Fabricator 211i - not magic smoke?

admin

So I should probably go get a lottery ticket or something!Running my Tweco Fab 211i in mig mode today, in between beads (idling, fan off) and it lets out a huge amount of white smoke from the back vents. Several loud choice 4 letter words, power down, kill the circuit and let it it sit while I finish what I was in the middle of. 15 minutes later I get back to what I figure is now just a paper weight, power the circuit back up, no smoke, power the machine up, still no smoke and the display lights up  fan cycles through normal. For a laugh, grab the gun and squeeze the trigger, wire feeds and fan kicks in. Grab some scrap and run a test bead, works like it should. Finished out the day, probably put down another 4 ft of bead over the next few hours and everything seems normal. Powered out at the end of the day, unplugged from the outlet and kept a close eye on it to make sure it wasn't going to burn down the shop.I have not tried the stick or tig functions yet,I plan to open it up and see if I can sort out what failed over the weekend if I get a chance.The machine is 5 yrs old, given the thermal arc / tweco / esab lineage I suspect repair components will be non-existent.Anyone out there run into something similar and have insight on what I might find inside?TIA
Reply:

Originally Posted by patchittogether

So I should probably go get a lottery ticket or something!Running my Tweco Fab 211i in mig mode today, in between beads (idling, fan off) and it lets out a huge amount of white smoke from the back vents. Several loud choice 4 letter words, power down, kill the circuit and let it it sit while I finish what I was in the middle of. 15 minutes later I get back to what I figure is now just a paper weight, power the circuit back up, no smoke, power the machine up, still no smoke and the display lights up  fan cycles through normal. For a laugh, grab the gun and squeeze the trigger, wire feeds and fan kicks in. Grab some scrap and run a test bead, works like it should. Finished out the day, probably put down another 4 ft of bead over the next few hours and everything seems normal. Powered out at the end of the day, unplugged from the outlet and kept a close eye on it to make sure it wasn't going to burn down the shop.I have not tried the stick or tig functions yet,I plan to open it up and see if I can sort out what failed over the weekend if I get a chance.The machine is 5 yrs old, given the thermal arc / tweco / esab lineage I suspect repair components will be non-existent.Anyone out there run into something similar and have insight on what I might find inside?TIA