MTS211Si not feeding wire

[mts211si]

I've had my MTS211Si for a few months and have several total hours of use on it in all three modes. I'm in the middle of a new project and noticed the mig wire wasn't feeding, but it started working and I figured I was missing something. While tacking things together there was some strange behavior and sputtering now and again but I ended up finished up for the night. Today I went back into the shop and the welder wouldn't feed at all. I took off the cover and looked for obvious loose connections with no luck. When pulling the trigger, the solenoids click and gas flows but there was no voltage to the drive motor. I kept at it and every once in a while it would turn a bit and then stop and go again. When this was happen I measured voltage at the motor and it would jump around and then go to zero when it would stop turning. It usually doesn't work at all though. Power cycling and switching between the modes does not seem to help.

Any advice? I need to get this fixed quickly so I can finish up this project. Thanks in advance.

[Rambozo]

Trace the wires from the motor back and reseat any plugs on the board that it goes to. Really sounds like intermittent connection problem. Usually if digital goes bad, it's all or nothing deal. You could also look for cracked or cold solder joints on the output transistors that make up the driver for that motor. That kind of thing can work when warmed up, but then not work when cold.

[TheGary]

I had the same problem with my MTS250S. What happened with mine is the wire conduit in the gun was arcing and I had to put in a new liner. Then it did it again in just a few minutes of use. I opened up my door to the wire and saw that the power terminal had gotten hot because it was blackened . I took the cover off the machine and the wire inside that connected to that terminal was loose and alowed the terminal to get hot and arc. So I had to put in a second gun liner and cleaned the turminal and tightened it up good. I called Ray at Everlast repairs and he wanted pictures of the damaged terminal so while I had it out to clean it up I took pictures and emailed them to Ray. He said that he had to get the parts from china because it is not something they have needed to keep in stock. He said it would take about a month, that was 6 weeks ago and I have not heard anything from him. I put mine back together with the old parts that had been cleaned and it has been working all right. I asked Ray if that would cancil my warranty and he said no. I hope this helps.

[mts211si]

Trace the wires from the motor back and reseat any plugs on the board that it goes to. Really sounds like intermittent connection problem. Usually if digital goes bad, it's all or nothing deal. You could also look for cracked or cold solder joints on the output transistors that make up the driver for that motor. That kind of thing can work when warmed up, but then not work when cold.

Thanks, I'll try to see if there is any bad solder on the driver circuit. When I did the voltage measurements described above, it was done at the back of the board behind the connector to the motor. This was done to take the wiring out of the equation, and prove that it was an issue with controlling the motor and not the wiring or motor itself.

I had the same problem with my MTS250S. What happened with mine is the wire conduit in the gun was arcing and I had to put in a new liner. Then it did it again in just a few minutes of use. I opened up my door to the wire and saw that the power terminal had gotten hot because it was blackened . I took the cover off the machine and the wire inside that connected to that terminal was loose and alowed the terminal to get hot and arc. So I had to put in a second gun liner and cleaned the turminal and tightened it up good. I called Ray at Everlast repairs and he wanted pictures of the damaged terminal so while I had it out to clean it up I took pictures and emailed them to Ray. He said that he had to get the parts from china because it is not something they have needed to keep in stock. He said it would take about a month, that was 6 weeks ago and I have not heard anything from him. I put mine back together with the old parts that had been cleaned and it has been working all right. I asked Ray if that would cancil my warranty and he said no. I hope this helps.

Okay, I'll definitely check this out too. If you get the chance, would you mind posting those pics here so I can refer to them?

Thanks again for both of your help!

[mts211si]

I think Rambozo is on to something... as a test, I powered on this morning and the drive roller was not turning again. I had the cover off, and used a heat gun to warm up the circuit boards from about 12" away. Every 15-20 seconds I would press the torch trigger and watch the roller. For the first minute or so, nothing happened. Then it began turning, and was turning at a very consistent pace (which had not been the case previously). It worked fine after that.

