Hot Ticket For Water Cooled Tig

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Hey guys, I may have already mentioned this so excuse me for being old.I burned up a power hose on my water cooled tig. The pump was running and I thought I was golded. Apparently there was some clear goop in the outlet of the reservoir and the pump was not flowing. As you know, if the goop was in the return line, I would still have pressure at the torch. That is useless, so a pressure gauge is no good. I went to my local repair shop and ordered a replacement FLOW INDICATOR from a Miller Tig Cooler. It was 20 bucks for the kit and you just splice it into your water line. Now I just look at the indicator and see that I have flow, and I start welding. That is slick stuff. Now if I can only find it for LINCOLN instead of MILLER.....I would buy a new one! I wanted a red one, but got a blue one. Also, I purchased a fusible link kit from CK Worldwide. Those babies are golden. If you do lose flow in the middle of your weld (who can look at the flow indicator AND the weldment at the same time??) the fuse will pop before you lose your power hose and torch. Hopefully. The fuse is supposed to pop at 6amps dry. But will flow 250amps wet. Just a little insurance against me being REALLY ticked off on a weekend. I can't get parts after 12noon on Saturday in my town. Hope you guys don't blow power hoses like I did! What a bummer.
Reply:Originally Posted by Joker11I would buy a new one! I wanted a red one, but got a blue one.
Reply:lol   youre gonna get in trouble smith!ok,cant help ya on your problems, but I can say in my lil town...and the lil town to the south of me where all the welding suppliers are...it starts witha  D and ends with an S and its the city that everyone knows J.R. was in.,  well I cant get to them after 12 noon either.  They all close up shop early.  Guess its a normIF it Catches...Let it Burn
Reply:Just so you guys know....I am big on jokes, wisecrackery, and general tomfoolery. So don't hold back when you reply to MY posts. I mean, sure, keep it clean enough to not get in trouble on the board and respect other members and all that, but I don't get offended. I am a halfbreed. My mom is white and my dad is Mexican. So I take a lot of guff. In general I just get a kick out of pushing people's buttons. You gotta have a good group of friends to have a real good session of insults. Ok, I veered off topic. Sorry. That post really should have been in the INTRODUCE YOURSELF Section.
Reply:every torch i ever use is water cooled from the streetjust dont leave the drain hose outside when it gets to freezing and below.. there will be a mess and a new torch with 25 foot cables will be needed nowbeen there done that not doing it again ...zap!
Reply:Along with the belt and suspenders you are already using, you can add glue to be really sure your pants stay up, i.e., use a Flow Switch that will deactivate your torch if flow drops below the preset value. You don't have to watch it.  It's fully automatic.  You do, however, have to filter your coolant to be sure the switch actuator doesn't jam on gunk in the line.Either google, "flow switch," or look at:http://us.digikey.com/scripts/DkSear....dll?Selection GEMS is a very well known maker of flow switches, among other things, so I'd trust their products, and digikey is a good catalog electronics supplier with no minimum. I think the $30 models will do fine.  Cheap insurance.I'd select a model preset for, say, 125% of the minimum flow recommended by your torch maker.  Alternatively, catch the flow from your outlet hose in a bucket over a timed period and select a flow switch set for, say, 80% of what you have now.  You can also get an adjustable model or get a model with higher sensitivity than you require and bypass the switch through an adjustable valve to get switching at the exact flow that you want. You could wire the normally open flow switch contacts in series with the torch trigger circuit inside the machine.awright
Reply:Oops!  Backing out of the digikey site, I noticed that they have zero stock on the $30 flow switch models.  I'm sure that Gems will be able to direct you to a dealer stocking their low cost flow switches.  They may even have direct sales.awright