AHP Owners/Users Thread. No Trolling unless you have used/own one!

[EnderleFab]

AHP Alpha TIG200X. I bought it off Amazon back in 2017, used it twice to try to weld TIG, decided I didn't need that much stress in my life at the time, and used it once again to stick weld. Then...it broke. Display only reads "002". Arc won't start. Like a Dumb ***, I put it in the corner of the shop and promptly forgot about it.
Now, being far more stress free at this time in my life, I figured why not fire up the rage again , and try to see if I can TIG weld this time. Tried firing it up again and it turns on, but age has not made it leave "002".

Question is...where can you send an out of warranty broken AHP welder for repairs? I've sent a message to AHP but figured if there was some other AHP guru out there, I'd see if there is an alternative.

[TexasT]

Are you comfortable pulling the hood off and looking inside? There was a time when AHP would help with some trouble shooting tips, but I dont know how they are now with the older units. Hopefully they will answer your message and have some help to give.

[ivyyyy]

[vdotmatrix]

AHP Alpha TIG200X. I bought it off Amazon back in 2017, used it twice to try to weld TIG, decided I didn't need that much stress in my life at the time, and used it once again to stick weld. Then...it broke. Display only reads "002". Arc won't start. Like a Dumb ***, I put it in the corner of the shop and promptly forgot about it.
Now, being far more stress free at this time in my life, I figured why not fire up the rage again , and try to see if I can TIG weld this time. Tried firing it up again and it turns on, but age has not made it leave "002".

Question is...where can you send an out of warranty broken AHP welder for repairs? I've sent a message to AHP but figured if there was some other AHP guru out there, I'd see if there is an alternative.

Write the people at AHP. Call them. Dont dink around with it. Habe it fixed by them. Two three yr warranty…oooops. Their repair fcility might bee in tennassee….call them …

[arcflash]

I had good luck calling them.

[cegan09]

Figured I'd share in here as well.

Had my 2018 generation 200x stop recognizing the pedal was plugged in recently. I emailed AHP and they were really quick to respond and help me find at least the part that was broken. They said the front PCB with all the knobs was the issue, had spares to sell me since I'm out of warranty.

Since I work with PCBs as part of my day job I figured I'd take a closer look. Turns out there is a relay on there that does the switchover between pedal and no pedal. Pins 6+7 on the pedal connector complete the ground connection on the relay coil. Pulled the old relay off, put a new one on, works like a champ again.

Totally understand why AHP would stop at the point of replacing a whole board, don't know a single manufacturer out there that would have you poke at replacing individual components. But figure I'd share just in case someone else sees a similar failure in the future, this was a straight forward repair if you're handy with a soldering iron.

[N2 Welding]

Figured I'd share in here as well.

Had my 2018 generation 200x stop recognizing the pedal was plugged in recently. I emailed AHP and they were really quick to respond and help me find at least the part that was broken. They said the front PCB with all the knobs was the issue, had spares to sell me since I'm out of warranty.

Since I work with PCBs as part of my day job I figured I'd take a closer look. Turns out there is a relay on there that does the switchover between pedal and no pedal. Pins 6+7 on the pedal connector complete the ground connection on the relay coil. Pulled the old relay off, put a new one on, works like a champ again.

Totally understand why AHP would stop at the point of replacing a whole board, don't know a single manufacturer out there that would have you poke at replacing individual components. But figure I'd share just in case someone else sees a similar failure in the future, this was a straight forward repair if you're handy with a soldering iron.

I bet you are pretty happy to have it working again. How many hours would you guess you have on the machine prior to the relay braking?

[cegan09]

I bet you are pretty happy to have it working again. How many hours would you guess you have on the machine prior to the relay braking?

Not many. Probably three 125size bottles of argon? I'm a hobby welder. So I'll find a project, use it a bunch, then it'll sit for 6+ months until I find the next project. And for a while I would often use the miller at my local makerspace over this one simply because the space was nicer than my single bay garage at the apartment I used to rent. I really do like the AHP, no regrets at all buying it. It's perfect for the hobby level stuff I do.

It's unusual for a relay to die at that few cycles, but it is some no-name brand that I can't even find a data sheet for, which means it is a cheap part, but I expected that for this welder. It's not like it's a secret that they are built cheap to sell cheap. Likely I just got unlucky and got a bad one. New relay cost me all of $1 and maybe an hour of my time to tear down the machine, diagnose, pull the old one off, put the new one on, and reassemble the machine.