ESAB Smashweld 180

[Mclinden]

Hi.
I have an ESAB Smashweld 180 3-phase 220/380V with a major problem.
Hopefully someone here can help me out with the information needed to to repair the machine.

The primary windings on the small transformer for power supply to the control card and the contactor/relay is burned. Hence no power on the secondary side.
I will rewind the primary side, but I need to know what the voltage is supposed to be on the secondaty side.

The power to the control card is the Green and Yellow wires and the power to the contactor/relay is the Blue and Brown wire.
I only need to know the voltage for one of these. (Green and yellow or Blue and Brown).

This way I can find the number of turns on the primary side, as the secondary side is OK and I will leave it as it is.
Is there anybody here who know the voltage, or coud measure this for me on their own machine please?

I have tried every thing. First I contacted ESAB in hope to get at least their scematics with information about voltages on the card, to determind what voltage I need from the transformers secondary side.
The short version is that they no longer have any documnentation for the Smash Weld 180, as it is too old. They only have the user manual, and told me that parts are no longer available for this machine.

Next, I tried to unwind the primary, while counting the windings, but I came to a stage where they were impossible to unwind anymore, as the kept breaking, due to the melted the insulation.

I have the CU wire (0,22mm with coating. 0,2mm without coating) and I am ready to start rewinding it back to original stage.
I have the formula to calculate an average transformer core, but here are variations on these calculations from one manufacturer to the other, resulting in different output voltages, when the secondary windings are beeing used as they are.
To get the transformer correct, I need to know the voltages on the secondary side (to the card and the contactor). This way I can rewind it according to my formula and then measure the voltage.
From this I can calculate if I need to remove or add windings, to get the right voltage.


I really appreciate your help!

[christianmoller]

Hello McLinden,
i'll see if i can take any measurements tomorrow or day after.
On my Smashweld the transformer is switched out due to failure but i'll give it a try
@torbjörn forsman can you assist in how to?

/Christian

[Mclinden]

Hi Christian.
Thank you very much for replying.
It doesn't matter if your transformer is switched out.
I only need to know the the card supply voltage, OR the supply voltage to the Contactor/relay K8.
See arrows showing were to measure voltage.

As long as I know the voltage to one of these, I can easily find the number of primary windings.

Thank you very much in advance for helping me out.

John S. McLinden

[Bengt Erik Eriksson]

Hello!
Do you have the manual with parts list and wiring diagram?
Here it is anyway
ESAB Smashweld 180

I do also have one in storage, do not know if it is a 180 but it looks verry similar as i remember it, it works but i do not use it,

[Turbodiesel]

Probably the same auxilary voltage levels, on the 1-phase version.

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/thr ... ing.15762/

17V between Yellow and Green (control card supply)

42V between Blue and Violet (kind of brown?) (contactor/relay/gas valve)

Are the gas solenoid and contactor coil rated 42V?

[Mclinden]

Thank you very much for your reply, and also for the link to the forum Smash mig welding UK.
I did not have the full version of the manual, so it is downloaded now. Thank you very much for this.

Thank you very muchy for the measurements of the voltage form the transformer.
The voltage from the transformer seems to vary a little bit from the measurements in the UK forum, but that could be the difference between the transformer with load and without load.

Now I can wind the transformer again back to it's original state without any problems.
I can't thank you enough for this information. It is vital information, when the transformer is failing.
I will return here with the information of primary windings on the transformer, for you and others to keep, i case of transformer failure.

When having a machine where the manufacturer doesn't have the information anymore, we have to collect as much information ourself as possible to be able to fix it if something goe's wrong.

Have a very nice evening everybody

[christianmoller]

Hello,
I had 29 volts on the green/yellow no load.
purple/blue 46 volts no load
Solenoid rated to 42 volt as Turbodiesel said.

/Christian

[Mclinden]

A little update about the transformer and the progress with the machine so far.

After I got the information about the voltages from you guys, I finished winding the transformer and installed it back in to the machine.
I am sharing some useful pictures under here for future reference, if it is of any interest for you.
There is also a wiring diagram which is cleaned up a little bit, if you want to download it.

It seemed to be working at first, but then I relizsed that the feeder motor didn't work.
I checked the two transistors on the card (BD 680A and BD900A) with a transistor tester, and they seems to be OK.
I also checked the transistor M14 (on the wiring diagram) and found this to be OK too.
Both relays on the card is working, and the blue relay (RE1) is activating when the trigger button is operated on the welding handle.

When measuring between Base and Emitter on transistor M14, there is no voltage.
There should be a voltage between Base and Emitter to operate transistor M14, and then feeding the motor (M3) from collector and through emitter?
When measuring oacross the motor (M3) I get 1,8V and it will of course not run with this voltage.

Anyone have an input on this, or any idea what the issue could be?










Here is the data for the transformer primary windings.
It would look better if I could upload the original Word document.

ESAB Smashweld 180.
Transformer for auxiliary power.

The transformer is feeding the control card, the switching coil and the wire-feeder motor.
It was made in the time when there was 220V and 380V grid supply. Hence there is a bit higher voltage on the secondary, when hooked up to 230V or 400V grid supply.
The open circuit voltage on the secondary side is also higher than the voltage with the intended load, which is supposed to be around 42V for the switching coil and around 17V for the control card.
Under is the calculated windings for the primary side of the transformer for the older 220/380V and what they should be for 230/400V.
The Cu wire is 0,2mm diameter and 0,22mm including the insulation enamel.

