millermatic 210 question

[FlntRoc]

I recently bought a miller 210 welder from my friend who used it for various automotive projects. He has had it for about 1 1/2 yrs & wasn't used all that much. I hooked it up & was using it for about 5-10 minutes & then the welder stopped sparking/arcing whatever you want to call it. Anyways i took it apart, looked around didn't see anything obvious just tinkered with things to make sure all was tight. Tried it again & it worked. Used it for about 25 min total & it did it again & now it sits broken. I thought maybe the ground clamp wasn't getting a good connection on the car but it won't even spark on the ground clamp so anyone have any idea what it could be? Thanks for the help. My friend never had any problems @ all with it.

[Dan]

When you pull the gun trigger, does the unit feed wire?

[FlntRoc]

Yeah the wire feeds & the gas feeds but no spark.

[Dan]

Do you have a DC volt meter to check and see if you have voltage present at the output studs in the wire compartment? To take a reading from these studs you have to pull the gun trigger. Release the spring tension from the driveroll so there won't be any feeding of the wire from the spool.

[FlntRoc]

Yeah i'll have to try that out. I was just wondering if maybe it was a commen problem. The first time it broke I pushed in on this switch thinginside a black box thing inside that pushes in whenever you hit the trigger & it wrked so i tried it again but it didn't work the last time. This was on the opposite side of the roll of wire. Could that be the fault point? Hopefully you know what thing i'm talking about.

[Dan]

Yeah i'll have to try that out. I was just wondering if maybe it was a commen problem. The first time it broke I pushed in on this switch thinginside a black box thing inside that pushes in whenever you hit the trigger & it wrked so i tried it again but it didn't work the last time. This was on the opposite side of the roll of wire. Could that be the fault point? Hopefully you know what thing i'm talking about.

The MM 210 has been a pretty solid unit for close to 5 yrs now. Actualluy your probably the first person that visited one of the welding forum that is having trouble with a MM 210.

The "black box" you are trying to discribe sounds like the contactor in side of the unit.

[calweld]

The first thing a guy should do, if he doesn't already have it, go to the Miller website and download the owner's manual. Then go through the "troubleshooting" checklist, it may save time and trouble.

[FlntRoc]

Only thing i can find in the manual says
connect to a good ground (check)
replace contact tip ?

Think that would be the case? It seems like that wouldn't to me but who knows?

[Dan]

If you do the voltage check at the studs inside the wire compartment, and it turns out you have voltage at these studs with the trigger pulled. The problem would be isolated down to either somewhere in the gun assembly or the ground clamp assembly.

[FlntRoc]

Alright, thanks for all the help. Hopefully it will be something easily fixable & preferably cheap. It is my luck to get a good reliable system & have something go wrong. lol.

[Frank865]

If your friend bought it new & only had it a year & a half, it's still in warranty.
Try calling Miller (the number will be in the owners manual you're going to download, sorry I don't have it for you) ask for "MIG applications" they should be able to help you.
HTH