The pictures below are of a Miller Maxtron 450 I recently acquired. The client that had them told me they had been steam cleaned & were "ready to go." The inside surfaces of the machine were indeed clean, however the entire cooling tunnel & heat sinks were caked with moldy dirt, along with the fan & aft bleed resistors. The number one reason these machines generally fail, is due to IGBT failure, caused mostly by dirt caked heat sink fins. The machine can only stay cool if the aluminum heat sinks are allowed to dissipate excess heat by forced air from the cooling fan. When they cannot.......
Inverters like this usually fail. The failure can be minimal to severe, depending on what part of the system actually fails.
The Maxtron 450 was designed as primarily a robotic use power source. They would sit in racks, in a filthy factory & correctly serviced generally about never. Many of them failed, primarily due to this reason. A PIECE OF FILTER PAPER OR MESH COVERING THE INTAKE LOUVERS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AS "SERVICING" ALONE, AND IN SOME CASES WILL IMMEDIATELY VOID A FACTORY WARRANTY. However, if this machine is kept clean they will last for years & years. I have repaired & sold dozens of these machines in the past several years & have not had a serious failure to date.
These machines can be pressure washed with about 1500 PSI & yield very good results. As long as they are dried properly, nothing rarely will short out. It is always recommended to perform a factory pre-power check before applying input power after servicing & or pressure washing.
The last photo is the heat sinks & cooling tunnel scraped & brushed prior to pressure wash.
Always remember....A clean machine is a happy machine!
S.W.
Ah c'mon Steve they must have been farming in there! That is definitely filthy, but I guess I've always been a little bit leery of going after the inside of a welding machine with a pressure washer. Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing. Best regards, Allan
I have another post on the way about washing machines, my computer conveniently froze up as soon as I had it typed!!
Stay tuned, you'll be surprised what factory authorized service centers do behind closed doors!! :-) S.W.
But Steve, Do I really want to know? Or do enquiring minds always want to know? Regards, Allan
Are you an inquiring mind?? :-)
The best of both worlds! On a serious note, many of the biggest factory service centers doing commercial repairs & rentals pressure wash machines. I have never had a problem, providing I DRIED everything out thoroughly first. That's where the fans come in. See my other post for info. If you don't work on machines, you will never really need this information. If you do, it will save you a lot of time if you don't have someone experienced showing you the ropes.
I have had to learn a lot of stuff on my own though & have had to learn the hard way in many instances. I'm applying for certification as a Miller service center though, I should be getting it done soon. I'll be posting more information about machine repairs for those interested & also in hopes of learning a few things myself. S.W.
That appears to be dirt dauber nests. They look familiar!!!!! These nests are a big problem around here with ANYTHING that can be caked up, stopped up, plugged up, etc!!!
Griff
Pardon the absolute ignorance, but what is a dirt dauber? A mud wasp?? :-)
I've seen many machines like this, just as filthy & it was solely due to lack of cleaning. The clotting is excessive though but I found no little insect bodies (I didn't really look!). :-) The mold's a first though!!
I have no idea where these were stored & how long they were out of service either.
Any further enlightenment is much appreciated!! Thanks! S.W.
Probably talking about the same thing. Around here (Southern Oklahoma) we use the term dirt dauber for a bug about the size of a yellowjacket. This bug carries small balls of mud and attaches these balls to just about everything. They form the mud into a "case" (??) into which they deposit their eggs. They fly around , bother you, but never sting.
THEY GET INTO AND ONTO EVERYTHING!
In your pics you can see stains on the vertical sheetmetal case. These stains look exactly like the stains we see here when a dirt dauber nest is broken off a metal surface.
Griff
I'll buy it!! :-) It was nasty stuff all the same. Actually, the machine came very clean inside. I hope to sell it very soon.
Thanks for the info. You've obviously been around awhile, I'll take your word for it!! :-) (Maturity, NOT age!)
Thanks Griff. Steve.
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