Thread: MIG welder drama

Hi there,
Just had a funny thing going on with my MIG welder, and have to share it, with some laborious troubleshooting. Its a wee 175 WIA about 3 yrs old, and has proved to be a pretty good unit so far. I got into the shed late last night with a quick welding job set up earlier in the day, turned it on and nothing...no sound, but no light 'cos there isn't one, so turned it off quick. Try again, naught. Checked the powerpoint with another tool before setting to the welder itself, gas bottle off and many screws later I tested the power lead in with a multimeter to make sure some crushed insulation wasn't the problem. I then turned it on and realised the wire was feeding, so power was going through, but no telltale cooling fan! No fuse or overload to be found...so tried turning the fan, and it was stiff to turn. So I undid the fan body from the frame and its guard...turned it on and the fan worked as per usual!! Nothing too wrong, but something stalling the fan. I checked the circular guard, and sure enough, it was stoved in, but mildly...just enough to contact the fan blades. Simple fix and put it all back together, so after an hour delay I was up and welding happily till 12.30....but why did it happen?
The stupid bleeding fan is situated at the base of the machine, facing rearwards...right where the base of the bottle sits, in line with the loading of a new bottle. I'd recently shipped the machine twice onto truck etc so the bottle was being handled frequently, and accidents happen. I guess I did it by rough handling, but pretty peeved that the flimsy guard was simply a lightweight web of wire no more than 1.8mm thick. A dent or distortion, by a 20kg(?) bottle, of about 10mm in a critical area and the cooling system shuts down, risking the life of the welder.

Glad I didn't have earplugs in!:eek: