Lincoln Precision TIG 275 (10806) issues

admin

Hello all, I have a few questions about my precision TIG 275 regarding maintenance and repair. At first I tried to weld a lap joint on thin aluminum and all I could do is blow away the base metal before blowing away the thin layer of aluminum oxide and form a puddle. The DC polarity works fine and have pumped out a few projects with no issue. For the aluminum project I had to take to the school I go to to finish the welding with a Miller and it worked really nice. I’ve TIG’d aluminum before with no issues so I’m sure it was not me nor my techniques.. cleaned both parts with acetone and used a SS brush and had plenty of gas on a new regulator reading argon.So I went to the troubleshooting pages in the manual and began to trouble shoot the unstable/weak arc and the high frequency.So I pulled off the cover and side panels and blew air to remove the dust, pulled off the spark gap electrodes (10c) cleaned and gapped to .015 like the manual listed, worked out good but still not enough. I went to tack some aluminum and its still having issues. I’m planning to take it to the Lincoln authorized welder repair guy here locally but have to split the machine from the under cart cooler to transport it to their shop. I’m also thinking of just replacing the #1 arc starter and #2 bypass/stabilizer assembly on my own. Just purchase the parts and replace, should be easy enough only it lists it as being superseded and might have to order special thru Lincoln. My question is, when it’s superseded, I’m assuming they have another part in its place maybe an updated part, yes ?taking it to the authorized repair shop is the last resort since it will be a huge task, I’ll have to take bottle of gas, aluminum coupons, cart/cooler etc.. so as to trouble shoot there at the repair shop.Would like to know what you guys think here before taking additional steps thanks