Fix Mig Welder Repair + Upgrade diodes in Original Bridge Rectifier Easy DIY
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- How to Repair and Improve Any Mig Welder. Make even the cheapest mig welders run like the best.
Walk through video Upgrading from inferior cheap diodes on a Sealey 180 Mig Welder and many other similar priced welders, which are fitted with press fit diodes that are prone to overload failure.
I used Vishay 70 Amp 1600 volt in parallel pairs, which is two sets of matched pairs, one reverse polarity and one standard polarity. The diodes are clearly marked with arrows showing the current direction.
This modification involves some soldering so you will need a soldering iron capable of heavy duty work. For this I used an old copper iron heated on a gas ring which worked very well.
The repair cost:
2pc Standard Recovery Diode 70HFR160 70A 1600V VISHAY £8.47 plus £3.90 postage
2pc Standard Recovery Diode 70HF160 70A 1600V VISHAY
£8.47 plus £3.90 postage
I would not have been able to upgrade this welder had it not been for the people in welding forums who provided photographs and suggestions and reasoning as to why I should not simply replace with another inferior bridge rectifier containing what appear to be vehicle alternator diodes which are not up to the job. So a big thank you to you guys for sharing your knowledge.
A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating current (AC), which periodically reverses direction, to direct current (DC), which flows in only one direction. The process is known as rectification.
Somebody gave me a dead MIG welder a couple of weeks ago. I'm electronics technician but I didn't know how such a machine works. I was lucky enough to find a schematic. After testing the diodes, 2 diodes (total 8 diodes) were short. I landed to your good video and ordered 8 diodes (70 amps like the one you show) and replace them all, paying attention with straight and reverse polarity. There was also another problem on the PC board where the relay was dead (open coil). I changed the relay and now the welder is running like a new machine with great quality diodes. Job cost me $40.00 dollars. All is well that ends well!!! Thank you mister for your precious and very instructive video. Hello from Montreal, Canada.
Well, it's a good idea to use a stud diode put them in the old press in one's holes. But with a tail lead on it so you can just drill a hole in your ~inputs bars and rivet in place instead of all the silly soldering and such to wire. good DIY video. One other suggestion! 4 diode =180a, 6 diode =200a, 12 diode 300a bridges Kind of a common china drop-in part they all use. 180a should use 4x50amp diodes 200a should use 4x70amp diodes and 300a should use 4x85amp diodes. Fast Decay diodes are more suited for welding! Sorry just years of rebuilding this crap and to many people with no clue balls deep in stuff like this going in blind!
soldered joints preferred, each to their own,
Rich, if I am following his wiring schematic correctly it seems to me that this bridge rectifier is configured in a manner that would result in the electrode being negative and the clamp being positive. He appears to be welding with bare wire and shielding gas which should be set up for electrode positive. Are my observations correct?
thanx for getting back wiyh me . it's not the usual beginners problems
Nice work! Thank you for dropping knowledge on us via this repair. Aloha.
Thanks, I was able to get my Bossweld 186 MIG welder going again thanks to your video! Champ!
Awesome, thanks for the feedback and well done to you.,
I had a rectifier failure with an audio amplifier and in my search I found your video. Thank you for your wisdom and I may try those Vishay diodes which may be more robust than the BEN KBPC 5010. All the best, Rob
Waiakalulu Your very welcome, glad you found this useful
Question: Can we replace all the diodes with a single built in bridge rectifier in a MIG welder? Some people use such bridge rectifier to convert AC welding machine to DC welding machine. I saw a video showing a 300 amperes bridge rectifier beeing installed to an AC welder. Testing was great.
Diy flux pine rosin and 90 percent rubbing alcohol i made some its works great . mix in an old pill bottle and stuck a marble in as mixing aid or stainless washer do not use and thing that is corrosive/rustable as it will slowly rust a washer ask me how i know lol .thank fer video sir be blessed
Hi. I Have a diode problem too, but a different plate set up to you - can you tell me does the earth strap wire attach to the middle tab or the blue paint ? I cant really make it out from the vid......Also do you think I could use 1200v diodes as they are alot cheaper (The guy's prices have rocketed in 7 years) Obviously business is good - thanks to you!
Thanks in advance, Peter.
Many welders can be rescued from the skip using these repairs.
Hello , Great video ! I was wondering I have a rectifier that is in a MIG 130 It only has 8 rectifiers . Do i still need 8 to replace them ? Or can i buy 4 - 2 positive & 2 - Negative rectifiers ? Thank you very much for your time
My welder is not coming on my battery and other contactor and fuse are good. Big blue Miller
Thank you. It was very helpfull
I have a 180A HF mig welder that has a diode that failed. The diodes (8 total) does not have any numbers or writings on them. I am thinking about using the 70HF160/70HFR160 but I was wondering why you used 4 better diodes instead of using 12? I am thinking about getting 8 diodes. Will that hurt anything on my machine? Thanks
4 diodes should work fine. The standard mig diodes x 8 or more is to spread the heat and voltage load, each of which is a weak link in the chain. Having 4 substantial diodes means you eliminate these weak links.
Would a sign of this problem be having the welder set to the highest level ( on this one E) and just no "Umpfff" with the weld, like it is was set to the lowest setting.
I have the same problem with my Sealy 100. I noticed you only replaced four of the diodes. Did you remove all the old diodes?
Yes, all of the old diodes were removed and 4 substantial ones replaced them.
What does it sound like when you run it with a bad rectifier?
