Oh no! could the end be coming for my beloved Super 160P?

[Spike]

I bought my Super 160P back at the end of 2007, and it has served me quite faithfully as the only tig welder in my shop, but in the last year it's been starting to have problems. =/

It started with my footpedal dying, which was sad because i had 'customized' the first one and installed a potentiometer in the case to limit the top end value it would feed to the welder (making it like a peak current knob right on the side of the footpedal).
So i cannibalized another pedal i had laying around and made it work.

next a cooling fan went out, also not a terribly big problem, i had some 110v cooling fans, and so i installed them to the outside of the case blowing in (rather than being mounted inside the case sucking air in). Since the fans i used were really high quality, it actually made the welder run cooler, and the extra airflow from moving the fans outside of the case made the welder run cooler as well.

Then the gauge on the regulator blew out last month. Again... not really a big deal, i got a replacement, and now this one is in PSI instead of KPa, and it's a large face gauge and i can read it from across the shop.

Now the digital display on the face has died. the other led's still work, i think it's just the display.

Could my welder be nearing the end of it's life? What do you think? Was the old Super 160 ever meant to last this long in regular duty?

[Mr120]

The first three things you mentioned had moving parts so I can see those eventually failing under regular use like they did. Maybe you can get a replacement LED display? Sounds like a real workhorse so if you can keep it going a bit longer ....

[Mike J]

It sounds like this welder has paid for itself - > I would price out the replacement cost for the LED and then do the math, anticipating the same sort of pace of repairs vs. a new updated model with a 5 year. warranty. Do a worse/best case analysis and make the decision..

You can always get the welder going and sell it on craigslist, and then get a new one, given its part of your business and you want to avoid downtime.

Cheers,

Mike

[Rambozo]

Not likely that the LED display itself is the problem. More likely is the chip that drives it, if you lost all segments at once. A lot depends on the design. It may be that the display and driver are housed on a board that can be easily swapped out.

[jakeru]

No reason it couldn't go for very many years, IMO, provided you had the interest in maintaining it as needed. Everlast support has been helpful for supporting my machine (e.g., helping to obtain any needed replacement parts) so I'd recommend trying them first. If you don't want to be without your machine for very long, and are somewhat handy with electronics, you might be well off to diagnose and repair the problem yourself.

I have a 2007 Super200P that's probably at least somewhat similar to your Super160P. The digital current readout on my Super200P seems to have a small circuit board built into the back of it, which appears to connect to the rest of the machine with just four wires (red, black, yellow, and green.) It probably takes an analog signal and drives the LED segments based on it. You can see this small circuit board in the attached photo on mine is covered with hot glue:


If you knew the general specifications for it (e.g., what voltages are supposed to be present on which wires during normal operation of the machine), you might be able to diagnose whether the problem exists in this board using a multimeter, by testing for the presence of expected voltages going to this board.

If I had to just make a wild guess though, I'd guess that black and red wires are the power supply (with black being ground and red being some constant voltage source), and the signal reaches the board across the green and yellow wires (e.g., a voltage that varies based on the machine's welding current).

----

If you wanted to revert the cooling fans back to the original "internal" design, I found a photo I took showing the make and model numbers of the fans of my Super200P that might be useful for ya:


I never got the Chinese flowmeter working reliably on mine, and pretty much upgraded it right away to a quality, brass, cfm-reading unit; never looked back. As for a pot going out in the footpedal, those live a pretty hard life, and upgrading to a very high quality replacement will probably go a long way towards making it last much longer.

As far as new machine purchases go, the main feature I think you could add is extra amps, which could be useful if you weld much thick aluminum. (You don't have a Helium mix at your disposal, do you? That's an alternative approach.) I'd say it wouldn't make sense to upgrade unless you are going to probably a full 250 amp unit, and that would also probably mean watercooling. If you upgrade it could still be worth fixing your old mahcine up, either to have as a "back up", or to sell as a well maintained, properly functioning machine.

