Been using a GYSMI 160P all week

[balmerchris]

Is it possible the anchor is made from wrought-iron? I have repaired a number of wrought-iron items over the years and mig has no hope but with a bit of patience the stick welder leaves an acceptable finish.

 

[Hood]

Some of the really old ones are forged which I suspect are Wrought Iron but the majority I would say are not.

 

[dannyp]

i will say the GYS machenes do not take well to being droped at all,

they have 2 boards inside 1 seems maily to be controll electronics and the other deals with with the heavy power and has a heatsink covering one side, problem is the connections between the two boards are basicly a nut solderd onto the one board and a screw goes through the other board and clamps them together and conducts the power through, problem is the "nuts" ( they are actualy round but with an internal thread ) arnt solderd particualy well to the board and it dosent take a lot for them to breack free

 

[Hood]

i will say the GYS machenes do not take well to being droped at all,

they have 2 boards inside 1 seems maily to be controll electronics and the other deals with with the heavy power and has a heatsink covering one side, problem is the connections between the two boards are basicly a nut solderd onto the one board and a screw goes through the other board and clamps them together and conducts the power through, problem is the "nuts" ( they are actualy round but with an internal thread ) arnt solderd particualy well to the board and it dosent take a lot for them to breack free

I had heard that they don't like rough treatment, just presumed it was because they are so small that any bashes in the metal casing could short against the innards. Looks like that is not what the problem is from your description.

I have never dropped any of my welders so far although the wee inverted does get knocked over quite a bit so maybe that would be enough to cause issues with the GYS.
Would it be possible to solder them on bettwer?

 

[Hood]

Is it possible the anchor is made from wrought-iron? I have repaired a number of wrought-iron items over the years and mig has no hope but with a bit of patience the stick welder leaves an acceptable finish.

Found a couple of pics of one of the really old anchors I was talking about, there are only a few of these.

 

[Bill Edwards]

I have a wee little GYS, ran a rod or so on it to see if worked (s/h) and it was nice. A lot of time has passed and for some reason I've not actually needed it yet but I don't doubt it's a good machine and if I had to buy an inverter welder it'd certainly be on the list to consider.

As to continuously running the kind of amps you seem to weld with I would say you have probably been very, very lucky to get that from a Chinese machine. Don't get me wrong in that they're capable of producing good equipment but they can also print what they like as to the specs (e.g duty cycle) and also running any machine, never mind a cheapie, flat out all the time is testing its build quality.


People tend to think you can't get high amps off low power and good duty cycle but they're not always right. I have an Inverter fusion 200a TIG/ 180a stick and although you can blow 13a fuses I am quite sure that if you fitted a 16a plug it'd run flat out quite happily on most power sources without drawing too much, a 13a fuse is just not quite up to it. The better machines are more efficient and essentially give more power out vs input than some alternative units.
The only machine I can think of which truly has a high duty cycle is the Inverter fusion, I'm not looking up the specs now but I think my machines is rated for 100% at 160a and I have certainly never made it cut out yet. However, this isn't to say I highly recommend them as although they are brilliant machines when it comes to power consumption and duty cycle they don't seem to have the best reputation with regards to reliability and I have been stung with an eye-watering repair bill for sending a machine to IFL for repair.

 

[dannyp]

I had heard that they don't like rough treatment, just presumed it was because they are so small that any bashes in the metal casing could short against the innards. Looks like that is not what the problem is from your description.

I have never dropped any of my welders so far although the wee inverted does get knocked over quite a bit so maybe that would be enough to cause issues with the GYS.
Would it be possible to solder them on bettwer?

they dont solder much, to me it looks like the way they are stuck on in the factory is a sort of hybrid of spotwelding and soldering probaly before the boards are populated, as you can see the joints look dry when theyve broken. to repair the populated board you need to hit it with some heat i used a gas welding torch but it scorched the board fairish it worked till another joint went so i is possible just nt sure of the right method yet

 

[balmerchris]

Thats a right lump of iron to have to shift. Some serious corrosion on there too. Could be all kinds of contamination in there. Fair play for welding that weight of stuff with just a wee welder.
That second pic on the beach is very artistic. Could happily frame that and hang it on the wall.

 

[Hood]

I have a wee little GYS, ran a rod or so on it to see if worked (s/h) and it was nice. A lot of time has passed and for some reason I've not actually needed it yet but I don't doubt it's a good machine and if I had to buy an inverter welder it'd certainly be on the list to consider.

As to continuously running the kind of amps you seem to weld with I would say you have probably been very, very lucky to get that from a Chinese machine. Don't get me wrong in that they're capable of producing good equipment but they can also print what they like as to the specs (e.g duty cycle) and also running any machine, never mind a cheapie, flat out all the time is testing its build quality.


