Welding Tips and Tricks

If you happen to exceed the duty cycle on a MIG welder will the heat overload trip? Can you damage the unit this way?

Yes you can. We had a Millermatic 180 mig box and 2 of our brilliant maintenance guys managed to fry it after they had it on almost max amps welding a stainless repair on a holding tank. The duty cycle for the amps they were using was roughly 5 mins on and i think 20 mins off something like that. Well they managed to fry this BRAND NEW MACHINE in about an hour. So yes pay attention to the paperwork that comes with the machine its there for a reason. We had just gotten the box maybe 2 hours prior to them ruining it.

that's interesting, torn, I'dve expected the overheat protect to come on. I usually try to mentally "mind" the duty cycle, but I certainly have never gotten out a stop watch. did you get any response from miller? perhaps a safety failed? I'm just really suprised that you can still fry a machine running it too hot for too long in this day and age of safetys and protection circuits.

Not exactly sure what happend my friend but we had to replace the control board inside it was black. Im guessing the fuse didnt intervien so to speak . But it had a nice cooked smell to it..