Ton up with my R-Tech 250-1 mig,

[Gareth0123]

Interestingly enough I am currently thinking of upgrading to the new version with the standard built spool gun socket.
My 250-1 is just approaching 3 years old now and still has over 12 months of the extended warranty to run.

 

[Gareth0123]

Today marks the 3rd Anniversary of my R-Tech 250-1 mig welder being delivered to me.

During that period it has been used almost every weekday, an awful lot of Saturdays and some Sundays, and it currently has its 103rd X 15 kg reel of A18 0.8 wire loaded on it.

 

[Water skier 16]

Did you upgrade and if so what did you think? or if not how many more reels have you used?

 

[Gareth0123]

Alas no, with one thing and another I have not got around to upgrading my 3½ year old R-Tech 250-1 to their latest model. The Aluminium MIG job requiring the optional spool gun fell through and I couldn't justify the cost of the upgrade for the expensive process of MIG brazing alone......... I'll stick with TIG brazing for what little I currently do at the moment.

However, I am currently on wire reel Nº118 of A18 0.8 wire which will become Nº119 on late Monday morning.

 

[Water skier 16]

Has there been any problems/ niggles in that time?

 

[Gareth0123]

Absolutely nothing wrong with the set....... the operator on the other hand

 

[Gareth0123]

Reel 121 was fitted on Wednesday of this week.

Pilot errors todate:

1) Forgetting to change the wire drive roller from 1.00mm back to 0.8mm and then cursing, shouting and wondering why the wire wasn't feeding and then instead of using logic I immediately replaced the front end consumables and then liner for the torch thinking that was the issue.

2) Forgetting to switch back from MMA to mig and stood there pulling the trigger wondering why absolutely nothing was happening.

3) Buying a mini roll of gasless flux cored wire just to try it. I swapped over the set's polarity and then forgot to swap it back...…. those were interesting welds!

4) Accidentally plugging the return cable plug into the positive dinse socket instead of the negative and then stood there like a muppet because I couldn't get an arc from the wire at the torch.

5) Putting the torch with a very hot shroud well into the tin of tip dip and then accidentally pulling the trigger, shooting the arcing wire through the bottom of the tin and allowing half it's contents of molten hot tip dip to flow across the bench top.

 

[tinker jim]

Dam and I thought I was having a day lol still on a positive note you haven't killed the welder. (Yet)

 

[Gareth0123]

Just before I finished for the day today I put on reel Nº125 of 15kg X0.8mm X A18 wire. On an aside note I'm really getting on well with SB360/MB36 eurotorch. Yes, I know it is a bit too big and heavy a choice for most on only a 250 amp mig welder, but my consumption of front end consumables is now negligible.
Since moving up to this size of torch I am saving on average £6.00 per week in consumables so I have more than covered the initial cost of the torch and some.

 

[Gareth0123]

I have just fitted reel Nº130 of 15kg X0.8mm X A18 wire to my R-Tech 250-1 Mig welder.

The welder is in perfect running order and has never missed a beat, never overheated or tripped the in built cut-out.

However, as usual it is what presses the torch trigger that causes the all the problems..………. on reel Nº128 I managed to let go of the end of the wire when loading up and it spooled off into a birds nest that took me about a ¼ hour to untangle and rewind it back onto the reel without cutting the wire.... so that still counts as a full 15kg reel of wire!

During one afternoon last week whilst welding I noticed a lot of splatter inside the shroud so I pulled the shroud off to clean it with my gauntleted hand, said something along the lines of "Oh, bother, that temperature is a little excessive" dropped the shroud and whilst I pulled the now very hot gauntlet from my hand, the shroud rolled across and off the bench and onto a forgotten roll of orange repair tape that immediately caught fire. The little flames danced, the smoke...… a lot and I mean a lot of smoke filled my 6m long X 4m wide X 2.5m high workshop, so I grabbed a 6kg powder extinguisher and put out the fire. The smoke was horrendous and took almost 2 hours to clear with a desk fan, but "Oh my goodness" the mess that 6kg of dry powder makes is unbelievable and now a week on I am still finding little piles and dustings of it here and there and every-bloody-where.

 

[ukracer]

I have just fitted reel Nº130 of 15kg X0.8mm X A18 wire to my R-Tech 250-1 Mig welder.

The welder is in perfect running order and has never missed a beat, never overheated or tripped the in built cut-out.

