old guy...new problem

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Hello t you all, I am not new to welding, but I do have a new problem that is driving me nuts. I started welding about 42 years ago playing with home projects. I later owned a shop building food processing equipment for the water jet poultry industry. Now I'm an Ops manager for three live theatres in Seattle WA.  Ok enough blah blah....here is the problem, I have a little Miller Syncrowave 180 sd tig. I had sold this welder to friend about 10 years ago and he never started it. It had few hours when I sold it. I get it home start it up and the pedal does nothing, I touch the pedal and I get full power, amp control doesn't seem to do anything either. here's the good part, because it takes the full power better I switch to AC and run on a block of alum for a few minutes and poof...the amp control and pedal start working. I then switch back to steel and do the welding I need with it working fine. It does this every time I start it from cold, if I shut it off for 10 minutes and start again it's fine, only acts up from cold start. I don't know but I'm thinking maybe sitting in a shed with no heat for 10 years may have taken out the board, the inside looks good, no dirt, rust or visible corrosion (I have not pulled the board to look at it) if it needs a new board I'll get work to cover it since most welding is for them. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
Reply:Try over on the Miller forum and search for member "Cruiser"- he is a repair tech.http://www.millerwelds.com/resources...oard/index.phpEd Conleyhttp://www.screamingbroccoli.com/MM252MM211 (Sold)Passport Plus & Spool gunLincoln SP135 Plus- (Gone to a good home)Klutch 120v Plasma cutterSO 2020 benderBeer in the fridge
Reply:thank you Broccoli1
Reply:Check out the yahoo seattlemetalheads group, there are a bunch of helpful people and many local to you.  Which 3 theaters, I am on the Eastside.
Reply:Sounds like some capacitors on the control pcb are acting up. They make get better the more it is used or may die or stay the same. Electrolytic caps don't like to be left unused for long periods of time.
Reply:wgilroy , howdy I work for  The Paramount, The Moore and The Neptune. Got out of the Machine shop/welding business and went to work for the theatres, it's a big change but I just got tired of worrying about keeping the shop busy. We have an automated moving floor at the Paramount so I stay busy repairing and making parts for it.
Reply:Thank you ccawgc, I'll look into it, appreciate the thought
Reply:Ok I just had one of those headaches with pictures, an "idea" I think it's called. If it is capacitors on the board, then it should not matter if I run it till it starts working right,  should be able to turn it on wait a few minutes once caps are charged it should run right. What do you think?
Reply:Ok on the off chance any of you experience the same problem I did, I have the answer for you. I took my machine in and of course it was the board. The board was about 680.00. I thought about buying another machine but if I bought a used machine it would have way more time on it than mine does, and it would also probably look it. I bought mine in 99 used it two years, sold it, it never got plugged in until I bought it back a few months ago, it has sat for 12years never touched. For that reason I decided to fix it. Of course it helps that I was able to get the company I work for to pick up the bill because I bring parts home to repair for them. I have the old board that I am going to send in to York Electronics for repair, unless someone out there knows a place closer to the Seattle area. Once I get it back I will know what on the board went bad and I will let you all know. Thanks for the suggestions and feed back
Reply:Make sure you give York a good description of what is going on. They will have a better chance of fixing it the first time they try. Not uncommon to have to send the pcb back and have any pcb repair place try again. So the more clear information you can give them, the faster you will get it fixed right.
Reply:thanks for the info ccawgc, I will try to explain as well as I can. I am using them because I have an automated moving floor system where I work and I use them to rebuild the PLC's from the system because of course our controller is obsolete. If you know of a better place to use I'm open to ideas.
Reply:we have tried many different pcb repair places and found them all about the same. They also run hot and cold on their repairs