Syncrowave 250 Dx Owners?

[Jetmekdc-10]

Hello,
I am new to this board and have found some good info. I especially like the pics of projects you guys post. I am fairly new to welding and am taking a class in Memphis. I just bought a 250 DX and am looking at the connection charts in the manual. I was curious what tips you guys may have for initial setup. I have 200 amp service in my shop but I am curious if I should straight wire this to a breaker or can I use a plug. I have a 50 amp breaker I use with my mig. Any help would be appreciated.

[paulrbrown]

Jetmekdc-10, welcome to the forum, I straight wired my Synchrowave 250 to the 100 amp breaker, as far as I know, there are not any plugs rated that high, if there are, they cost a bunch. I was advised not to use two 50 amp breakers also, even though I did for a short time. The machine defenitly needs 100 amp service. Hope this helps ya out, you are going to like that big girl....Paul

[Jetmekdc-10]

Thanks for the info. I think I will go ahead and wire it straight to my breaker box. I may try using a heavy enough wire to have ten or fifteen feet of slack. Thanks again

[paulrbrown]

Jetmekdc-10, I believe an 8 guage 3 conductor wire should do ya, but it would not hurt to go to 6 guage, if anybody has any input, please speak up. What does it say in the manual???? Paul

[Jetmekdc-10]

Paul, Thanks for the advice, I am going to use a 100 amp c/b and #6 wire with about 20 feet of length. That should work. Thanks

[Jetmekdc-10]

Coolant Flow

Paul, I got everything up and running. What a difference a quality piece of equipment makes. I have one small problem though. The flow indicator seems to be sticking on the coolant unit or I don't have any coolant flow. The pump is running and it has plenty of fluid. Other than that this machine is really nice, plenty of power. I did some1/4" alum plate that really looked good for a beginner, Thanks, Adam

[Jetmekdc-10]

Tigging 4130

I am building a roll cage for a truck that needs to be able to withstand a hard rollover. I am using 1-3/4" 4130 chrome-moly with a .120" wall. Most of the primary pieces are in place and ready to be prepped and welded. The cost of having this cage built was my only reason to start welding and now I am enjoying welding as much as offroading. Anyways I can tig the 4130 pretty good on the bench but vertical and overhead are going to be tough. I am considering making up about 15 joints and trying to weld them on a straight piece of pipe to practice with. 4130 is not cheap though, Will regular DOM pipe be okay to practice with? I am in a school but we don't start advanced welding until May. Any Help would be appreciated. I tried to post some pics of my roll cage but the site don't like them BIG pics. I'll try to remember how to shrink em, AW

[Bert]

250 Coolant flow problems?

Jetmekdc-10,
Have you found out whether you have coolant flow or not?
Our school last year got a few Sync 350's and they had a recall on the coolant flow (ok guys, don't be calling Miller, maybe we just had 4 bad units.)
Whatever the problem was, they fixed it and everything turned out fine
I never heard of anyone else having problems with it though....

[Anti-GMAW]

Is the coolant system integraited into the machine, or is it a seperate unit? The integraied ones have sever problems over 200 amps. We have over 35 350DX models with integraited coolers and every one avoids them like the plaig. The intagraited coolers only circulate water while welding and it isn't good enough over 200 amps. most people find an external cooler and hook them up instead.

[Jetmekdc-10]

Thanks for the replys, I hav'nt gotten back to the tigging. I've been tied up on a mig job for a few nights. The 250 DX came very highly rated and I hope the flow problem will be easy to fix. I am going to fire it up this week and see what I can find. Thanks

[Jetmekdc-10]

update

Thanks for the help. My cooling unit is integrated in the machine. The flow indicator started working after about an hour of tigging. I have been trying to do some overhead tigging of 4130 tubing. My welding instructor advised be to forget the pedal and use the lift arc feature. It took a while to get the current set right but it does okay til I pull away. The arc starts dancing and messes up my last puddle. I went back to using the pedal and it went much better. A guy here at work suggested rigging up a way to attach the pedal to my foot or getting a hand remote for use when welding out of pos. Thanks, Adam

[paulrbrown]

Sorry I did not see this earlier, I had the same problem with my cool runner, I just pulled the cover off and when I put it back on, did not push it on as far, you might just try tapping it if it acts up again, best regards, I used to do a lot of stick welding on car haulers, the big ones, and I would use the hand remote to set amperages with stick. it worked real slick, sometimes I would also pulse stick. Hope this helps ya, Paul