Yes indeed. Not content with a solitary TIG200PACDC TIG welder, I've gone for the matching pair. ie the MIG200 sister unit. There was an additional "11.11" discount on Aliexpress (as in 11th November, although 11 doesn't seem to be a lucky number in China).
Including the promotional coupon (20 Euros), the bottom line was 264 Euros (about £220), plus £47 Forward2me forwarding costs (via UPS) and £68 Brexit tax (including opportunistic "admin" charge from UPS) ie £335 delivered. Could be worse - although it would have been closer to £200 than £300 were it not for the self-inflicted idiocy of Brexit.
Let's open up the box and see what we've got this time around:
It seems to be ready and present. But why is the torch lead stuffed down the side of the box? In the various Youtube reviews, it was packed safely away inside the unit where the wire reel and wire drive are located. Perhaps the Forward2me team removed it when checking the constant - and forgot to replace it when repacking?
Whoopee - yet another stick welding electrode holder. It's unlikely I will use this machine for stick welding. I have 2 other machines for doing that but so what - it will go on the shelf with the others for now.
Now let's check out the machine itself.
For fuck's sake. This one has taken a side swipe too. That's 2 out of 2 that have been damaged in transit. As noted above, the torch was stuffed down this side of the box, so it didn't take much to stove the side in. I don't imagine Arc Captain actually shipped it like this, although I will put the damage down to the (evidently talentless) clots at UPS. Again.
Luckily it's not actually creased any of the metalwork. Once released from the hinge feature, the sheet metal side panel sprung back into position.
There is some slight discolouration of the black baseplate by the red powder coated side panel where they rubbed. It doesn't want to come off easily, so best left alone. Could be worse.
Here's the rear panel. No surprises there, although the gas connection is a hose nipple rather than the quick release connector type used on the TIG machine.
And the nameplate / ratings label:
Again, it sports the CE mark (it's sold in the EU, where I got this one), as well as the stupid, pointless (and now obsolete) UKCA mark, even though it's not (currently) sold in the UK.
I'll remove that pull-off film shortly.
Let's get the cover off and see what's hidden inside. The TIG unit looked pretty well constructed to me - hopefully this one is similar. Need to remove this handle as well as remove the panel screws. Used some masking tape to remove the covers without causing any damage:
Aha - there we go. Very similar construction to the TIG unit ie front panel HMI board and a couple of other PCBAs, one for control and the other for power conversion.
This is a bit surprising - loads of 1206 resistors. You don't see those much these days. That suggests to me that it's perhaps an old design. Have to admit I didn't look closely at that QFP package to see what micro they have used.
Here's the front panel that does the HMI interface bit:
And the wire feed motor / reducer gearbox:
Input socket etc. It appears to have a half decent ground connection to the chassis:
There are 2 toroidal cores on the power board. Presumably the larger one is the power transformer and the smaller one will be the output filter inductor.
Here's the block schematic from the manual. It's a simple half bridge forward converter. No output inductor shown here but you'd be wanting one on a good day:
Internal power supply transformer:
That black screen is a plastic insulator. Peeling it back reveals the underside of the board. Looks pretty neat and tidy.
And the bottom line is that (unlike the TIG unit) it actually works without needing any repairs to the damaged internals. And yes, it responds to the torch switch.
There are 3 types of roller supplied:
- V-groove for steels
- U-groove for aluminium
- Knurled for flux cored (steel) wire.
I doubt I will ever use the U roller, as aluminium doesn't seem to play well with long MIG torch leads. Besides, I also bought the Arc Captain 200A spool gun, which is a better choice when it comes to loominum MIG welding. More on that to follow....
Here's the manual for the MIG200 and for the TIG200PACDC.
All in all - pretty unimpressed that UPS have managed to fuck up both shipments from Germany to the UK - that's a 100% damage rate. Possibly also not overly impressed that F2M most likely repacked the torch cable where it was able to be compressed when this package was stacked in transit, without which, UPS might have been able to abuse it without damaging the machine.
Apart from that, pretty happy so far, albeit without having fired it up yet.
