I picked up an old P&H (maybe 80's??) stick welder from my father in-law. It's a pretty large 220V welder, goes up to 225 amps. It has been sitting around in his shop for several years. It was last used in the late 90's. anyways, I took it home and had to re-wire in a new power cord, the old one had several cracks in the insulation. I cleaned the inside out with compressed air and a dry rag, every thing looked good. There were no point's to adjust. Anyways, it did not have any leads, so I used a beefy set of jumper cables just to see if it was worth the money to buy a decent set of leads for it. It has a single ground, and 2 outlets, one high, one low. With the low, i couldn't get an arc at all, even with it turned up, so i put it on the "high" and it would not lay a bead until 150 amps. It was growling really loud too. this was with an 1/8" 7018 rod on some plate steel.
So I guess I'm just wondering do these just get weak over time are what? . It did lay a decent bead, but I wasn't sure why I had to turn it up so high??? could it just be the jumper cables had too much resistance? I really don't want to buy leads for it if its not gonna be worth the money.

 

good Q

I have a Lincoln buzz-box (249.99 home depo special) that i've had for ever ,and has never given me any problems ,after you weld with it fir about 4-5mins straight it get real sloppy and spits & sputters ,put I've been told that because it a piece of **** with very low duty Cycle???

be sure you have it wire properly!!!you may only be seeing 110volts

 

They don't get weak...Something is probably wrong with it internally, I'd have a welder repair shop take a look at it.

 

there is something wrong with it. It could be a shitty connection with you jumper cable fix. take it to a welding supply place and they can check with some some good leads and give you a good idea what is wrong with it. On the bright side these machines aren't very complicated so it shouldnt be that big of a deal to fix it.

 

I know on my tig, which is also a stick welder has something inside that needs to be adjusted every so many hours, never really looked into it because my welder is new and I don't plan on working on the welder itself.

 

well, we figured out that one half of the crusty power switch was not making a good contact, so it was welding with half of the power, we cleaned it and I tried a bigger set of jumper cables. It lays a good bead at around 90 amps now, so i guess it works good enough for free. I just wanted it for little projects, and don't really need some fancy stuff, so i think i'll get my money's worth out of a cheap set of cables for it.....