2010 200DX HF start not working

Hi I have a older 2010 200DX that has been working great for a while. Lately the HF start has not been working well, it is hit or miss working about three out of every 10 start attempts. Lift start works great and I know about the postflow so I am waiting for that to time out. I can hear the HF and see all kinds of sparks just no fire to start the arc. I have read and heard about adjusting the spark gap which requires taking the cover off but I cannot seem to find any real information. Hoping someone could help.:confused:

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Originally Posted by mbppg

Hi I have a older 2010 200DX that has been working great for a while. Lately the HF start has not been working well, it is hit or miss working about three out of every 10 start attempts. Lift start works great and I know about the postflow so I am waiting for that to time out. I can hear the HF and see all kinds of sparks just no fire to start the arc. I have read and heard about adjusting the spark gap which requires taking the cover off but I cannot seem to find any real information. Hoping someone could help.:confused:

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They are on the left side looking from the front (US passenger side). You can unplug the unit, let it sit for 5 minutes, pop the cover and check the gap. .025 to .030 is all you need.

If you are not sure, call into tech support and someone will walk you though it.

Welcome to the forum mbppg.

Thanks Mike, I will take a look tonight when I get home from work. I love this welder but I was getting fustrated last night trying to finish up a frame build.


M J, thanks for the welcome, glad to be here.

Okay got home and took the cab apart. The points were opened and dirty. I touched them up with a small jewellers file (like old points on a car) and set the gap to .028. It worked great. However I discovered that taking off the front panel is not the proper way to take apart the cabinet. I had buttoned it all back up and the HF worked fine but the torch was not shutting off and the gas continued to run. I tried again and it did the same thing. I knew something was wrong so this time I back cabinet panel off carefully because I knew that some of wires attached to the front panel where a little tight. After a quick inspection I saw a red wire had broken away from the Post Flow pot causing the gas to stay on. I carefully re-soldered the wire back onto the potentiometer and carefully put the plastic front panel back on and them reassembled the rest of the cabinet. Recheck...now everything is working great again. So if you have to do this procedure on the older model (2010) just take the back panel off to remove the cover so you don't break any wires like I did. I hope this helps someone else in the future, thanks for your help Mike R!

Mike B.

We have not had this issue for sometime. I should have mentioned, take the back off. Glad you are up and running.