Thread: Are CIG stupid or is it me?

OK, here's the saga. A couple of years back I bought a CIGWELD 165 "TURBO" mig welder. A 30-165 amp gas/gasless machine. Now I've had a play with it during that time to teach myself to mig weld but resorted back to the old stick welder for any serious stuff. The manual that came with it was not worth toilet paper and there was no chart anywhere to give basic guidance to set the controls (as there seems to be on all other welders). So now I've retired from work I thought I would get really serious and get down to it. There are three controls on the machine... 'WIRESPEED' (no drama there), 'COARSE-LOW and COARSE-HIGH' and 'FINE-1,2,3', oh yes, and a picture of a thermometer. Mind you, the only mention of these controls in the manual is quote: "The output voltage control switches set the voltage level to the welding terminals". So my brain says the voltage goes down in this order: Maximum is COARSE-HIGH FINE-3 then 2 then 1, then switch down to COARSE-LOW FINE-3 then 2 then 1 at the lowest voltage. So why am I getting more volts on a LOW setting than a HIGH setting? Stupid me, it goes like this: maximum voltage is COARSE-HIGH FINE-3 then COARSE-LOW FINE-3, followed by COARSE HIGH-FINE 2 then COARSE LOW-FINE 2 then COARSE HIGH-FINE 1 and finally COARSE -LOW FINE 1. Confused? Why not a 6 position switch or some explanation in the manual? But now I've nutted it out I'm up and running and it all makes sense........