Modifying a Water Cooled XR-W to Run as a Spoolgun

[jjohn76]

I bought a couple pallets of POWCONs on eBay about 12 years ago for that price and local pickup. That was fun. The Millers have a better return than other welders like the POWCONs and Thermal Arcs (break even territory), but break even or better is good enough for the mental reps. Not sure if you followed...

[jjohn76]

The tig torch type is up to you. I still only have rigid head Tig torches, but I have heard from a lot of folks who like the flexible head or the FlexLocs (the head rotates so you can adjust it to get into whatever spot you need)....

[jjohn76]

Shoot, did I link the wrong one? I pulled it up at some point. Anyways, if you search that site for SLWHAT-25M, you should see the right connector (water cooled gas through dinse 25). I also forgot to link the torch page... The CK torches are great, and you can get a FlexLoc torch for about what you...

[jjohn76]

Was it an XMT 304 or XMT 350? I have rebuilt one XMT 350 and stayed away from any others because those power modules are proprietary and expensive. For the XMT 304's, picking them up for $100-$300 and it cost me between $500-$750 to get them running (a little over a dozen so far). I always replace the...

[jjohn76]

Thank you!...

[jjohn76]

Wow... not sure where to go with that without being there. Is that correct that the inverter gate drive circuit is testing short? Those are the resistors and diodes just above the right power module. Can you post some pictures?

You should be able to find out from Miller Tech support....

[jjohn76]

You could probably do better with CK stuff. TigDepot's prices are the cheapest I could find when looking for a Tig.

Here's the connector:
https://tigdepot.net/cart-products-s...e-25m-3-8-4241

Here are the water cooled torches. The CK2025SF is the 200 amp...

[jjohn76]

That's the only one I remember. The pre-power checks said to do a visual inspection of those items, but I overlooked it on the one I fixed. Those capacitors will usually test ok with a meter, and only show their issues at higher voltages. If you think it's something else that is causing R14 to overheat,...

[jjohn76]

Sounds good! If you mess around with Arduino micrcontroller kits, you could see what's communicated from the main board to the display board and set up your own tester for it, but that gets you even further away from welding with your time...

[jjohn76]

Have you gone through all of the pre-power checks? Make sure you go completely through those. Also, make sure you check the voltage on the capacitors before working on anything. The total bus voltage is over 900VDC (960V if I remember right) with half that across each capacitor. It doesn't sound like...

[jjohn76]

Sorry about that, I thought I grabbed the link with the inline gas fitting. Here's direct from ck worldwide. It's the bottom one, should be the slwhat-25M. If you call them, they'll get you the right setup. The reason for so many lines is your power line is kept cool by the return water, where your...

[jjohn76]

Check this site, though most any should carry it. What you need in addition to a gas lens and water cooled torch is a water cooled Tig torch adapter that connects to a Dinse 25 inline gas fitting. CK is the only one I know that carries the right adapter (CK slwhat-25)

https://www.weldi...

[jjohn76]

R1 and R8 are your bleed resistors, R14 should be your charge/inrush current resistor. You can confirm if it is connected to those input bypass diodes on the left side of the interconnect board and either the + or - bus (can't remember off the top of my head, will need to find my schematic). Does it...

[jjohn76]

Hopefully the issue isn't in the power mods. I drew schematics for the buck/boost auxiliary power circuit and the interconnect board about a year and a half ago, will see if I can find them (two moves ago). Hopefully you won't need them.

[jjohn76]

If you go to Red-d-Arc's website, and navigate through the support section to manuals, they're Extreme 360 is the XMT 350. They have a technical manual available there.

[jjohn76]

Lectrician, use the two wire terminal on the front of the SGA. It looks like two parallel male spade connectors.about.3/16" apart. These should be open when the trigger is not pressed, shorted/closed when it is. These terminals should connect to sockets A and B (or I and J will do the same, but...

[jjohn76]

Something doesn't seem right. Are you trying to connect the contactor control cord or the interconnecting cord to the XMT 304? You should be able to just connect SGA leads 7 and 9 (pins RC3-1 and RC3-2 on connector RC-3) to XMT pins A and B. Pin A provides 24V AC referenced from pin G, and you usually...

[jjohn76]

Yeah, some type of surge makes sense. The display board definitely experienced some type of overvoltage. If the microcontroller is fried, it's tough to replace without a programmer and the original software.

[jjohn76]

Hi, I thought I would share this because I hadn't found a related thread and Miller Tech support told me alot of people had asked over the years, but a solution didn't exist. The Miller XR-W is easy enough to convert to work as a Spoolgun, except for the random water cooled power line with a 1/2-20LH...

[jjohn76]

Sounds good. Guessing the XMT is back up and running?