200 dx water cooled

[Scott V]

Here is one I helped Marty at Chaski's site put together.
Notice the funny color on the welder.
It has a ebay procon clone pump,but he does have all the correct Benard fill fittings for it. I been waiting a year to see if it will work. All he has to do is fusion weld the corner seams. You would think a SD 180 would handle that?

[HAWK]

Scott V,

The Coolmate 3 is quieter than the Coolmate 4 and it is stackable. The Coolmate 4 is a lingering reminder of the mobile days. For shop use I recommend the Coolmate 3 or the Binzel BC3 like you have.

[Scott V]

I owned a Benard 2500 with the Procon pump, and a Miller rad 1 with the Oberdorfer Pump. My current Binzel (which I believe makes the coolmate 3 for Miller) is the best of the bunch, in how quiet it is. A big defence contractor out here went to the coolmate 3 (Binzel) over all the Benards they had, just for the noise difference.

[HAWK]

Wrench,

I agree with you. I think it is better to run these units by the hour rather than by the minute.

aphexafx,

The Coolmates are not very loud by most standards. The sound is in the lower mid range of the 20-200KHZ spectrum and to say it is tolerable is a gross understatement. This is speculation without actually measuring the soruce. The pumps seem to be constant alleviating the cycling noise evident in some cheaper units. The Coolmate 4 uses a Procon pump. It has been very reliable and is set to circulate the coolant at 60 PSI. These pumps are made in Murphreesboro, TN and are used by several coolant circulator manufacturers.

Can Dan tolerate the noise? I certainly think so. The Coolmates are very pleasing to the ear when compared to the Dynasty's AC arc !

Will

[wrench3047]

Just a note electric motors(i'm assuming the pumps are driven by them) have more wear and tear by starting and stoping and starting again. Of course there are exceptions with different designs, but those are expensive I would tend not to think the coolers would have them( they tend to be a little larger.) I my opinion I would think it would be better for the Coolmate to run long periods of time than on/off.

[aphexafx]

HAWK:

Ya, we're just being nerds.

I'm sure they will run for a long time without problems. If you use them in the standard way I don't see how you could burn up the motor, actually. I was just warning him not to valve ( stop ) the coolant flow manually without also stopping the pump because it doesn't look like the Coolmate's have bypass valves, and I'm not sure what kind of pump the Coolmate's utilize.

HAWK, are they even that loud anyway? I sort of doubt it, so maybe the noise won't be a problem for Dan after all.

Now I want one...

Cheers!

[HAWK]

aphexafx, Steved, and dyn88,

Good solid ideas-I doubt many here will execute the pramatic design described. None the less very good ideas!!!

Now for a reality check. I run a Coolmate 4 with the ALT304 and a Coolmate 3 with the Dynasty 300DX. I would honestly be lost if I did not hear the coolers whirring in the background. They are a lot like the backyard train tracks. You don't really hear the trains since they run all day and all night. After a while you become "acoustically jaded". Only when they stop does the silence become deafening.

I have yet to burn up a pump or anything else on these Coolmates. The Coolmate 3 has seen 8-12 hours/days for the last year or so without any problems. The Coolmate 4 is used less, but still gets a workout.

[Scott V]

They have some for the dinse style too.


http://www.ckworldwide.com/Fuse_block.htm


http://www.ckworldwide.com/Safe_loc.htm

[Steved]

Since I don't have a water cooled torch I am not sure but....

It is my understanding that there is a fuseable link right at the water cooler.

This fuseable link will get hot and blow if the coolent is not running thus shutting off power to the torch.

If the coolent is running then the fuseable link stays cool and everything works fine.

Am I in LA-LA land on this or is this something that is standard on every torch?

[Kelly Aitken]

Sometimes It's Not All About The Gain But About Designing And Building Just To See If It Can Be Done.

Kelly

[Blown S-10]

seems like a lot of trouble for little gain.

[Mike W]

Shees......I sometimes run my swamp cooler 24 hours a day in the summer. The water pump takes a licking and keeps on pumping.

[aphexafx]

Why not just off the 14 pin hook up a simple relay with timer so when the machine sees trigger the cooler turns on and at the advent of lack of trigger it runs for say 30 seconds after the trigger is off.

Exactly! That would work, of course, and what I think miller should have built into the cooler. Trigger sense by the cooler could be obtained via routing the remote through the cooler, or by a dedicated trigger output on the P/S. The route through the cooler method would be easy to build into the cooler without modifications to the P/S, though. You could check the remote return voltage, or, doesn't the remote connector provide a contactor status via one of its pins? And, if Miller really wanted it to be fail-safe, in addition to a post flow timer (say 30 sec, or a minute) they could also monitor the return coolant temperature in the cooler and make sure the cooler stays on until a safe minimum temperature is detected, then shut the cooler motor off.

This would add a bit to the cost of the cooler, but it would be really nice.

[dyn88]

Why not just off the 14 pin hook up a simple relay with timer so when the machine sees trigger the cooler turns on and at the advent of lack of trigger it runs for say 30 seconds after the trigger is off.Thats what we did with our 700 amp mig guns but we run for 3 minutes after trigger signal goes open. Easy and no transistors for any dirty HF nearby to burn up if you use either a bimetal heated timer or even a smple 110 plug in the wall timer set to return to zero upon excitation. Dont forget the fail safe all run in case of failure and reduntify it. (those **** guns are 1500 a piece, and power cables alone are 200, not cheap or fun to replace before the 6month service)

[aphexafx]

Dan, sorry in advance if I/we made you feel unwelcome! Steved was just expanding on the thermostat idea I mentioned with a very realistic control system...realistic for those interested in electronics, anyway. (Well, OK, nobody's going to build it but theoretically it was a fun idea.) And then I added on to it, but I was just joking around. For fun.

None the less, I spent the last hour looking into this:

From what I can tell, none of Miller's external coolant systems feature what Miller calls Cool-on-Demand, which automatically regulates coolant flow. This is a feature reserved for the built-in coolers on the upper-end Syncrowave welders, it appears. It would require significant communication between the cooler and the power supply, so I guess that's why it's reserved for the built-in units.

So, in reality, manually controlling the cooler is what you'll need to do. Now, a very easy thing to do would be to disable weld output if the cooler wasn't on, as a safe guard, and I don't know why Miller didn't add this. You'll just have to remember to turn it back on, and I don't think it will be that hard because you'll get used to it and it will probably become second nature.

Still, a "safe-lock" would have been a good idea on Miller's part, and could be implemented simply by routing the remote connection through the cooler. So the cooler would have a short 14-pin cable to connect to the power supply remote connector, and then your foot/finger controller would connect to a similar connector on the cooler. A water cooled torch can quickly destroy itself if the coolant isn't flowing. Miller?

As far as other manufacturers having Cool-on-Demand type features, I'm not sure so make sure you look around (internet) and see what there is out there. Personally, I'd rather have the Miller cooler and deal with it manually, because it's blue and it has the cool Miller logo on it. Not to mention that I trust Miller to produce exceptional equipment and also help me get it fixed when it goes wrong.

Anyhow, welcome and good luck with your 200DX! You will LOVE it, I'm totally certian.