think it would make a birds nest. It might be possible to run 5356 something that's a little tougher than 4043 though. But your still pushing it the lenght of the cable though.

 

what exactly is a bore welder...

Many machines use pins, through machine bored holes, as hinge points. These holes are prone to wear, especially on construction equipment, where pin bores become elongated and worn from heavy use.

Since the bores are usually machined into expensive components, it's desirable to repair, rather than replace worn parts.

A bore weld system, is used to build up worn bores with weld, so that they can be machined back to original size. Usually a bore welder has a compact weld "gun" that is automatically fed through the bore, as it builds up the worn surface with weld.

 

thanks

 

You need to use a CV feeder that is NOT voltage sensing in other words one that gets the drive motor voltage from the welding machine.

 

Here's a couple of pics of my bore welder. Also a couple of the boring bar setup.

 

Zapster, maybe Bortech can handle your problem, check out the web site, I don't have the address but it can easily be found with a quick search.
Lars, I have thought of that also and really think this may have been my problem, yet when both sales reps showed up they were not using voltage sensing feeders and still could not run of the trail blazer, did fine of the XMT's, also The Weldor is running bigger generators yet not having problems with VS feeders. Starting to wonder if maybe the low end has been damaged in my machines from air arcing. I have heard rumor this maybe.
Bob the weldor, thanks for the pics, great looking setup. Your bore drive is the newer version of what I am running. I believe. Great looking weld, you mentioned that you are using .030 wire if I recall, I really doubt this would cause me any problems with me running .035. The new machine showed up the other day, all I had time to do is check for freight damage (none), have been to busy to even hook it up yet. I will get to play a bit with it in the new couple of days. Bob maybe in the near future we could converse via a land line to talk? Curious, you must be running a large service truck also?
Thanks fall all the info.
John

 

John
I looked the other day. The voltage is running 19.2. I do run this on CV, for some reason have always bought those wire feeders capable of voltage sensing. One thing I did think of is that I run a c-clamp style ground clamp. I have noticed a difference when running 3/32 innershield. It seems to be alot smother. I think I was getting a poor connection with the spring style.
Here's a pic of my truck also.
Bob

 

Bob, this is my second attempt at posting, system tells me I am not logged on when I go to post when I just logged on to post, any body else have this problem.
Anyways Bob, that is one sweet welding truck. Long time coming I assume. I am jealous of that big sweet welder though. The other day I missed one local on ebay, was a commander, which I understand is a serious step down from the Vantage series. Maybe my luck, as I bought the BOA instead.
I did test it on a few passes this afternoon and found the thing run flawlessly for a second time newbie to it. Found the book a little lacking but I never really read the instructions until needed, you know the type. I did however weld several passes on a 3.625 I.D. bore by 5 inches long and was impressed. For not having run one in along time I was able to set up and get welding right away. I did however set up the the new gizzmo from York that helps out. I tried with out it and could not get centered (happily) so I added it in and away we went. Just running pain old HB28 hardwire and never had a problem with wire cast or anything. Again this is powered out of the wall on the XMT350. In the morning I will try running again with the XMT powered by the 302 trailblazer then again off of just the 302 to see what happens. I have a sneaking hunch I will always prefer to run off the XMT. Seemed really smooth. I see you mentioned the ground clamp, when ever I run flux core this seems to be a real issue also. I smoke more spring clamps than need be. If its something critical I usually just weld down my ground (c-clamp). Maybe straight polarity is harder on the spring clamps than usual.
Anyways, beautiful truck, you build or design the bed?
John

 

Glad to hear your having good luck so far. I can't believe the machine would have any great bearing on things. I have used about anything out there. Some do seem to run better than others but there is always a learning curve. I have owned that Lincoln for about 3 yrs know. There are still things that I haven't found the sweet spot for yet.
I designed and built the body. I need to polish out the stainless fender skirts again though. I will do that in my spare time. LOL I have a shop with most of the toys in it. So building the body was just a little time. It is about time for a paint job again though.
Bob

 