However, as usual it is what presses the torch trigger that causes the all the problems..………. on reel Nº128 I managed to let go of the end of the wire when loading up and it spooled off into a birds nest that took me about a ¼ hour to untangle and rewind it back onto the reel without cutting the wire.... so that still counts as a full 15kg reel of wire!

During one afternoon last week whilst welding I noticed a lot of splatter inside the shroud so I pulled the shroud off to clean it with my gauntleted hand, said something along the lines of "Oh, bother, that temperature is a little excessive" dropped the shroud and whilst I pulled the now very hot gauntlet from my hand, the shroud rolled across and off the bench and onto a forgotten roll of orange repair tape that immediately caught fire. The little flames danced, the smoke...… a lot and I mean a lot of smoke filled my 6m long X 4m wide X 2.5m high workshop, so I grabbed a 6kg powder extinguisher and put out the fire. The smoke was horrendous and took almost 2 hours to clear with a desk fan, but "Oh my goodness" the mess that 6kg of dry powder makes is unbelievable and now a week on I am still finding little piles and dustings of it here and there and every-bloody-where.

Get yourself a C02 to save mess on a small fire....

 

[henry Kadzielski]

^^^ Get a bigger Co2 extinguisher for bigger fire. All I have is Co2 for that very reason

Oh I forgot also does cool the ale down in a hurry

 

[Gareth0123]

Last week my R-Tech 250-1 ProMig welder turned 4 years old and all the warranties have expired: the standard two year warranty that came with the machine and then the 2 years additional warranty that I purchased.

So far so good, my welder just goes on and on and last Friday I fitted 15kg reel №135 of A18 X 0.8 wire...so my welder has now pushed just over 2010kgs or 2 tons of wire.

Upgrading to an MB 36 euro torch from the SB250/MB24 euro torch earlier this year was a positive move that has saved me a considerable amount in front end consumables. On average £6p/w and as we are currently at the beginning of week 41 I am going to say that I have saved £240.00 so far this year.

However, all is not right with the MB36 shrouds at the moment.
I consumed the original 4 Paraweld shrouds: the one that came on the torch and the pack of three I bought at the time. …… or around 2 months of daily usage from each shroud!

About a month ago I bought a pack of 10 x MB36 shrouds from another online supplier which were not Paraweld but from a different and reasonably well known brand. These shrouds nearly killed me...……….. they are zinc coated and the fumes given off by the shroud when I was welding at around 210amps made me rather ill and very sick for a day. Dizziness, vomiting, headaches, stomach cramps and involuntary bladder and bowel movements lasted the rest of the day even though I had only been exposed to the burning zinc fumes for between 5 and 10 minutes. ….. that is not a lot of time to make you very Ill.

I informed the retailer about my predicament who said they'd pass it on to the supplying brand. I got no sense out of either so I've now involved trading standards with this issue.

Suffice to say I am now back using Paraweld shrouds.

 

[arther dailey]

Wow,good to hear machine is still giving good service, bad to hear about the shrouds,power to you for getting trading standards involved,how you have improved and clear of trouble.

 

[Gareth0123]

Here is a photo of the MB36 shroud that made me rather ill.

A. The Parker Brand MB36 Shroud that had a zinc covering and from which the fumes made me very ill when I was using it.

B. Another Parker Brand MB36 Shroud from the same packet as A and which I used as a control to confirm the zinc coating: <10 minutes work at 210amps.

C. New and Unused Paraweld MB36 Shroud for comparison.

 

[Gareth0123]

Roll №141 has just been installed on my R-Tech 250-1 a few minutes ago, so that is now 2115kgs of 0.8mmØ mild steel A18 wire that has been pushed by this machine with no issue or problem other than the Pilot errors caused by the Ol' Git pressing the trigger.

However, some wear is becoming evident in the reel holder although the friction brake is still functioning as it should.

 

[arther dailey]

brilliant,earned its keep thats for sure eh.

 

[DrDeAtH]

Maybe RTech will upgrade you for free at reel no 250...

 

[Gareth0123]

Roll №145 has just been installed on my R-Tech 250-1 so to date it has pushed 2160kg of 0.8mmØ mild steel A18 wire.

 

[visor_down]

Roll №145 has just been installed on my R-Tech 250-1 so to date it has pushed 2160kg of 0.8mmØ mild steel A18 wire.

Impressive, out of interest how often do you have the covers off to blow it out? With that level of use I'm guessing there's also a fair amount of grinding / plasma dust about to get sucked into the MIG