[geezer]

I get the impression that Spike is about to get a new welder,,,it's hard to watch new products being developed and not want to have a new shinny one to play with,,the old 160P is repairable,,,question is will it be repaired or have a new one for company beside it ,,,I'm thinking a new one is coming to the shop...

[Spike]

I get the impression that Spike is about to get a new welder,,,it's hard to watch new products being developed and not want to have a new shinny one to play with,,the old 160P is repairable,,,question is will it be repaired or have a new one for company beside it ,,,I'm thinking a new one is coming to the shop...

I have been considering a trade...
Someone wants to trade me some custom fabbed chopper stuff for a big water cooled 355 amp Lincoln setup.

[Spike]

No reason it couldn't go for very many years, IMO, provided you had the interest in maintaining it as needed. Everlast support has been helpful for supporting my machine (e.g., helping to obtain any needed replacement parts) so I'd recommend trying them first. If you don't want to be without your machine for very long, and are somewhat handy with electronics, you might be well off to diagnose and repair the problem yourself.

It's been a good little welder to me so far, i've actually had less problems out of it than i had out of the miller syncrowave that i used to use. The control board went out twice in that thing.

If you wanted to revert the cooling fans back to the original "internal" design, I found a photo I took showing the make and model numbers of the fans of my Super200P that might be useful for ya:

Those are the exact fans that are in my 160. They aren't really special, just easy little 220v fans with a standard frame size. My external fans are actually mounted with the same bolt holes in the case as the original fans. But really they work a lot better, and since they were higher quality fans, they run a lot quieter, too. My welder used to over-heat and shut off when i was doing full-power aluminum welding, but with the new fans it hasn't been an issue. The temperatures inside the case (especially around the FETs) have dropped dramatically.

I never got the Chinese flowmeter working reliably on mine, and pretty much upgraded it right away to a quality, brass, cfm-reading unit; never looked back. As for a pot going out in the footpedal, those live a pretty hard life, and upgrading to a very high quality replacement will probably go a long way towards making it last much longer.

My flowmeter works really well, i have to say it was a lot better than i expected. I was completely expecting to have to buy a new one right after the first test, but it's held on like a trooper this whole time.

[Spike]

Not likely that the LED display itself is the problem. More likely is the chip that drives it, if you lost all segments at once. A lot depends on the design. It may be that the display and driver are housed on a board that can be easily swapped out.

I'm not actually worried about the digital display. It's a 'cute' feature on these models, as all it does it display the current welding/plasma cutting amps. The only time i used it was to figure out which knob on the face controlled the plasma cutters power output. Other than that, your welding hood is down and the display is unreadable anytime that it isn't reading "000".
I'm thinking the controller board died on it.
What i'm worried about is if the controller board for the display is part of the same board that controls something else important that might be about to go out.

[Spike]

Definitely the controller circuit on the led display... Since it magically started working again today. If the display itself were the problem it would die and stay dead. :/

[Rambozo]

Definitely the controller circuit on the led display... Since it magically started working again today. If the display itself were the problem it would die and stay dead. :/

Sounds more like a loose connection or dirty plug. Once the magic smoke leaves a chip it doesn't often return.
Also you could look for cracked/cold solder joints, but my money is on the connectors. A little oxide cleaner can work wonders on things in a dirty shop environment.

[everlastsupport]

Sounds like a loose connector here too. One a IC chips that might need a little push. Corrosion is a bad thing, I know for me it is. Also, grinding and spatter, dust. All flying around and the large cooling fan will pull it inside the machine is any floats in front of it. If you pop the cover to check the plugs, see if it might need a little compressed air too.

[agent4573]

Spike,

Anyway you can post up details about how you modified the foot pedal? I really like the idea of having an adjustable max output for the pedal and really want to do it to mine. Even a pinout for the connector would be ok and I could take it from there. Thanks.

[Spike]

I've been looking and trying to find it. but I seen to have misplaced my old pedal, I think I may have lost it in the move. I'll work out what I did again and then post it for you. I didn't change anything in the pedal outside of just wiring in the new pot and drilling a hole for the knob to come out the side.