Cebora pocket pulse 100 tig, faulty or me?

[Steve182]

Hi guys i'm wondering if anyone with knowledge of a cebora pocket pulse 100 scratch start tig machine can help me, i just bought it off ebay as a starter tig machine but i can't seem to create an arc with it, i'm at college at the moment and there i'm using £2500 lincoln machines which as you know are hf start and relatively easy to get an arc going but with this machine i seem to be banging my head against the wall just to get an arc going, the tungsten will arc up when scratched but sticks 99% of the time or just won't get an arc going at all no matter what setting it's on.

any advice on this situation would be much appreciated cheers guys, failing that i'll have to bite the bullet and buy a new and decent inverter hf start machine, this one was only £75 so no big deal if it's a lost cause.

 

[NotANormalCoder]

This was never a particularly well designed machine and starting was always a problem. First, remove the covers and check for burnt components, and ensure everything is tight. Check to see if you are getting variation in current when the current knob is rotated and make sure the pulse switch is off. If everything seems ok, it's just a matter of learning how to start the arc. If I remember, if you don't get the arc going straight away, the machine seems to die until you try again. Also, check you are using pure Argon and not too much flow as this can tend to blow the arc out before you get started.
Dave

 

[Steve182]

Cheers for that Dave, i did take the cover off and the machines internals do look quite rusty but all the connections are tight, the only problem i found was that one of the two black wires in the tig torch had come off so i reconnected that but no change so far, i'm thinking of just leaving it aside for now and buying an r-tech tig machine with a hf start, i'm probably going to get nothing but frustrated trying to get this one going .