Power settings, the manual IS wrong!

Endacy · Aug 28, 2007

I've seen lots of posts on here about Clarke power settings and wasn't sure about my 151TE as i've not really used it on anything except 3-MAX!! I have attached the page from the manual which says it goes 1-MIN, 2-MIN etc...however I checked it with a volt meter and it DOES go:

1-MIN
1-MAX
2-MIN
2-MAX
3-MIN
3-MAX

So there you go! You can check your own with a voltmeter (nothing special), I flipped the tentioner off on the wire feed to stop it feeding metres of wire out while I did this. Of course yours might actually be different.

greyshirtguy · Aug 28, 2007

Hmmm, I might actually bother to check mine with a meter, because my experience has been that it is also a different sequence of switch positions than the manual says. (CIG TransMIG 165)

Rich.C · Oct 3, 2007

Endacy,

How did you do this test please?

Cheers,

Rich

Endacy · Oct 3, 2007

Rich,

It's very simple to do this on your own set, you'll need a voltmeter of some description. I have a digital voltmeter and set it to the 200v range, I also have crocodile clip leads which make life a little easier.

Connect positive meter lead to torch tip (or piece of protruding wire if you undo the wire tensioner to stop it feeding)
Connect negative meter lead to earth clamp
Turn on welder
Choose a setting on the welder - lowest would be a good starting point!
Pull the trigger
Record voltage shown on the meter
Change welder setting and repeat

The voltage will be somewhere around the 20 - 30v ish so is easy to measure with any old meter. Hope this helps!

Rich.C · Oct 4, 2007

Thanks for your help Endacy, I will give it a test at the weekend.

Cheers,

Rich

mishka · Oct 4, 2007

One thing that's always puzzled me, and amply illustrated in the chart above, is the useful range of the wire speed control.
For example, according to the chart above the useful range for this welder is 5-8, i.e. about 40% of the total control (assuming its 1-10). So more than half of the control range has no use!
So far I have yet to find any use for wire speeds below '4', let alone the slow crawl that is '1'.

JimM · Oct 4, 2007

Thanks Endacy, I also have the 151TE and have never been able to understand why this model apparently differed from the others in the Clarke range but all makes sense now.

shenion · Oct 4, 2007

mishka said:
One thing that's always puzzled me, and amply illustrated in the chart above, is the useful range of the wire speed control.
For example, according to the chart above the useful range for this welder is 5-8, i.e. about 40% of the total control (assuming its 1-10). So more than half of the control range has no use!
So far I have yet to find any use for wire speeds below '4', let alone the slow crawl that is '1'.

On my 130 the speed is 2-6. That is until I did some Al welding, then it was at 9

Barkychoc · Feb 17, 2008

Hi folks, I'm new to this forum but on the subject of Clarke manuals, I have a 160EN with no manual - so thanks for the info above very useful.
I have downloaded the Clarke manual on this site - however that is wrong aswell I think!
It lists settings for the various thicknesses for the 150TE as (0.8mm wire)

Min 1
Max 1
Min 2
Max 2
Max 3 <-- Wrong? Should be Min 3?
Max 3
Max 3

Must be wrong as there is no Min 3 setting at all!

Chris

malcolm · Feb 17, 2008

They aren't very good at manuals :laughing:

They've messed up the wire speed settings in one of the manuals as well - they have 0.6mm the same as 0.8mm where 0.6mm should be faster.

Barkychoc · Feb 17, 2008

I think I've quickly figured that one out!
Fortunately before I went and blew holes in anything.

Thanks Malcolm, I can see this site is going to be really useful. A top resource.

Chris

dutchman · Feb 17, 2008

A bit of a safety warning for testing on welder:

I did some testing on my TIG welder with a voltmeter.

Just out of curiosity I switched a jumper on the voltmeter so that it can handle op to 10 Amperes (in this setting it doesn’t show the voltage anymore, it only measures the amps). Turned on the welder on the lowest setting and then tested. The result: in trying to make a connection between the welder and the meter tip, it melted/welded the tip off. So be careful if you don’t have crock clamps, connect the meter before you switch the welder on and check how much your meter can handle.
(this had nothing to do with HF btw, it was set in stick mode)

Barkychoc · Feb 17, 2008

Dutchman I'm a bit confused - measuring volts you use the volt range - where did amps come from?
Any meter on the amps range is effectively a short circuit - so you're going to be passing full welding current through your meter - briefly.
Then I think it will be toast.

dutchman · Feb 18, 2008

I am not exactly an expert on electronics. Only have some very basic knowledge from high school physics and carefully fool around with it.
Initially I didn’t expect any (significant) current to flow when measuring the potential difference (voltage), but after reading that warning on my meter that said 0,2 A max in the Volt setting and 10 A max in one of the Amp settings, I decided not to take the risk of measuring the voltage. Also because a TIG welder is usually constant current.
Because I can turn the welder down to 5 A, I decided to give it a go in the Amp setting.
Not sure how exactly all this works though. Maybe some expert can help us out on this one.

paul_c · Feb 18, 2008

If you use the multimeter only to measure volts, the current doesn't matter. For example, you'd use it to test/measure a car battery is 12V, the actual current the battery could supply is 400-500A, but it doesn't flow because a voltmeter has (nearly) infinite resistance.

dutchman · Feb 18, 2008

Thanks Paul, that makes sense.
I’ll adapt the earlier post a bit.
Does it work the same way on a (non HF) Tig set? I assume it does, but am not sure because Tig is constant current as opposed to constant voltage. Constant voltage is, if I recall correctly, the way a battery operates and Mig as well.

shenion · Feb 18, 2008

CC welders are not true constant current. They have a voltage drop with current. The current varies with arc length.

With a meter you measure the open circuit voltage (OCV). Usually this is the seame no matter what current setting you have the welder set to. My Airco measures 90V if set at 5A or 475A.

The current setting controls the voltage/current slope.

dutchman · Feb 18, 2008

Aha!

That is why the "constant"current curve in the manual is all twisted :laughing:

Thanks Shenion.

yottie · Mar 19, 2008

New & confused

Hi. I'm new today.
Have just finished setting up the Clarke 100E and read the forum notes re the Clarke Manual being wrong.
Could somebody please tell me if p28 is correct for my gear.
Many thanks

malcolm · Mar 19, 2008

For the 100E switches shave a look at this post (fairly sure the manual was wrong for that one too).

Welcome to the forum.

Power settings, the manual IS wrong!

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