Old Miller TIG - Can I use my 212 (not autoset) As a Power Source

What did you do. Just throw a giant rectifier on it?

now , but I've never used it for anything but TIG . It does that much better than I'm capable of ... one of these days I'm going to make up a spot welding contact set and try that , but for MIG and stick I'll just use the Lincolns .

I put a 15A Powerstat (=Variac) on the input and a 100A rectifier and

78000uF/75V cap on the output, plus series and shunt diodes to protect the cap from the 12V or 24V battery being charged, and meters, breakers and a fan. The Powerstat adjusts the battery charging current.

The transformer's current / voltage relationship is fine for bulk charging a heavily discharged battery because the current holds nearly steady as the battery charges, but it needs a separate voltage limiter like a solar panel controller to stop the voltage rise as the battery nears the gassing range.

It's a pretty good power source for this regulator when I need better current and voltage control:

I bought the Powerstat at a flea market. I don't think this 24V battery charger project is worth the price of a new one and it isn't very useful without it. I wanted a variable high power supply without an output regulator that could be destroyed by accident, such as connecting it backwards to a battery.

-jsw

What the heck does that mean? I have two bottles on my MIG. One is Argon one is C25. They are both mounted and hooked up. They are both "MIG" gas. Just for different metals. LOL.

And for aluminum with MIG or TIG.

The unit simply was not generating high frequency at all. Once I managed to get an arc started it was a really nice arc. Just couldn't get it to start at the lower current I wanted to run.

I was a communications contractor for a couple decades. I got tired of teaching people how to use the keypad on their alarm or coming back to reprogram their phone system again when they screwed it all up. I get it.

To be fair, before I started this thread I really didn't know the difference between CC machines and CV machines and why one was used over another. I am not a welder. Its just something I do because the local welding shops typically take 3-4 months to get to any job I take to them even when they tell me 2 weeks. Especially if they tell me 2 weeks. LOL. By the time they get to my job they have forgotten exactly what I wanted done so they just do what they want.

I do not have a push pull gun. I have a spoolgun for aluminum. It does ok from .125 to .250. .080 can be done with some care, and .375 requires massive preheat. I want to be able to weld the lighter stuff easier. Hence my delving into the mysteries of TIG.

Well at the moment it doesn't do HF, but it lists information about HF in the manual and it has a frequency adjustment knob on the front of the box. When I have some time to play again I'll open it up and poke around with a dead stick to see what I find.

Greetings Bob, That unit looks like it has a control that is very similar to my old Miller Gold Star. If that little knob on the right is the high frequency adjustment then I suspect that the internals are also similar to my old machine. I have had trouble over the years with the high freq. There is a relay that turns the high freq. off after an arc is established when welding DC. I have had to fiddle with this relay more than once to get it to work properly. There are also a couple sets of spark gap points in the HQ circuit. They may need to be cleaned and adjusted. There is also a high voltage capacitor that can cause problems. In any case I have found the old Miller machines to have weak HQ compared to machines like Lincolns. So even when it is working properly it is sometimes hard to get an arc started after the electrode has welded some. I think it's because of a thin oxide coat on the tungsten. When this happens I just tap or scrape the un-energized tungsten tip lightly on the work. And then I pull it away from the work and step on the pedal. If you do get TIG capability you will love it once learn to use it. Really versatile. Eric