Bob, looks like you have some talent. In the past I had built several beds and booms but nothing ever came out that nice. They always did the job, just weren't that pretty. Woke up to more snow, finding it hard to muster up the courage to go out in the cold shop (no fire) and start playing with the Boa. Was looking over your bore photos again and was wondering if you use the angle drive for main boom cylinder (lower bores) on the excavators? I did a couple machines this past summer and finally built one for these bores. Even built the two piece bar to set up on all four bosses, (bar clamps in the middle) just used for set up, not the actual boring, then set up the angle drive. I also re read earlier about multiple passes, I was wondering about this while finishing the second pass last night. I can see that getting some berries hanging in the bore would be possible. I assume you come across egg shaped bores, I imagine I will weld some of these by hand to get too the clean up bore, before actually using the Boa. I opted against the skip weld feature, figured the bores are not consistent enough to utilize this feature. I guess this will come with time. I first need to see if I can repeat some welds today and check out the 302 for powering this unit. Looking out side the truck does not look happy....
Thanks again
John

 

Update: Running the 308i off of Miller XMT 350 which in turn is powered up by Miller 302 Trailblazer, set the machine up and bumped up the wire speed a tad from my first two passes last night. Running HB28 .035 wire, 17.5 volts at 260 i.p.m. 124-132 amps as the xmt 350 seemed to vary as the bore was welded. Bore is 3.625 I.D. x 5" long. Took some quick pics of what was what this morning, I hope I can remember how to attach. Bear with me it may take a couple of tries. I did bump up the bolts to 19.2 and wire speed accordingly but could not seem to get the bead to smooth out as needed with rotation speed, seemed like I was trying to out run it. Will cut this weld out and try powering the 308i just off of the 302 and see what happens. Skeptical at this point.

 

Sorry for the delay folks but here are some pics finally. Seem to have my time trying to resize them and then find them again.
The first picture is the BOA set up and ready to go
The second is finally up and welding.
Third is the pass finished
fourth is the feeder used
fifth is the xmt 350 power supply to the feeder
Sixth, which is missing was the Miller 302 powering the XMT 350.

For some reason when attempting to just run the Feeder (miller s22p12) I could not vary my voltage on the 302, Maxed out and would not adjust.Thinking I that I have never run this feeder off of the 302 the power cable running the feeder may not switch from the xmt to the 302, I need to do some checking on this. Maybe some one else knows

 

Now where did they go?

 

Maybe this time

 

John, Those were 3.5 inch bores I was welding the other day. I slowed the speed to about 1/2 of what the chart said. I built that up close to .250 in one pass. When you make more than one pass it helps if you can wire brush it good in between passes. That seems to help alot. I haven't run in to the need for a drive shaft yet. I figured I would build one when that time came along I have had bars coupled together for line up already. I have built a couple of bars for blind holes also.
Thank You for the compliments on the truck. Although a rig like that can get you in alot of trouble!! LOL

 

Those welds look pretty nice. I didn't get the skip attachment with my bore welder either. It is just as easy to run the toggle switch. I have to have something to do you know.
What is that piece in between the pipe the bore welder goes on and the bearing mount. I don't have one of those. Might have to build. Looks useful.

 

Bob, that would be the do dad from York. I didn't think much of it, but in my quick set up to mount the DOM tubing, I found I was way off in all dimensions this allows for easy adjustments. Found it really paid off when I reached through, just about max reach of the boa and quickly aligned to the bore from my first set and was welding in couple of minutes. I is kind of like the ball set up Bore repair has but it threads into your bore mount then your boa bar threads into it. It does have a tiny ball socket and you get plenty of movement to allow for a bad set up. With the first bar I found this was a pain to get the bearing mount really lined up correctly, maybe this was some of my problems. Just dinking around today, I welded and bored the bores 3 times (6 bores) just playing, nothing to size. In the morning I will try slowing down the rotation and see if I can get better build up. I was thinking your welds looked like they had better build up. Today I was just happy to repeat weld after weld. Have forgot to through the clutch in a few times, doesn't take long to figure out on the second rotation.... couple dingle berries.:laugh:

 

picture of the do dad

 

I am going to have to build one of those. One thing one must always remember. You can't have everything - - - where would you put it !!! LOL