People tend to think you can't get high amps off low power and good duty cycle but they're not always right. I have an Inverter fusion 200a TIG/ 180a stick and although you can blow 13a fuses I am quite sure that if you fitted a 16a plug it'd run flat out quite happily on most power sources without drawing too much, a 13a fuse is just not quite up to it. The better machines are more efficient and essentially give more power out vs input than some alternative units.
The only machine I can think of which truly has a high duty cycle is the Inverter fusion, I'm not looking up the specs now but I think my machines is rated for 100% at 160a and I have certainly never made it cut out yet. However, this isn't to say I highly recommend them as although they are brilliant machines when it comes to power consumption and duty cycle they don't seem to have the best reputation with regards to reliability and I have been stung with an eye-watering repair bill for sending a machine to IFL for repair.

I don't run that amperage day in day out, probably only 3 or 4 days a year, normally it is used for stainless 3.2 and 2.5 rods so well under 100amps usually. Having said that I was surprised the welder kept going with the 5mm rods, I had intentionally bought a dearer Chinese one at the time but I knew the duty cyles printed on it were likely to be just funny number, looks like they weren't.

 

[Hood]

they dont solder much, to me it looks like the way they are stuck on in the factory is a sort of hybrid of spotwelding and soldering probaly before the boards are populated, as you can see the joints look dry when theyve broken. to repair the populated board you need to hit it with some heat i used a gas welding torch but it scorched the board fairish it worked till another joint went so i is possible just nt sure of the right method yet

Ok thanks for the info, will see what I think if/when the Chinese one packs up.

 

[Hood]

Thats a right lump of iron to have to shift. Some serious corrosion on there too. Could be all kinds of contamination in there. Fair play for welding that weight of stuff with just a wee welder.
That second pic on the beach is very artistic. Could happily frame that and hang it on the wall.

These ones probably weigh upwards of 400 Kg, they are a bit shorter than the others but bulky things and once the big flukes are welded on even heavier.

It was a photographer that took the pics that is why they are artistic in nature Just grabbed them off the internet.

 

[DAPPH]

Some of the really old ones are forged which I suspect are Wrought Iron but the majority I would say are not.

I suspect that they will be drop hammer hot forged / swaged low carbon steel as they are only anchors . I don't see anyone making them out of an expensive material as they are lost too often . Have you tried the grinder test to see what the sparks coming off it are like ?

 

[Omniata]

I suspect that they will be drop hammer hot forged / swaged low carbon steel as they are only anchors . I don't see anyone making them out of an expensive material as they are lost too often . Have you tried the grinder test to see what the sparks coming off it are like ?

Or even cast?

 

[Hood]

I suspect that they will be drop hammer hot forged / swaged low carbon steel as they are only anchors . I don't see anyone making them out of an expensive material as they are lost too often . Have you tried the grinder test to see what the sparks coming off it are like ?

Well I did cut off the old flukes, or what was left of them, with a grinder but to be honest I never paid that much attention and it was probably a couple of years ago I did the really old ones. Having said that I can't recall anything unusual about the sparks from normal steel but could have been subtle differences.

 

[Hood]

Or even cast?

Could be cast steel, definitely not cast Iron.

 

[Omniata]

Does it "ping" if you tap it with a narrow/chiselled hammer, or a "dull ring"?

 

[Hood]

YES , YES IT DOES!!!!!, oh wait you mean the anchor, thought you were meaning my head

Sorry don't recall too long ago.

 

[Omniata]

YES , YES IT DOES!!!!!, oh wait you mean the anchor, thought you were meaning my head

Sorry don't recall too long ago.

 

[Mee]

I suspect that they will be drop hammer hot forged / swaged low carbon steel as they are only anchors . I don't see anyone making them out of an expensive material as they are lost too often . Have you tried the grinder test to see what the sparks coming off it are like ?

I would suspect the same, often they were made by a local blacksmith in the earlier days with a team of strikers.

 

[DAPPH]

Or even cast?

I'm fairly sure that cast pig iron would not be lasting very long due the pores in the cast iron . Cast steel is expensive to do , you have to make the moulds & remelt the steel & if I recall correctly unless it is hardened and correctly tempered is is about as strong & brittle as cast iron

I would suspect the same, often they were made by a local blacksmith in the earlier days with a team of strikers.

My Dad was a blacksmiths hammer boy .. At nearly 15 years old he " drove " a six ton steam trip hammer at a big blacksmithing company in Sheffield in 1925 for several years till he joined up in to the first battalion of the York & Lancaster regiment in 1932- 33 .
It made me realise many years later why he had such a fine tuned sense of rhythm , touch , hand & eye coordination