syncrowave 300 High Frequency troubleshooting

[aduhaime2003]

Newbie question here. I have not called tech support yet but it may be helpful to start here anyway. I bought a syncrowave 300 from work. It is from 1976 i think. Anyway I downloaded the manual to help diagnose the foot pedal since the remote current was not working and I fixed that. I still have a problem with the HF though. I used this machine about a year ago and the HF never worked then but I figured for 300 bucks I could deal with fixing it. Anyway now I need to weld aluminum for my car and I am porked. I can lift arc steel but I cannot hold an are on any alum without HF.

I tried adjusting the gap to 8 thou but no go. Then I removed the tungstens and cleaned them up and re-gapped them... still no go. I dont know where to go next. I just need so explaination of how the whole HF circuit works. I dont know where to look next. Any help would be great.

art

[cruizer]

Shoot me the serial # so I can pull up the correct diagram.

[aduhaime2003]

there is no serial number on the welder....unless i am unable to find it. there is a patent number on the front of the unit which is 4,038,575. There is a sticker on the back of the unit with the following info: 1976, 5-375 amps, 80% ocv, 60% duty, 32v, 300a. There is a number on the bottom corner of that sticker with the number 060 376. That is all i have right now.

[aduhaime2003]

anyone?????? help

[aduhaime2003]

Can anyone at least suggest the best method for diagnosing this problem. I am supposing that the capacitors just discharge once they can overcome the spark gap. I therefore suspect that they are the culprit if they are in fact getting a voltage applied. I unfortunately have no idea what that voltage should be. I am going to try and pull the thing apart this week but I am really ging in blind. I suppose i can test the capacitance of the 2 caps with a meter and verify there is a voltage applied to the caps. I then will check for grounding issues but other than that I really have no clue where to look for a problem. I just needed to know if there is a common reason for a problem with the hf other than spark gap.

[tsutt]

I had the Hi freq quit on mine, didn't work at all. It was on of the caps. Bought a used one from a local miller place that does repairs and works fine now. It's the only thing that i've ever had a problem with on this machine.

Todd

[mooseman63825]

issues

hey cruizer does those old syncrowave use a hall device (Inductance Pick up coil to detect amperage)

[mklein]

HF Capacitors

Look around your HF capacitors for leakage. Replace if leakage is present.