Century 125GL

admin

A friend of mine gave me a Century 125GL the other day. He said he could never get it to work right. He used it to weld some trailer house I beams for a shop and it work "just ok". I took it and put on a new spool of Hobart .030 Flux core wire (E71T-11) to test (no gas). It is strapped for DCEN per the picture on the back of the lid. Took some 2" angle 1/8" thick and could not get it to penetrate at all. Looked more like I was soldering the two pieces together. It just puddled on top of the metal instead of melting together. Had the power up on 4 (highest) and wire speed on about 4.25. I even ground down the angle iron and it did the same thing. Tried testing it on my metal table to run some beads on and all it would do was make BB's. Would not stick, could knock it off with a wire brush. Seems like it's not getting hot at all or maybe the ground clamp? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Reply:I'm no where near the sharpest tack in the pile here but, what I've seen given before is, make sure you have at least a 20amp breaker on your plug outlet and try not to use an extension cord less than 12ga. to give the machine full power. Also make sure and clean the grounding spot shiny clean. Then try reversing your polarity it sounds like that could be the problem, good luckThermal Arc 210 - Tweco 211I - Cutmaster 52
Reply:Your unit is a hot wire welder. Should be able to measure 24vdc to 31 vdc OCV Gun to work clamp.OCV is open circuit voltage. Also Try measuring weld voltage First at polarity block then from work clamp to gun tip while welding. will let you know if you have a problem with the miggun or work lead and clamp. OR if there is a problem inside the welder.
Reply:Thanks, I will try this tonight when I get home.
Reply:ccawgc I am getting -31.8Vdc at the terminal block and at the tip to work clamp. While welding its dropping down to -20Vdc at both places. Also put work clamp on a piece of metal and took a reading on the other end of the metal and still got -31Vdc and -20Vdc while welding. Doesn't look like my leads and clamp are the problem.
Reply:Just a wild guess but it sounds like that you have the wire speed adjusted too slow.
Reply:I tried increasing wire speed and it was pushing the gun back every couple seconds. Right now it's set to 210 inches per minute.