For 220V and 380V setup (original)
Primary windings: 5,375 windings/Volt
Brown -Red. 0 → 220V. → 1 180 Wingdings.
Orange – red. 160V. → 860 windings. From 220V to 380V
Brown - Orange. 0 → 380V. → 2 040 windings total.
Open circuit voltages measured:
19,4V and 50V. (Secondary side voltages).


For 230V and 400V setup (later common voltage)
Primary windings: 5,375 windings/Volt
Brown -Red. 0 → 230V. → 1 230 windings. (plus 50 windings).
Orange – red. 170V. → 915 windings. From 230V to 4000V (plus 55 windings).
Brown - Orange. 0 → 400V. → 2 145 windings total. (plus 105 windings).
Open circuit voltages measured:
18,9V and 48,7V. (Secondary side voltages).

[QV_]

Is K8 pol 21, 22 open?

[Mclinden]

Hi QV and thank you for your input.
I just checked it, and the K8 22-21 opens when the trigger is operated.
I am now starting to check every diode on the card, to see if they are OK.
The base at the M14 transistor is fed through the relay RE1, and I guess that is coming from the circuit controlling the motor speed, which should be the voltage.

When measuring between Base and Emitter on M14, there is no voltage.
This seems to me to be caused by no signal coming throug the relay RE1 on the card, )but it is operating when the trigger is pushed).
The signal coming through the relay is not powerful, and would not burn the relay's contacts, and I feel pretty confident that the relay contacts are OK.
Without the card scematics, it is difficult to find what is belonging to the speed control and which components could be damaged.

There is no sign of anything burned or blown, like transistors, diodes, resitors or capacitors.
However, what happened with the machine, was that the previous owner connected it to 400V and the machine was set up for 220V.
This could have caused components to burn out so quickly that they didn't reach to be fried in a way that can be seen externally, but just burned off instantly.
Capasitors usually explode with too high voltage and resistors will usually be fried and it is possible to see it on the outside.

This my thought so far, and that is why I am starting the process of checking all the diodes.
As the transistors are all checked out OK, I think that the diodes are next, as they can burn off (with very high voltage) without any sign at the outside.

I may be wrong, and if anybody has something easier to check, or which diodes could be involved with the speed control, I am greatful for every input.
This doesn't seem to be an easy fix, like a fuse or a visibly fried component.

[QV_]

Do you get power on + and - it shoud be around 50-80 V (i guess)
My be the feed motor M3 get the power from the welding power.
The last owner may have destroyed K2 diod´s

[Mclinden]

Hi QV.
Thank you for your input.
You are right. I have to check the K2 Diodes. I never thought about that, but it is a really good question.
I have now checked all the transistors and diodes on the card, and they came out OK all of them. (Have changed all the BC141-16 before).
I also checked all the M13:1,2 and 3, plus M14 transistors, and they are all OK.
Basically there is no more to check on the card. The K2 diodes are the last thing to check now.

If they managed to push the trigger, before the transformer primary burned out, there is a good chance that the K2 diodes har burned under doubble voltage.
I guess it took a few minutes before the transformer burned, and they may pretty well have reached to push the trigger and activated the K8 relay, resulting in burning the K2 diodes.
I will check that tomorrow.

Thank you again for your input.

[Mclinden]

Hi QV.
Thank you for your input.
You are right. I have to check the K2 Diodes. I never thought about that, but it is a really good question.
I have now checked all the transistors and diodes on the card, and they came out OK all of them. (Have changed all the BC141-16 before).
I also checked all the M13:1,2 and 3, plus M14 transistors, and they are all OK.
Basically there is no more to check on the card. The K2 diodes are the last thing to check now.

If they managed to push the trigger, before the transformer primary burned out, there is a good chance that the K2 diodes har burned under doubble voltage.
I guess it took a few minutes before the transformer burned, and they may pretty well have reached to push the trigger and activated the K8 relay, resulting in burning the K2 diodes.
I will check that tomorrow.

Thank you again for your input.

[Mclinden]

Hi again.
Update on the project.
After checking every transistors and diodes on the PCB as well as the 4 M transistors and found them OK, I started checking the voltage from the K1 transformer and was going to start checking the K2 diodes.
While doing this, I had to hold the trigger, to activate the K1 transformer.
Then the wire feeder motor suddenly started, and it keept on working.
I thought everything was working now, and was going to try the welding part.
To my surprise, ther was not a spark to see....
As far as my understanding of the welding machine has improoved, I have found that the power to the wire feeder motor comes from the K1 transformer, through the K2 diodes.
This should mean that the K1 transformer is working.

What I found a little bit strange was the low voltage on the AC side and also the DC side from the K2 diodes was quite low.
In position 1, there was only around 24V and in position 7 it was around 32V.
I thought it should be more like 45 - 60V?

Has anybody measured the voltage from the K1 transformers AC side and know what the output voltage is suppose to be? (between the each phase)

[QV_]

From the manual