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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
    Posts
    6,446

    Default If you are thinking about a cheap Chinese Welder

    Let the buyers beware.Watch this and learn some of the tricks they get up to. Yes they are not all bad,but the bad ones are lulu's.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EepQGNvzc40


    Grahame

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
    Location
    Burleigh heads QLD
    Age
    29
    Posts
    114

    Default

    drunken ebay purchases are a serious problem of mine, I feel this mans pain

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
    1,322

    Default

    Hmm. Apart from the lack of an earth and poor insulation from the casing, both which could be easily fixed, the only real problem with the machine is questionable design choices and lack of filtering on the output.

    It would have been more useful to fix the safety concerns and then test the welder out to see how it performed, and if and when it did fail, look at where that actually occurred, rather than speculating about it.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    melbourne
    Posts
    341

    Default

    i replaced some FRED diodes on my own welder. Even though it was only a year old, I couldn't get the same diode and had to find an equivalent. The best i could get had one terminal as a heatsink, where the original was all epoxy and insulated. So i wanted to get some Mica washers to isolate the replacement diodes from my big heatsink so they wouldn't be shorted out, but all i could get was a pack of 50 heatsink washers from radio spares for $50. instead they had some thin paper washers which claimed to be high spec voltage 600V, and puncture resistant etc. I felt a bit ripped off when I got 10 bits of 1" x 1" paper, just like you peel off the back of a sticky label, for $15. however, its supposed to be very high tech and modern compared to mica. Has lasted 4 years of a lot of work now. Looked a whole lot like that sheet of insulation they used on the welder there, so we may be too quick to judge it. I also think what he calls a switching transformer, will have fine wire behind the cellophane as the primary, and the secondary is the dark heavier enamelled round wire. it looks to me like the wide light copper coloured strap round the same transformer is actually the output filter, ie the feed to the output terminal. And I think there are C's around there too, so i think there is an output filter. There is a comment under his video from someone who has the same welder, saying there are clear instructions to earth the case on the back. He replaced the two wires with a normal three wire mains cable. he said it works perfectly for him. I think what you get for $90 is amazing. you couldn't buy the components for anything like $90, how they do it beats me. My big complaint about working on these things is they are not designed to be taken apart easily. on my own, they had well constructed PCB's, but obviously had modified the design on the fly to use cheaper components that wre available that week and there were fly wires going off all over the place with no connectors, ie they were soldered on. They also seem to use components that are uncommon and very hard to find specs for so you can get replacement ones. Well, that was my experience anyway.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Far West Wimmera
    Age
    63
    Posts
    4,049

    Default

    $90? I haven't checked recently, but is the Pound that bad? Just checked and it is $1.65. That makes 95 Pound = $A157.00

    I wondered about that "paper" insulation. It tore in straight lines and not all that easily.

    It wasn't as bad as I expected, from an amateur point of view.

    Dean

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    melbourne
    Posts
    341

    Default

    No, you are right. Just shows I should keep my mouth shut seems I'm always making mistakes these days I dont say its a good welder and I think using the very coil that is making noise for your output filter seems particularly cheapskate but it can be surprising what cheap thinking can achieve.

    BT used to push expensive fibreglass snakes tthrough their conduits and pull back a rope to then pull through cables. Cheap contractors inflated a cheap carrier bag and tie it to a rope and used one of those big compressors to blow it through the conduit. Very cheapskate and unprofessional but saved them loads of time.

    It would be surprising to see 200 amps through that welder though. Mabye if you connected the output to the mains

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Far West Wimmera
    Age
    63
    Posts
    4,049

    Default

    It is not a welder I would like to own.

    Cheap contractors inflated a cheap carrier bag and tie it to a rope and used one of those big compressors to blow it through the conduit. Very cheapskate and unprofessional but saved them loads of time.
    Why is it unprofessional? If it works? I have tried this a couple of times, but my compressor was not good enough.

    Mabye if you connected the output to the mains
    Years ago I asked a salesman what the PMPO power rating on cheap stereos meant. I liked his response. Running flat out, it is the power put thru the speakers in the split second before they go POOF, when the unit is hit with a huge lightening bolt. It was in reality a completely false and unrealistic rating that could never be attained by the unit in question.

    Dean

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