Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey fellas, my names Justin. Brand new to the forum. Learning to weld from a friend of mine, trying to convince him to sell me a spare tig machine he’s got. It’s a Lincoln V-205T ac/dc, the older of the two models (only one stick weld setting). We were trying to use it and after arc, it just stays at the startup current and never comes up to weld current. Post flow and all that is fine. Everything else is good-lights work correctly, all parameters have been set properly. Torch, ground, pedal all work because this guy has two of the same models. Any advice here?

I'd suggest calling your local LWS to see if they have a tech that can look at it. May be the path of least resistance since most advice on a forum like this, although often good advice, would probably be a lot of guessing.

More than likely the pedal has been damaged since it is the amp control once the arc starts. I too recently had to have an SSC pedal repaired due to a damaged wire along the cord (something/someone in the shop must have dropped something on it).

You can probably confirm the pedal with a multimeter by Ohm readings across the pins to the pedal soldered connections. Start by ringing them out with a continuity test, then diagram which pin is what soldered connection. Then switch to ohms. Wriggle the cable while you do the reading. You're likely to find the culprit (could very well be the switch in the pedal needs attention).

Moral of the story is: this ain't rocket science and you can probably fix it yourself, or at least confirm if a bad component is at fault. Saving the repair labor from the shop.

So I’ve narrowed it down a bit, ground was good, torch and pedal are good too. We actually did that with the pedal previously and put a new potentiometer in it. There’s two identical v-205t’s here so the auxiliary stuff has been ruled out. Also tried resetting to factory parameters in case that was the issue. Still doing the same thing.

We’re thinking it’s circuitry that’s the issue, I don’t have experience working welders but I have some on large industrial electric plants. I’ve seen a similar thing happen with a regulator cabinet for a large dc motor where a gate wasn’t firing when it was supposed to and the machine basically never was able to leave that step of the startup cycle. Are welders similar? I’m having a hell of a time reading wiring schematics on my cell phone... just moved and don’t have my computer and printer set up at the moment. I think I’ll work towards that and take it into the local weld shop for troubleshooting if I can’t find the faulty component.

Having a approved weld repair place look at it will probably cost $100 to get an estimate on repairs needed. Might be worth your time.