Welding Tips and Tricks

HI everyone,

So i picked up a Lincoln Electric 175HD and have had it boxed and sitting in my garage for over 5 years. I finally have need of it and ran 220 power and ran into the wire feeder not working in my A setting (1-10) wire speed. I needed flip my roller over so I could run 0.025 so without even loading the wire I powered the gun to get the the roller to spin, nothing. Called up LT support and they said it could be the wire feed motor seized up from sitting unused. So I then took the hood and over off to see what the deal was. I noticed a bit of oxidation on the metal contact points of the power setting switch. I proceeded to clean them off using dexoit and q-tips. Then I turned the welder back on. I only have the gun connected via the two spade connectors. Turn the gun on no spin in setting a and 1-10. But when I flipped it to B 1-10 worked fine. So I further cleaned the rest of the contacts and all points work except for A. The connectors on that point are clean but not getting any spin.

Could the wire feeder motor be the problem? Or could it still be that connector. Again metal looks nice and clean and I even hit it with a bit of emery sand paper.

Since the motor works in every other setting it's pretty likely the defect is not the motor.

Thanks Franz, logically you maybe right. I just took the motor off and took a look under the cog cover to check to make sure the lubricate was ok. It was ok a little spread out so I carefully packed it back onto the cogs.

I can't seem to figure out if this motor runs on dc or ac, I wanted to check for power at the wires in the A setting.

Totally bummed out right now thinking I would have finished my small welding job already.

Well just ran the multi-meter and when I am in position A, I get no power at all at the reel motor. As soon as I switch to any other detent, I get power. I even wiggled the knob a bit and nothing. Copper plates are nice and clean so it doesn't look like a corrosion issue.

Go to Lincolnelectric.com and click along until you get to the page where you can bring up the schematic for the machine.
Have your model & code numbers ready to enter.

So I found the problem, my father in law incorrectly wired the 220 outlet. The machine was only getting half the voltage.

I did a test weld at a higher setting (One in which the feed was working) and I got an arch and then no arch. I was like this can't be right. So then I decided to check the outlet, bang no 120 out of one of the poles. Hopefully 2 days of testing hasn't damaged the welder. What a pisser.

Thanks for the reply Franz.