Pocket Turbo 130 wire feed.

[Islander71]

The wire feed on my welder works fine if the gun hose is fairly straight, but becomes erratic if there is much bend in the line. Most migs seem to have replaceable feed vee rollers of 25 or 30mm dia. The Turbo130 has the vee feed direct on the gearbox shaft and is about 16mm dia. and I suspect that as the machine is maybe 35 years old the vee is worn and slipping. Has anyone tried making a thin walled sleeve with vee to fit over the shaft? It would need to be thin or the tension arm wouldn't fit and wire feed could be too high. Would this help?
If that isn't feasible are the cheap feed motor assemblies on ebay an improvement? - I dont want or need to go down the euro torch route - so just a substitute of the feed drive.

 

[pptom]

Put one of the cheap eBay feed mechs on mine recently.
Ditched it after a couple of weeks. Something was majorly wrong with it, the feed roller ran out of true, meaning it only contacted the wire enough to feed at about 50% of every revolution, despite skimming it in the lathe. I suspect the mechanism was out
Also you could see the body of it flexing under load.
Can't help with your feed roller issue, mine suffered with brittle plastic, luckily, a chap on ebay 3d prints replacement parts.

 

[eddie49]

From photographs, it does appear that the wire drive roller of the Cebora Pocket Turbo 130 is directly part of the gearbox output shaft.
These machines ( and their BOC Migmaster 130 clones ) have a good reputation on this forum. Many of them keep going for decades. It may be worthwhile looking for other causes of your wirefeed problem. The torch liner may be dirty; it could be blown out with an airline, or replaced with a "curtain wire" steel liner. The pressure roller may not be tight enough, or it's pivot shaft may be skewing away from the driveline. There may be too much tension on the spindle brake of the wire spool.

As a substitute, I would only trust the die-cast metal replacement wirefeed assemblies, such as this one:

Welding Machine Accessories Dc 24V Wire Feed Assembly Wire Feeder Motor Mig D8D8 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Welding Machine Accessories Dc 24V Wire Feed Assembly Wire Feeder Motor Mig D8D8 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[Islander71]

Thanks for your suggestions eddie49. I have replaced the torch and neck liner, taken apart the feed gearbox and re-greased it, tried increasing roller tension. All works fine with the torch lead reasonably straight, but seems to become erratic when in awkward positions under a vehicle when the torch lead by necessity has more curves.
The die-cast feed motor is for a euro torch, so unless that part can be removed to use the existing torch, it means buying the torch and a gas valve and modifying the welder case and rewiring it. Quite a lot of expense and work -I'm not sure if it is worth it.

 

[Monkeypeas]

If you can make the machine work for you as is and arent interest in tinkering then its not worth it, as eddie said above make sure you have it set right, everythings clean, roller groove included, nothings flexing or interfiering with the rollers when you tighten the tension down, if its only bad when the torch lead is curved around its almost certainly just the wire feed motor struggling to push the wire for one mechanical reason or another, or it simply not being powerful enough for what you're asking of it rather than any electrical gremlin, although people do seem to do ok with these old ceboras so i'd imagine it should put up with a bit of bending the lead about.


If the machine wont do what you want because the feed factory motor is (and always will be probably) weak or worn, and you dont want to buy another machine then it could very well be worth it, there isnt alot of difference between one of those ceboras and alot of larger fancier transformer machines aside from the feed motor and max power output, i'd do it, and have to similar machines.

If you bide your time those ally feed motors come up on amazon shipped from china for sub £30 pretty often with no import charges given they seem to always be sent in a padded envelope (i have 2 sat on a shelf right now infact, just incase), the prices fluctuate but you could always pick one up and stick on a shelf somewhere just incase you decide to go with it, someone on here would probably give or sell you a cheap euro torch, job for a rainy day perhaps.

The cheaper ebay plastic feed units would work providing you dont get one thats out of whack like the other fella, it'd be less messing around, but as eddie said, the larger ally ones are the ones to have, motors are twice the size, and theres no flex in them.

 

[Islander71]

Thanks Monkeypeas - I'll keep an eye out for the ally feed assembly on Amazon offer. Maybe a winter project.
Are the feed roller vee grooves at 60 or 90*?

 

[Islander71]

I did manage to buy one of the ally wire feed assemblies at a reasonable price and finally got round to fitting it. It has the euro torch fitting, but at this point I haven't fitted it, using the original Cebora torch assembly. It wasn't a difficult job - after removing the old feed assembly the cut out had to be enlarged and an angle iron bracket bolted to take the new motor. I turned a nylon nipple to fit the feed exit to connect the torch liner, and had to cut out a hole in the top case for the roller tensioner.
I've been using 0.6mm wire and the roller supplied is for 0.8/1.0mm, so fitted a roll of 0.8 and all seems good. The real test will be when I'm upside down under a vehicle in an awkward position!
Some photos-