If you're still with me, here's how I got to this point.Had an old (vintage?) Miller 250AC/DC HF "heli-arc" machine. It was the mechanical commutator precursor to the Dial-Arc series. Think 1974 date of manufacture. My machine had a big heavy screw handle that moved the transformers in and out of each other to control amperage. It had no foot pedal. If you had two people however, one could change amperage while the other was welding. I used it to stick weld quite well. With wrenches I'd could swap leads and then also used it to TIG, by scratch starting! A gas solenoid would start gas flow with the arc, but there was no pre flow purge. To end a weld I would "snap" the arc away and return the torch head to the weld pool area and the post flow would shield with reasonably good results. Over the years I'd welded many projects, a few airframes, lots of car and aircraft parts, tools, repairs, etc. and generally never thought much about needing much else, because even though I'd drool about state of the art inverter machines, I could never justify buying one. Especially since I was: a) a hobbyist and b) reasonably happy with the results I got with my big heavy blue box.
When I said "Had"... it was referencing a time just a few weeks ago, before the FIRE. Burned it up welding some 1/4" aluminum angle at higher than I normally used amperages and must have exceeded the 40% duty cycle. With no integral protections, the machine went into melt down rather than shut itself off. It overloaded the breaker box then burst into flames. Darn near caught my shop on fire.
Enter the 200DX replacement I never thought I could afford. Now I am puling my hair out. My local welding shop guys were/are not very well versed in Miller's product line. They are redneck fools that just sell lots of tank gasses and wire feeders. I've never been there when they had any other customers and they have never been able to answer a tech question without calling a Miller rep and mis-stating whatever my problem was. So at best I get half an answer at a time. None the less I tried to educate myself on Miller's extremely diverse product line before buying using these guys and the Miller website. I tend to be extremely technically oriented and understand advanced welding theory, from both an electrical and metallurgical aspect. I ended up with a Dynasty package + coolmate and a fingertip controller that I hate.
I can't manipulate the silly little rotary dial from zero to welding amperage with gloves on easily. Decreasing amps is an abortion. It takes about 4 or 5 thumb swipes, all the while imparting every move and wiggle to the weld pool, melting metal I didn't intend to, or worse burning though and key holing thin stuff because I can't back off quickly enough.
Angry? Yep that too, because I pulled off a weld out of old habits tonight and thought I'd dialed down to zero, only to catch the shock of HF through my filler rod and back around to the welding table that my torch hand was resting on.
The manual spends many pages discussing programable R2, R3 & R4 advanced functions, yet Miller sends out this incredibly difficult to manipulate controller with it's packages rather than a momentary one that would work better with the programability.
Should I have bought the foot controller package? or just throw out this finger controller and order the momentary one? or just go back to the lift arc function like I used to and just live with craters when I do aluminum and the burn throughs and wasted material because I have amps set a little off?Suicidal? Of course I kid, but I am for sure depressed that I am have invested a large sum of cash and thought I'd be getting better welds, but tonight I made some terrible welds on some machine tool parts (steel) I am building. I have many hours of machining in the parts before I tried to weld them up and they look like dog vomit. I've rendered one junk entirely and I feel that charging for the parts will be fine but I don't want my name on them because the welds are so bad
So I'm likely going to give them away.I wouldn't expect to just be able to weld, simply because I went out and bought a state of the art welder, but I was getting good results with my old equipment, but now my welds suck worse than a high school shop student's buzz box stick welding on the first day of shop class.
Should I let the welder electrocute me next time I'm part of the circuit? Jump or do you guys think you can't talk me off of the ledge?
I would take the dial setup back to your LWS and see if you can get a credit towards getting a foot pedal. I think it would solve a lot of the problems and frustration your having. Jody does a review of the CK rotary switch and expresses some concern about having excess movement of the torch while trying to change the amperage. Just my $.02 hope you get something that works for you. That's the main thing.