Great Job! My Sip migmate 150 has rectifier issues, it is dual purpose gas or gasless, by swopping the polarity of the torch & flux cored wire, My question is that I have a single heatsink plate with six cheap diodes that are all the same polarity, they are not marked but using a meter they are the same, I was thinking of two matched pairs of 1200v 40A, Do you think this would work ok? Thanks
Worked a treat 2 pairs of 1600v 40A diodes, Cheers
hello there, just got a mig welder 130. I'm eager to use it but I have the problem that it keeps feeding wire when i press the trigger even though it's set to 0 on the wire knob. Do you have any suggestions I what could possibly be wrong? thank you
Possibly the trigger on the torch?
Andrew K Fletcher thank you for replying. I've went ahead and opened the torch gun and found no issue there. I will return the unit back to the company.
Last time you helped me out big time.I Have another problem with my other welder. I press the trigger and the motor seems to not have enough strength to pull the wire through. How do I test of the motor is crapping out?
Have you blown the gun through with an airline? It's surprising how much resistance the debris from the wire causes. Also, having the wire feed rollers too tight can cause problems. As for checking the motor, you will need to have it tested professionally if the above suggestions don't work.
Andrew K Fletcher thanx im Going to try that
Andrew K Fletcher The line was plugged..U are a genius haha
Occasionally, the wire can become crossed on the spool, causing intermittent stop start. If this happens, remove coil and allow wire to fall off from side to remove snag.
When i strike an arc my welder stops feeding.I pull away and it starts feeding again..Any suggestions?
hello.i have a Lincoln weldpac 3200 hd. the welder only working on d the highest setting. the fan would come on on a, b, and c. but not able to weld anything.
what you think could be the problem. thanks.
Wish I had answers for you on this problems. You will need someone with a circuit tester to got through the wiring to find the fault. Probably to do with the switch.
Andrew K Fletcher thanks.
what were the symtoms of your machine & what web sites did you go to ? my machine feeds intermittantly under a load.
+mark501w Hi Mark, machine made loud cracking noise as the original small diodes popped one by one. Wire feed is a different problem all together. First, I would have someone blow out the inner wire feed housing as dust and fragments of the copper coating from the wire can accumulate and block the line feed. Another cause can be rust on the coil of wire. If you see rust then you will need to strip off wire until it is clean. I can't remember which sites I went to that would be relevant.
Hi Andrew have you ever fitted a gas solenoid to 1 of these machines ?
I bought an old 1 & someone had fitted a euro torch but no solenoid
I can get the solenoid to trigger but it also triggers when i turn the power up or down, any suggestions where to connect it so this doesnt happen ?
I have used 1 of the spare terminals on the power dial switch & spliced off the j2 cable from the board.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Not fitted one, but did find this, which shows one working and leaking. Video starts showing wiring ruclips.net/video/6_znyF2V8iE/видео.htmlm35s Will look to see if I can find a guide
www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/supermig-150-euro-torch-conversion-gas-solenoid-question.51057/
www.howto-make.org/0j40lMoneypTLPjx/DIY-Mig-Gas-Conversion-For-Lincoln-Weld-Pak-100-Or-ANY-mig-welder.html Right at the end of the video, he talks about reversing the polarity of the main output terminals for a gas conversion. Have you tried this?
Yeah i found this forum thread before but it just didnt help me, i even stripped our 220 super mig at work but its a different board so no luck there either.
Apparently there are 2 or 3 versions of the 180 machine also & i dont know what version this 1 is unfortunately.
Thanks for having a look the info has to be out there somewhere.
Hi I have 230v flux core heatsink it's 130amp can I still use the same diodes it has 8small diodes 4 on each plate looking forward to hearing from you cheers
I see no reason why it will not work, swapping 8 inferior diodes for 4 good ones will work
Hi Andrew - i have a clarke 151EN with same issues - would you know which diodes i need ?
Generally if the total diode amps stack up to just over the limit of your welder, the diodes will work fine.
@@AndrewKFletcher hi Andrew - i have the clarke 151EN which i believe is a 30-150amp - just received the diodes from taiwan - hopefully they will do the job ?
@@AndrewKFletcher hi - just completed the install - no difference - even though i know one of my old diodes was brocken, the new diodes make no difference, NO PENETRATION - any ideas ?
thanks
Did you have matching pairs and are they facing the right direction with the electrical circuit?
@@AndrewKFletcher hi - yes - two flow and two return - knocked out the 8 diodes
- the positive side of the rectifier has two diodes and the negative side has 2 diodes--
on the positive torch side we had both diodes running in same direction and on earth side we had both diodes running in same direction
we looked at the wiring diagram and this seemed to be the case ? there is no penetration and no difference to when it was before with one loose original diode ?
I had a welder with a slightly different design that ended up with the exact same problem. It worked better for me to just buy HFR type diodes instead of HF diodes because of the different layout of the plates. I made a video ( ruclips.net/video/gQD6YJHHEGs/видео.html ) discussing some of the details that helped me figure out exactly what I needed to do and understanding how a bridge rectifier works was key for me. Big thanks to you for your video for getting me started on solving the issue.
I removed my rectifier and reolaced it with a 400 amp 1600 volr solid state rectifier and it works better than new. img.staticbg.com/thumb/large/oaupload/banggood/images/72/E4/ae3d165e-4da1-4d7f-a771-77efd058c28a.jpg
How's it going still? I'm thinking to do the same
Many welders can be rescued from the skip using these repairs.