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Miller A/C D/C 330A/SP welder opinions

I have chance at buying a Miller 330A/SP welder. It has a water cooled tig torch, foot pedal,water cooler,and high frequency. I want to use it for mainly tig welding aluminum and steel in my home shop. The current owner has just used it for stick welding and doesn't know how to tig weld. I have alot of tig experience and he has offered to let me try it in tig mode. I know this is an old welder and it will draw alot of amps, but for my home shop I think I can deal with it. Is there anything I should check or watch out for on this welder. Does anyone own one of these or have any experience with this machine? I see alot of these welders around. I know it is prehistoric, but it is about an

1/8 the price of a 250amp new machine. Yes it is single phase and it is 220 voltage so I know I can run it in my shop. Any comment or tips will be appreciated. Thank You
Reply to
r16146
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Reply to
Glenn

We just retired our last one at school. If used hard the high freq should be pretty dead by now, but if he was only stick welding then it may be fine.

Not my first choice for aluminum, but if working well it should do the job, just be careful about getting into an old machine that may need costly repairs.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

Which reminds me...Ernie..Ive been learning to Tig with that AIRCO squarewave 300 I swapped for awhile back. In one of your posts, you indicated your school had had one, and you disliked it because of "wierd wandering arc" IRRC.

Could you explain what difficulties you had with it? This one seems to be every bit as "good" as the Lincoln Tig 250/250 that I also own.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

Reply to
Gunner

The machine we had was made by Mid-States for Airco. It had a bizzar DC arc that would kind of swirl around the tungsten.

I don't miss it one bit.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

Was it this one?

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I wonder if there was something wrong with your particular machine?

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

Reply to
Gunner

Yep that is the same machine, only ours was white and orange.

Don't know, we kicked it to the curb when we got 3 Syncrowave 300s from Boeing.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

The older version then. This is one of the last ones made.

Interesting. I wonder if they corrected the problem in the later models, or yours was a fluke.

the manual isnt still kicking around anywhere by any chance is it?

Thanks

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years, the world has a long way to go to regain its credibility and reputation with the US." unknown

Reply to
Gunner

I'll look.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

I have one, it's a nice old machine. Like your current owner, I only use it for stick, and only tested it on TIG. I run it on a 50amp breaker in my garage versus the 100amp breaker the manual recommends. I did some repair work on it, it is one of the more complicated welders, with lots of wires, relays, rectifiers, and connections. I didn't wire it up per the manual to avoid high frequency leakage so I suspect it would interfere with the neighbor's television reception if I turned the HF on continuous. I've cranked it up quite a ways (sorry no firm numbers) and have never tripped the 50amp breaker. One of my favorite old welders. Good luck.

Reply to
John

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