Converting a Pipepro 12RC feeder to a XMT304

admin

IT'S ALIVE!!!!Ha ha ha ha haQue creepy music  As some of you know I've already got a Suitcase 12RC. I got a killer deal on it. I got it with a like new RFCS-14 foot pedal, two M25 guns, and a Thermal Dynamics 1Torch for about than the price of the foot pedal. It was in like new condition but is a older model. The biggest drawback to me is the lack of digital meters on it. While it's definitely usable I was missing the meters especially with the Optima pulser I was really wanting a more precise way to set the wire speed so I can make some kind of chart. Now they do sell the meter board for it but at $500+ it's just not justifiable. I mean if I take my time I can get another feeder for that.  Thus I've been keeping a eye out for some deal that will get me a feeder with meters on it. I'd noticed this Pipepro 12RC feeder on ebay for a while now. When I first started looking they where wanting $1k for it. But later they put it up for auction. However even with them explaining in bold type that it would only work with a PipePro welder they still had a lot of people go crazy on it and then ask whether it would work with there welder. Well as time moved on it sold a couple of more times. Finally it came up for bid again a while back. Now I had looked at the schematics and parts lists and found that everything was the same except the motor driver board. The pipepro used 40VDC to power it and most of Millers welders just supply 24VAC. Once again I decided that if it went cheap enough I would get if only for the parts. Well I managed to get it for less than I paid for my first 12RC. I figured if worse came to worse I could rob the motor driver board from my plain 12RC and get it working for way less than half the price of a meter board.   Well I finally got a chance to look at it yesterday but being the frugal and down right greedy fellow that I am I really wanted to make the feeder work as is. I mean having two feeders is better than one any day of the week. I studied the schematics and the feeder and decided to do some experimenting. You can see it on life support in the first pic while I was doing proof of concept trials. Now for the life support I looked in my junk hhhhh electronics room for some way of providing 40VDC to it. I found a old power supply for a old style satellite dish actuator which was rated at 36VDC. After checking it out and finding about 51VDC coming out I decided to try it. Jumper wires a few checks and it lives. Hmm. Well time to test all the other functions. I dig through my stuff and rig up a cord to the welder. This time where on full life support. First trials are promising. My power supply goes down to about 40V when running the motor so all seems good. Then suddenly the motor stops. Yikes power off fast. Feel all the power transistors on the driver board and none of them are warm. Whew. A quick try later and it works again as long as I don't leave it idling with the power supply peaked at the 50V. Then it'll shut down and not drive the motor. Hmm. Go get my isolation transformer so I can regulate the voltage down a bit. Try again and everything seems good but the voltage will drop rather low when powering the motor. Hmm. Well search through my junk/stuff, search the internet. Hmm. Well after reading the current draw at a peak of just over 3 amps I need a fairly powerful voltage regulator. Lots of searching shows those are a little hard to find in the simple cheap variety. I'm not wanting to make this a huge high dollar project.   That's where I left off yesterday. Today I go out to see about getting some of my layout stuff out to takes pics. I start to put up my equipment from the day before and I stubble onto another satellite power supply. It looks a lot more robust and fancier than the first. Hmm. Well lets see what it does. After taking it apart to study I find that it's still just a basic unregulated power supply for the 36V portion. It is however a little beefier looking so I give it a shot to see if the voltage drop is less. First test shows unpowered voltage to be high again. The run voltage is right on the mark though. I do some more tests and the feeder shuts down again. Hmm. Well back out with the isolation transformer. I do some more tests and find that if the voltage even gets close to the 40VDC during idle it will start to shut down. Hmm. I can't believe that Miller would make a feeder that sensitive to voltage. Then the light bulb comes on. I couldn't figure out why Miller would pick such a strange voltage. However rectifying 24VAC is going to provide just under the 40VDC max the feeder wants. Now the voltage will drop under load but I wonder how accurate the feeder would be at that lower voltage. So using the isolation transformer I drop the voltage and start doing wire speed test. I check several speeds from 100 to 700 ipm. I check different voltages even down to 17VDC during run. Hmm. Well the feeder seems to be the most accurate at the 22-26VDC range. Time to test powering it from the welder. The power supply has several large rectifiers in it. I check the number on one and it's rated at 6amps for 200volts. Just right. I remove it and it's nice heat sink and use jumper wires to test. The voltage at idle is right at 36-37VDC. When under power it sinks to 24-28VDC. Hmm. A full run of wire speed tests shows it to be spot on from the meter reading to the actual wire run out. Whoopie it's going to work. :-)  Well it took a while to rig up a new control cord, install the rectifier (circled in second pic), redo the welding cable, and get it all back together but it survived the operation. Transplant is complete. Attached ImagesMillermatic 252XMT 304'sDynasty 280DXHypertherm PowerMax 1250Miller Trailblazer 302 EFIOptima PulserXR feeder and XR Edge gun and more athttp://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm
Reply:Looks good to go Irish. The weekend mad doctor stuff is great, but cleaning the shop later is really brutal!Matt
Reply:AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME!!!  A man after my own heart!No telling how many 'techs' would have said it couldn't be done.Excellent work and great post.MM200 w/Spoolmatic 1Syncrowave 180SDBobcat 225G Plus - LP/NGMUTT Suitcase WirefeederWC-1S/Spoolmatic 1HF-251D-1PakMaster 100XL '68 Red Face Code #6633 projectStar Jet 21-110Save Second Base!
Reply:Originally Posted by Matt_MaguireLooks good to go Irish. The weekend mad doctor stuff is great, but cleaning the shop later is really brutal!Matt