Welder Maintenance tips

[Gary]

Just had a thought and a slow day yesterday with a rainy day so I was checking out the machine and noticed that there are no threads about regular maintenance on your welder.
Wipe down the vent areas to make sure no spider webs or anything is blocking air flow.
One of the main things to do when you have a welder with potentiometers all over the place is to run the knobs all they way back and forth a few times so that the coils or carbon in the pots do not get corrosion on them ,Florida is bad because high humidity, and Because ussually people have a tendancy to set the knobs and forget them once they get the settings where they like them and just set amps for the material thickness. So about once a week or when you think about it run all of the knobs (pots) all the way in both directions and also click all of your multi funtion switched through all of their ranges as well so you dont end up with dead spots in the pots after a while . Dead spots in a pot can make you scratch your head because it can go all over the place and until you turn that specific knob you will never find out where the problem is.
Just a thought.Most people know but they never think to do it.
Gary

[pvitor]

This is a very good idea and I bet most don't even think about this, also leaving in Florida and working in my garage this will become a habit, Thank you.

[jakeru]

I performed a ~3 year check up on my Super200P recently.

After first unplugging the unit of course, I took the cover off to inspect things, blew out the dust and foreign matter with compressed air (there was some junk that was accumulating), and I checked and re-adjusted the high frequency gap. That's about it!

[wruehl]

Awesome tip, Thank you!

[Zoomie]

I don't have a cooler yet but things I've considered for maintenance:
I suggest putting a piece of tape on the front of the cooler with a date the coolant was first added and a date to change it out as per coolant manufacturer's instructions.
If you're running straight water you might consider running Dezcal thru the machine with a full tank of water to get out any scale built up in the machine/pump, then flush with clean water. Dezcal is safe for plastic, rubber and stainless parts. I use it in institutional size coffee/espresso machines etc.
I would also suggest leaning the cooler on its side periodically to verify no moisture or stains on the bottom/base of the machine which might indicate a problem.
Consider powering up the Cooler without the welder periodically to verify it isn't making any unusual noises that would normally be masked by the welders fan.

Hopefully I'm not insulting anyone's intelligence with these...

[Robert s]

I don't have a cooler yet but things I've considered for maintenance:
I suggest putting a piece of tape on the front of the cooler with a date the coolant was first added and a date to change it out as per coolant manufacturer's instructions.
If you're running straight water you might consider running Dezcal thru the machine with a full tank of water to get out any scale built up in the machine/pump, then flush with clean water. Dezcal is safe for plastic, rubber and stainless parts. I use it in institutional size coffee/espresso machines etc.
I would also suggest leaning the cooler on its side periodically to verify no moisture or stains on the bottom/base of the machine which might indicate a problem.
Consider powering up the Cooler without the welder periodically to verify it isn't making any unusual noises that would normally be masked by the welders fan.

Hopefully I'm not insulting anyone's intelligence with these...

I run just water in my shop made cooler but have no problem with scale because I use distilled water. Makes things o-so clean all the time