The temps have dropped significantly lately, and I've been turning on the heat in my shop at night. A rough guess is that the issue occurs when the temperature gets below 55 degrees or so. The intermittent nature of the problem is probably because the heater got the temp up to around 65 in the shop. The sputtering I mentioned in my first post started when I turned off the heat and opened a window, which matches up with the theory it could be a cold solder joint.

Unless someone contacts me here this weekend, I'll have to call Everlast on Monday to see if they can send me a new board, and I'll ship back the original. I really prefer not to send in the whole unit. If it is an easy fix that they can step me through, I'm willing to try that too. Thanks again.

[mts211si]

More details:

The stick function doesn't work when cold either. I let the unit sit for a few hours and tried to strike an arc with the stick function, but nothing. Warmed up the circuit boards similar to before until the drive roller started spinning when torch button was pressed. At that point I could switch modes and stick weld. I believe this means that the cold solder joint (or whatever the source of the issue is) affects more than just the feed motor. Note: the display, gas solenoids and fan all work when cold and don't seem to be affected.

[mts211si]

Oleg emailed to let me know he hasn't forgotten about me. He's waiting on a tracking number for a new board shipped direct from the factory.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[mts211si]

Quick update...

I hadn't heard anything for awhile, so I pinged Oleg on the 31st but no word yet. I still don't know if I have a bad board or if the design needs a change, or if a replacement has shipped yet.

[mts211si]

Received the new board today and did some very quick testing in mig, stick and tig modes. It was about 50°F in my shop and it struck an arc in mig and stick without issue. Tig worked too, except for HF start. Not sure what could be the problem, it does lift start in either mode but no HF.

I noticed the original board had a chassis ground wire that isn't on the new version. Not sure if that is related or not. Posting a pic of the old one.



Thanks,
Kevin

[performance]

You need to transfer the wire to the new board...

[mts211si]

You need to transfer the wire to the new board...

Thank you. Oleg mentioned a new HF should be paired with the new main board and was looking into sending me one. I'm assuming the wire would still need to be transferred, regardless. Correct?

Thanks again.

[mts211si]

I moved the wire from the old board, but still no luck... same behavior. I've attached some pics in case anyone sees anything wrong. (Note: the black material covering the wire pad is liquid electrical tape. The original board had a similar coating, so I tried to match it.)




Thanks,
Kevin

[mts211si]

Oleg exchanged several emails with me last night and sent me a marked up photo that showed me what to try next and it worked. I need to do some more testing tonight, but so far so good.

[performance]

What did you adjust or mess with that worked?

[mts211si]

Oleg modified my photo showing some pins to jumper. If anyone knows why this works I'd be interested in knowing too. The old board didn't have it that way.



Thanks,
Kevin

[mts211si]

I used a jumper like you'd find on a PC motherboard to connect the pins. I'll check things out some more once it gets a bit colder again. So far so good. Thanks again to Oleg for the support.

[mts211si]

It is in the upper 30s this morning, so I figured I'd give the 211Si and it's new board another go to see if temp related issues are still solved... I only used mig, but it fired up and worked perfectly. I'm feeling pretty good that things are back to normal.

[mts211si]

Quick update:

I did some stick welding yesterday, mostly to test out my diy fume extractor, and things went well. Today I decided to try .023 solid and flux core since I haven't yet with this welder and had old spools lying around. It turns out the welder wouldn't feed, similar to my original issue. It was a hair under 40° in my shop. I heated it up a few degrees and it started turning again, so I'll need to keep an eye on it.

Does Everlast know if I'm the only seeing this problem? Thanks.

[mts211si]

Does Everlast know if I'm the only seeing this problem? Thanks.

Anyone?

I just tried it again at 36°F, but no joy. The updated board seems to help it work at 10-15° cooler, but it isn't a complete fix. Is this a design issue? Does Everlast expect this machine to work when the ambient temperature is 45° or lower?

Thanks.

[performance]

Apparently it does not affect all of them. But it is apparently something to do with a cap. issue and low temp. I don't have all the info on this yet, but just was forwarded an email regarding low temp operation and "improvements" in the MTS from Duncan in China yesterday.