Thread: Inverter Maintenance

Hi,

It is a good idea to remove dust from the heatsinks depending on how much use your machine gets. Dust on circuit boards is of no issue, metalicquer particles however can be an issue. Best method is to use a small brush whilst holding a vacuum cleaner nearby. Final stage is air compressor whilst wearing safety goggles, breathing filter and doing so in an open area away from other humans. Chinese machines generally have a coating of lacquer on the circuit boards.

Regards
John

Doesn't matter weather it is an inverter or not a blow out every so often will not hurt, so long as your compressor is not spraying water

Originally Posted by citybook

Hi All,
Grahame Collins made the point somewhere that one of the things that separates the Chinese inverter welders (I have a UniTig 200) from the high end stuff is that the expensive gear has coated circuit boards that helps to keep the dust out.

So would it be a good idea to regularly take the cover off and blow the dust out ?

Make up a fitted cover ?

What do you guys do to maintain your inverters ?

Cheers,
Bob.

Hi Bob,

Sometimes we get machines in for a service that are in such a condition our staff smack their heads

I have added some images of one of my favourites, it is caked with aluminium dust. I often wonder what the lungs look like of the guys that weld in these conditions. Cleaning is a great way to ensure your welder lasts for many years. Be carefull to remove as much debris as possible manually, brush and vacuum. You can then wrap in an old bedsheet and stick a compressed air blow gun into the bedsheet, this way the bedsheet catches most of the dust or as mentioned earlier use mask and goggles.

The machine was still working, just the HF stopped because the spark gap was shorted with aluminium dust. After a clean all was ok again.

Thanks for looking
Pete ( Tokentools )

Hi Citybook,
If you look at the hi frequency board beside the fans on your machine you will see a four large diodes near the spark points I have seen many of these boards fail ( by many I mean about 5 which is not really many I know) because metal dust has been sucked in and clogged around them I would pay particular attention to this area when you clean your machine
Also underneath the same board at around the same point metal dust for some reason clings to the tracks and can short out other than that I have not heard of any issue with that machine or any of its many incarnations

Ally dust, yeeesh!!!!!

Surprised it didnt short an IC out. There aint usually much room between the pins, let alone the tracks. Always had to be careful when soldering em in.

Originally Posted by inverter_weld

I often wonder what the lungs look like of the guys that weld in these conditions.
Thanks for looking
Pete ( Tokentools )

Yes i would hate to think of all the heavy metals built up inside their bodys, deffinatly a wise idea to wear some respiratory gear.

would it be worth having some sort of filter over the fans inside the machine, i know all the CNC's at my work run thin foam rubber filters.

cheers for sharing the pictures

Thanks for the responses - everybody seems to agree that dust is the thing to watch.

Thanks for the pics Pete - always nice to look at a graphic to support the words.

And thanks Dubman for the Jasic specific clues - the actual welder seems Ok to me but their documentation is woeful - so detailed comments on Jasic stuff are particularly interesting to me.

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Bob.