Hey guys as you say in my subject im completely new to welding never even seen an electric welder in my life until 4 days ago. A friend of mine has a welder hes letting me fix up and keep if i can fix it. anyways so the welder will spark but it wont put out that arc i want. Ive taken it apart just to see if there is anything obvious and there is nothing that i can see but my buddy did try fixing up the thing himself and didnt have the time for it but hes not even sure if he was wiring it right. Again i took it fully apart and took as many pictures as i could so i guess im just going to post them and maybe the welding community can teach me some stuff and i can get some advice on what the problem is.
It is pretty tough to diagnose an electrical problem by looking at a few photos. Sorry.
Just a though; did you check all your fuses? You should have three fuses feeding into the welder if you are using single phase 220V to feed the machine. You could have one "dead leg."