Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi. Can anyone help me figure out what's wrong with my welder? It turns on but won't arc, the amp setting just jumps from zero to the current setting. But sometimes it works and then there is a buzzing sound from the main transformer.

Anybody have an idea?
Greetings
Stian

Hi Stian
It might not be in your case, but I heard from the dealer in Iceland that 90% off all failures in those machines are the power switch and the power cord. My brother had problem with his, it did turn on but did not weld, in that case it was the cord.
rgds
Hjörtur

I see it's a bit of a dated post, but anyway:

Start with a good cleanup: remove the outer covers and blow out the thing out with compressed air. Oftentimes the HT jumps around in old muck and metal-dust.
Then make sure your torch and the cable set is ok. The power lead can burn out, giving these kinds of symptoms, or a short in the handle or inside the cable will prevent the HT from reaching its goal.
If you still don't get juice, check that all cables are connected properly inside the machine.
Next step is to renew some or all of those old capacitors in there. After 10-15-20 years of service under high load, caps start drifting...

Best of luck with it (but maybe you fixed it already;-)