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Hi,
I am new to the forum and Everlast Welders. I received my Superultra 205 yesterday and have tried out stick and tig features. Great machine and I am very happy!
Question I have though concerning the foot pedal. Is it suppose to just be on or off for the tig or is it suppose to increase and decrease amperage as you rotate it down or up?
Thank you for your help,
Jeff9
Yes it is supposed to ramp your amperage up and down.
Do I need to be actually welding to see the amperage display on the machine change? Reason I ask, I was not welding while depressing the foot pedal and watching the amperage readout. I did not see the amperage fluctuate when I rotated the foot pedal, the reading just showed where I had the amperage set prior to hooking up the foot pedal and didn't change.Quote:
Originally Posted by performance
The arc has to start.
Oh, so the pedal will not change the amperage until the arc starts?
When I got home from work today, I practiced some more on tig welding. I paid attention to the arc while I manipulated the foot pedal. There was no difference in arc size. Next, I turned the amperage knob to 10 amps, started and arc and manipulated the foot pedal, very little arc even with the foot pedal fully depressed. Then I set the amperage to 100 amps, started an arc, manipulated the foot pedal and no change in the arc size.
Next I shielded the arc from my eyes and watched the amp reading on the machine while I manipulated the foot pedal, the reading dropped 2 amps (from 90 to 88) as soon as I started the arc, but no change from 88 no matter the position of the foot pedal.
I took the top off of the foot pedal to see if the gear was rotating the gear on the potentiometer in the foot pedal, and it does.
Using a multimeter, I check OMHs at terminals 3,4,5 on the plug from the foot pedal. Pushing the pedal down, I got 0 to 19k OHMs between 3 & 4. Pushing the pedal down, I got 19k OHMs to 0 between 4 & 5.
What else should I look for or do?
Thank you for the help,
Jeff9
Do you have the rocker switch set to 2T for foot pedal operation ? A picture of the front of your machine always makes it easier to diagnose problems because we can see all the settings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff9
Attachment 11241Hi Zoama, I do not believe the SuperUltra has a 2T switch...Quote:
Originally Posted by zoama585
Assuming you have a seven pin connector, is there continuity between pins 6 and 7?
Is there an amp control on the foot pedal ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff9
No Amp Control knob on this foot pedal... There is pot inside that gets rotated when you depress the pedal.Quote:
Originally Posted by zoama585
Hi Joshuab, yes it is a 7 pin and there is continuity between 6 & 7...Quote:
Originally Posted by joshuab
So I am assuming the machine has a way of sensing that that foot pedal has been attached because there is no switch to switch from panel to foot pedal. I have read on other sites that the best amperage control you can expect from these pedals is 20%. Is this true? maybe that is why I am not seeing a difference in arc size or force?
I would assume that the readout on the panel would show the amperage change as you manipulated the foot pedal...
Are you running with gas?
Hi Mark, yes I am . Argon at 7 liters
On my machine (PA160-STH), it is the continuity between 6-7 that tells the machine that the pedal is attached. I assume yours is the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff9
That's how mine works, and every other TIG welder I've seen, although I haven't seen a huge number. If it were me, the next thing I would be wondering about would be whether the internal plug connecting pins 6-7 to the control board had come loose. In that case, the welder would never detect that the pedal was connected, and would stay in front-panel amps mode.Quote:
I would assume that the readout on the panel would show the amperage change as you manipulated the foot pedal...
I see that Everlast support is commenting here, and I'm sure Mark will have you sorted out in no time.
Thank you Joshuab. I love digging in and figuring mechanical things out, just not right at the git go :)Quote:
Originally Posted by joshuab
Opened up the machine this afternoon and started looking for the obvious.. Nothing standing out like plugs not connected etc. There are two yellow wires come off of terminals 1 & 2 on the male connector mounted on the machine that go to a small circuit board and connect to it by a two prong connector. On the top of this circuit board, there is a second two prong connector with nothing connected to it. 1 & 2 terminals connect to the on/off switch of your foot pedal or finger trigger on the torch. This is working correctly on mine as the foot pedal will start the arc.
The switching between the panel mounted pot and the pot in the foot pedal is what is not working. I am assuming there is a relay not working to switch to the foot pedal pot when the foot pedal is attached. Or, that is not it and they are accomplishing this by the mismatched pots. The pot mounted to the panel is a 1k and the pot in the foot pedal is 22k.
