Servicing your welder

Well, by now, if you’ve had a month or two of use on your welder, you should start to think about servicing your welding unit. It’s a critical part of protecting, and prolonging unit life. The most important part of servicing any unit is blowing it out. Yes, that’s right, it’s normal to open up your welding unit on a regular basis and blow it out.  It’s time to inspect things for overheating, rubbing, and general condition.  We’ve seen several cases where people failed to maintain their unit and that was the primary cause of failure. Grinding metal too close to the unit while it was running was the major cause. Welding too close so that sparks are ingested into the machine is another.  In fact, when the fan blades have a buildup of metallic particles that weigh down the blades and eventually cause them to snap while rotating, demonstrates the lack of service and routine maintenance any brand of welder requires for operation. This has happened, and when the service center conducts their initial diagnosis, the lack of service is readily apparent. A light film of metal fragments and dust are clearly visible on the boards. All this metallic dust can cause shorts and erratic operation as they can disrupt the normal path of electricity through transistors, diodes, and resistors. Given enough buildup, they can even discharge capacitors, and overload circuits. A monthly service is recommended for all of our products, if being used frequently.  A routine inspection should occur regardless, quarterly, as dust can settle within the unit without being sucked into the machine.  Should you have problems or questions in regards to servicing your welding unit, give us a call.