I hope you have better luck than I (I could use a little too)

I just thought you swinging fabricators might want to know: I am on my second miller passport. 1st passport started developing erratic wire feeding after 5 minutes generating an erratic arc. I thought maybe its just supersensitive to a really straight cable. Either the friction was too loose .030 and #2 clamp pressure(and still erratic) or it would grind to a halt(#3 clamp pressure). The motors in them are EXTREMELY weak. I decided to test it on 240v with .035 solid on 4" pipe at full voltage and I think 50 % wire speed. The most bacony setting would quickly become erratic. When the cooling fan ran, the arc would seriously destabilize. As usual, lightened up wire clamp then gently retightened to 2-3. After running a single 6" bead, the welder would feed the wire, but when it touched the metal, it would just glow red, then stop feeding and dim. No temp light ever came on. I took it back to b&r where I got it, and when he tried to run it with no wire, the drive refused to turn at all. So miller sent a new one. Got it home, unpacked the machine, unspooled and rewrapped 50 ft of 035 by hand to ensure an easy feed. Set the clamp pressure to #3, almost impossible out of the box to get it to 'curl' on wood. Very, very weak drive motor. The spool would turn very easy by hand too. Got it the set for clamp force the lightest that would feed cosistently. Ran 2 6" weld beads on the 4" pipe and then she just stopped. Just like the first time, no temp light ever came on. Ever since, when you pull the trigger you get preflow of co2 for 1/2 second, but no feed at all. 12" into the fist bead out of the box. Unit #2. Also, I bought a maxstar 150 sth a while back. I love it, but... When I first got it, I noticed that if you had the amperage set low, say 30 amps for 1/16" 6011, strke an arc and then stop the weld and up the amperage, it wouldn't let you without rebooting the unit and starting again at a higher initaial amperage. Mark Cadillac at Miller said that this was a design flaw in the hardware and the the new units shipping in Dec 04, 3 months later for me, would be upgraded and that they would replace the unit under warranty then. In January I called back to have this 'silent recall' procedure done because I could not run UTP48 aluminum rod. The instant the rod touched the metal, the power light would flash requiring a reboot. I was then told that this 'power light flashing' problem was the other reason for the 'recall' and was fixed in the new units. So I sent the maxstar back to Miller and they sent me a new one. But the 'new' one is NO DIFFERENT than the old one. Same "unchangeable low initaial amp setting problem" and the same "power light flashing problem with UTP48". So its back to b&r, two hours away, with the passport #2 (established life span 12" at 80% power), and I'll have to contact Miller all over again and find out why the returned unit is not an 'upgraded' unit. I now no longer expect to get a working passport, so if they replace it, on ebay it goes. The Maxstar can't be beat for 115v steel stick welding efficiency, so I'll keep it no matter what. But it would be nice to be able to run UTP48 problem free like on every other inverter I've run the rod with. A fistfull of 6011 and utp48 is a lot easier to carry around than an argon tank and regulator. Just figured I ought to let people know so they won't feel so screwed if they don't have better luck than I. Ben Woodward snipped-for-privacy@benwoodward.com