There is a place local to me that is selling 6 Miller/Airco 330 A/BP TIG/stick welders. I'm assuming they are 1980s vintage from the look of them. They are asking for $375 for them. Is there a way I could test them to see if they are decent, or things to look for.
Also, as somebody who does mainly MIG and some stick, would this be a good machine to learn TIG on? They need 100 Amps single phase to power them, so I can run them.
I'm going to call my local Airco store and see if they even carry parts for them.
My local Airco called Miller and got back the answer that they still cary "Most major parts".
And I gave them a call. The units are bare, no torch or cables for that price, though they said they can add them on. They also said they are guaranteed, and they have checked them out. I didn't ask how long they are guaranteed for though. And since they are local, they can deliver it with a lift-gate truck, so I don't have to try and figure out transportation for an 830# welder. Probably run in the ballpark of another $50.
If anybody else wants to chime in too, I wouldn't mind. I've added r.c.m, since there are pretty good tool scrounges there too. Oh, and if anybody else is interested, they have 5 more units at the same price.
They are worth about $1 per lb. in copper scrap, as is. I am not a big fan of 330 AB/P's. Yes they work ok for DC tig, but at that age the high freq. units are pretty old and tired, so AC tig is iffy at best.
They never had great low amperage control, and while "most major parts" are available, they are not cheap. The screw in fuse for the foot pedal tends to blow at really inconvenient times, and the rotary switches can burn out.
For scrap value that is a great deal. Buy them strip them and sell the copper.
There is about 400 lbs of copper in each one. If you strip the copper out you get more like $3 per lb. for the scrap. So for an investment of under $1200 you can get about $3600 for the copper. Use the $2400 profit to buy a brand new Miller Syncrowave 200 TIG.
In sci.engr.joining.welding Ernie Leimkuhler wrote: (snip)
Well, considering one of the plans for this was to well 20-22ga stainless, that lets me know that it probably isn't a good unit for that.
Well, that was about twice the amount of copper I was expecting in it. However as was pointed out downthread, spot price of copper is in the $1.80/lb range, and pretty volatile right now. Talking to my local copper scrounge, I'd be luckey to get $1.50/lb for bare bright copper, and selling the copper burned clean, (which I'm not supposed to do) I'd get about $1/lb. Kind of takes the profit out of it. 3 months ago, I would have jumped at this, even with the work involved.
Not at the moment. I've got my eye also on a local pickup only auction for a Lincoln Square Wave 175 with pedal and torch. However the reserve is probably over what I can afford right now. If not, I'm going to try for that. I just need to knucle down and start turning out more damascus steel seam-rippers. They go like hotcakes, and about 30-45 of them should pay for a decent TIG rig.
I really appreciate the heads-up and the commentary. Your experince, and your willingness to share it has really helped me, and I'm sure quite a few other people here. Todd
I can't directly compare the two, but I can tell you that the Syncrowave
250 is a fantastic machine and does not have the problems Ernie noted with such things as low amp control. I'm not sure what the real rating on that 330 is, but the Syncrowave 250 will do more than 250A, the panel control goes to 310A. The 250 rating comes from a 40% duty cycle spec.
The Aircrafter has a max output of 450 amps, and needs a 150 amp breaker if run from 220 volt power. That is pretty damn big.
Other than that, it has similar output controls to an older analog Syncrowave 250, but the Syncrowave maxes out at 310 amps, and only needs a 90 amp breaker. They are both square wave machines, so they will both be fine on aluminum.
Neither has an easy pulser solution. Miller makes a pulser unit that plugs inline with the foot pedal, but they charge a fortune for it.
I love Syncrowaves, about 5 years back I traded in my analog Syncrowave
250 for a digital Syncrowave 250DX. I wanted the pulser and sequencer.
At South Seattle we had one Syncrowave 250, two 351's and three older
300's. All were nice machines. The 351 I got from Boeing Surplus had all the bells and whistles and was my favorite teaching machine.
Squarewave 175's are nice machines. We had 2 at South Seattle, and I was impressed with the quality of the AC arc on aluminum. I don't usually push red machines, but they are nice units.
Yes, but Iggy like electronic projects, and building a pulser / sequencer to simulate the foot pedal switch and pot isn't particularly complicated. I've been considering building one myself, and I seem to recall seeing at least one such design on the net somewhere.
I do not think that it can be done over a weekend, the pulse has four pots, four switches, a inlet and receptacle, etc. But I agree that the parts would not cost that much.
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