mig and flux core tips and techniques, equipment, filler metal
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r_maher03
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    Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:28 pm

My father-in-law just gave me an old wire feed welder. I can't find a name on it anywhere but as far as I can tell from the serial number it is a Hobart built in 1986. It is a 240V model. The problem I am having is that sometimes when I press the trigger without even starting a bead it trips the breaker, sometimes it doesn't. The breaker is a 50 Amp with 6 gauge wire. I'm thinking it is a bad contactor but I'm not sure if that could be it or not. Any ideas??? Thanks
Mike
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Welcome to the forum.
M J Mauer Andover, Ohio

Linoln A/C 225
Everlast PA 200
Artie F. Emm
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    Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:53 am

Welcome to the forum. Any chance you can test the machine on a different circuit? Breakers can go bad, an easier fix than digging into the guts of the welder.
Dave
aka "RTFM"
r_maher03
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Artie F. Emm wrote:Welcome to the forum. Any chance you can test the machine on a different circuit? Breakers can go bad, an easier fix than digging into the guts of the welder.
Thanks, Artie. I was hoping it was the breaker but I was able to try it at a friends and it did the same thing. I did have to replace the plug on it. Would that have any effect? I would think if something was wrong with the plug it would trip it all the time.
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Have you opened up the plug to inspect the insides? Are the wire connection schemes secure? Screw-down terminals? If they go loose on you, that would/could cause problems. I've had them go loose on me before. Then I loc-tite'd them. Now that I think about it, I should have soldered the bare wires to the terminals after having tightened the screw-deals down.
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r_maher03
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Oscar wrote:Have you opened up the plug to inspect the insides? Are the wire connection schemes secure? Screw-down terminals? If they go loose on you, that would/could cause problems. I've had them go loose on me before. Then I loc-tite'd them. Now that I think about it, I should have soldered the bare wires to the terminals after having tightened the screw-deals down.
Thanks for the reply Oscar. I opened up the plug and as far as I know, everything looks good.
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