PA140st arc stability

[Rambozo]

I believe what you say because one of the things that enticed me to buy this model was the lack of much negative stuff on the forums.

I got the new one today (Amazon is AMAZING as far as returns go) and fired it up as fast as I could. This one seems to work much better than the other two. I tried a bunch of stuff at around 20 Amps and it works very well. Unlike the others, I can strike an arc at an indicated 10 Amps, but the duty cycle lamp flashes and the arc goes out. As soon as I increase the current to about 12 on the display it works OK, so it's an improvement but still not "as advertized" performance. I tried some 22 gauge stainless and cannot reduce the current enough to do nice work, big disappointment since that's typically the kind of thing I do. Gotta keep remembering I can't compare it to the Lincoln.....

I have heard several times from tech support that the duty cycle lamp should NOT light at any time other than to indicate over-temperature. If it does then something is wrong. Since the lamp always lights during lift-arc starts, I assumed that was normal (book does not mention this) but should never light otherwise. Since the lamp flashes during low-current operation, I'm sure that the problem is with the lift-arc circuitry.

I'm kind of sick of yappin' about this. Just wish the units would work as they should, but every time I get too picky I remember the price, and being a veteran of the product development business I know that when the money comes out something is traded off. I'll probably keep this one since it does most of what I want and I need the portability.

Thanks to all for the generous help and advice, Neil

You could compare it to a Lincoln, but only to something like an Invertech V155-S

No one has ever mentioned the duty cycle lamp flashing, I do not think that is normal at all. Out of curiosity, have you tried it on 120 volts? I find that for real low amp work, it's much more controllable when running on low voltage. I have added a finger amptrol, and always light up at 10 amps and its very stable. I am wondering just what they changed in the new version. I wasn't expecting it to be a real low amp TIG unit as that is not what it was designed for, but I have been more than pleased with it's performance. On 120v the displayed current was 8 - 9 amps to do this with some .030 MIG wire for filler. Not a great job, but that's more my vision than the machine.