Welder advice needed - nearly new Clarke 151te or 22 year old Migatronic Rally 166?

[Bonzo]

Hi Adrian

Yes may well be worth a punt if the price is right

My old Cebora.

A few years back the wire feed knob was getting a bit temperamental ( Feeding wire flat out )

I traced this fault to the welders potentiomer on the PCB, the body of it had started to come apart.
No problem, I de-soldered the pot, cleaned it up, re clamped it & soldered it back onto the PCB.
This sorted things out for a few years & the welder was fine again.

Last year the problem came back again, no problem I thought " Time I changed that potentiometer for a nice new one "
Bough a new long stemmed pot ( Same value as the old one )
Fitted it but alas the problem was still there but with a slight improvement in wire speed control but not good enough really.

Saw a welder PCB repair service advertised & sent the board off for repair.
When It finaly came back, rushed out to re-fit the board just to find that the welder did not work at all !!??

There were only a few components that were changed on the board when it was supposedly repaired, 1 IC chip & 2 Power transistors.
After lots of research I found that the IC chip had been put in the wrong way round
Replaced it with a new one & the welder was working once again but the wire feed speed controll was extremley sensitive ( Slow to full with just the tinyest turn of the knob, not at all right really )

Welder is useable if you are working on thick plate at the top end of its amp range but more or less useless for sheet metal work.

Went to our main Cebora dealer ( BOC ) & was told it would need a new PCB as they do not do repairs to them, then said it was unlikely that they could find a replacement due to the welders age !!

Had a look at the new Cebora 180 whilst I was at BOC, £499 + Vat, I then compared it to the Lincoln Powertec 191C priced at £599 +Vat

Taken by the build quality of the lincoln Powertec a short haggle later & it was loaded up in the jeep & on its way to a very well deserving home
Very pleased with it to say the least.

My old Cebora was put away in my top shed to gather dust.

Don't even know if there even such thing as a reliable PCB repair service, gave up looking when I bought the new welder.

Thought about stripping it for spares to put on ebay but will never probably get round to it.
Could stick the whole thing on Ebay as spares or repair, dont think in all honestly that I can bring myself to sell anything I know to be faulty in any way

[adrianreeve]

You have a pm Ronnie!

[Bonzo]

Replied Adrian

[baz-r]

get the migatronic thay are great welders i used to sell and you can get most of the parts for them even the rally166 and as far as i can remember thay only droped that model a few years ago
the transformer is the main part as long as that is ok almost everything else is replacable
way better than any clark hobby units