Have no idea and am frustrated. Not been a good experience so far.
Jeff
Please cal my cell phone .. 415 613 6664
Oleg Gladshteyn
Oleg@everlastwelders.com
415 613 6664 cell
I thought all of this was pretty much moot anyway, as you got the wrong welder and it would be swapped? More than likely, since it sounds like there was clearly a mixup, my guess is that is not the right pedal for that machine. I'm sure Oleg will get you all sorted out. I wouldn't waste anymore time with fooling around with a mistake.http://i720.photobucket.com/albums/w.../rs/kd1gyt.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by Jeff9
Well, you are 100% correct, Rambozo... Talked to Oleg and he is sending me a 160 STH. That is what customer service looks like!! I am very grateful!
Hi Oleg,Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff9
Received the 160STH yesterday and tried it out today. Love the foot petal to control the arc!
Thank you again for getting me the correct Machine even though Amazon screwed up the fulfillment!
Kindest regards,
Jeff9
Well, I might have spoken too soon. Love having a foot pedal for Tig operation, but this one is very difficult to adjust max amperage. Just the slightest adjustment on the pot knob located on the pedal, and you go from 85 amps to 160.. May be returning the pedal if I find a better pedal.
I have seen people post going with SSC Controls foot pedal.
Everlast sells it also.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff9
Thank you ZoamaQuote:
Originally Posted by zoama585
Jeff,
I have studied this problem with the max-output pot in some depth. You can find my posts on the topic on this forum with a little searching. In summary, whenever you have two pots wired up like the pedal is, you end up getting some non-linearity in the response. The folks at Everlast have tuned the pedal's max-output dial to be more sensitive at the bottom of the range, since you are more likely to end up wanting to limit max output when working at low amperage.
One way to approach this is to just pretend the max-output pot isn't there when working over about 85-90 amps, and use the pedal for control. Another way to approach it is to wire up an op-amp between the max-output pot and the pedal pot. This should prevent the max-output pot from loading down the pedal pot, however it will require an external power supply, or it will require an op-amp that can run off the power supplied from the welder to the pedal. The welder supplies 2.7 volts to the pedal when on 110v power, and 5 volts when on 220v power. A third approach would be to replace the max-output pot with a different value. This will produce different response curves, and you should do some calculations to be sure that the resulting response of the pedal will work for you.
Regardless, changing to a different pedal won't fix the problem. Most pedals don't have a max-output knob like this. They expect the welder to handle the max-output control, as most of them do.
What I ended up doing for the project is building a box with a microcontroller in it to sit between the pedal and the welder. The box allows for proper max-output control, as well as adding 4T operation and pulsing up to about 30 Hz. The parts for the box run around $200. When I ordered circuit boards, the minimum order was three, so I have two extras that I don't really need. The rest of the parts can be ordered off the Internet. If you are handy with a soldering iron I can provide you with the schematic and some photos, as well as the code to upload to the microcontroller. It's an ambitious project. Even though I've worked out most of the kinks, if you don't have at least some familiarity with electronics and computer programming, you'll probably have problems. But if you're interested, I'm game.
Here's one of the videos I uploaded demonstrating the box in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlcVbCdZVLQ
Another route instead of an op-amp would be to just add an adjustable LDO voltage regulator to lower the incoming 2.7-5 volt reference voltage. Then you would use the max power pot to adjust the voltage. That would not require a power supply and you could switch it out of circuit at the max setting so you would not have any drop out voltage issue. There would a very small step near max power, when you switch it out, but the rest of the range would be totally linear. I bet the whole circuit would be $5 -$10 tops and simple enough to do on perfboard or even point to point on the back of the pot.
Of course just running on 120 for low range and 240 for high range is all I've ever needed, as I don't tend to work with the pedal "floored", but I know some people prefer that.
That's pretty clever. Goes to show how you should always solve the real problem (my max-output knob is non-linear), not the thing that is causing the problem (one pot is loading down another).Quote:
Originally Posted by Rambozo
Joshuab & Rambozo,Quote:
Originally Posted by joshuab
Thank you for the responses. Very cleaver on both your ideas and work! So, if purchasing a higher end pedal won't solve the upper end control, I'll just learn to work with what I have. I really like the 160STH and the value.
Kind regards,
Jeff9