One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250. Am looking for information on other places to
contact for this part and other parts in the future.

soka wrote:

One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250.

soka wrote:

One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250. Am looking for information on other places to
contact for this part and other parts in the future.

All such boards come from Miller. There is obviously a markup at the
repair shop. IMO about the best you can do is to contact the various
welder repair shops in your area and see what price they can give you. And
don't forget, you an always groan when they mention the price and say
things like "YOW! Is that really the best you can do?"

If it's a currently supported Miller part, and not something you have to
find lying dusty on a shelf somewhere, then maybe you can contact Miller
directly.

I doubt anyone on the planet is sourcing Miller replacement boards besides
Miller.

GWE

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250. Am looking for information on other places to
contact for this part and other parts in the future.

Thank you

One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250. Am looking for information on other places to
contact for this part and other parts in the future.

Thank you

Ever think you might be making a mountain out of a molehill?

Unless the machine is totally spare and not missed the time hunting
around for the board or the time picking through the electronics might
not be worth it?

And if you source the board will the repair shop bill your for
diagnosis time?

assuming by some miracle you find it for say $100 an hour or 2 at the
repair shop will have that back up at 250

just like unless you have an electronics repair guy on staff or are
brave the cost of having a guy rebuild the board with cheaper
components form a supplier like Acklands youre still going to spend
more labor rebuilding it

I'm making the assumption that youre not comfortble rebuilding the
board otherwise i think i'd see this post asking about timer board
components on sci.electronics.repair rather than SEJW.

I honestly think that other than the few alternate places mentioned for
a genuine miller board youre WAY better off taking the sticker shock.
Amazingly miller is one of those companies that actually MAKE and
support their products. Its not something common anymore but millers
OEM is Miller and they still ahve readily available replacement parts
for a machine as ols as yours. there is something to be said there

I have a better way to look at the sticker shock. How old is the
machine? if youre calling it older i would assume you mean MINIMUM 10
years possibly 15-20 if its needed one 250 dollar part after 10 years
of use thats FAR less than a tank of argon a year in upkeep and wahts
it worth without the timer board. let alone if its closer to 15/20
years old thats less than a pack of tungstens a year in "maintenance
and upkeep"

otherwise i'm sure there are dozens of people on this group who would
pay what the broken tig welder portion is worth to fix it

soka wrote:

One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250. Am looking for information on other places to
contact for this part and other parts in the future.

Thank you

By FAR the easiest way to fix this is to pay the $250 and thank your lucky stars
you have a welder that's supported for parts. You'll forget the $250 soon and
you'll be back in business. You could ruin your machine fiddling around with the
electronics if you don't know what you're doing, and *nobody* commercial will
repair a small PC board cheaper than that. Sure, if your brother is an
electronics bench whiz with a mountain of test equipment, you might be able to
fix it cheaper, but then you wouldn't be posting.

A Syncrowave 250 is easily a $2500 machine. Paying 10% of the value of a machine
to fix it is no big deal.

I would also suggest that the OP count himself damn lucky. All he has to do is
swap in a readily-available board.

GWE

Brent wrote:

Ever think you might be making a mountain out of a molehill?

Unless the machine is totally spare and not missed the time hunting
around for the board or the time picking through the electronics might
not be worth it?

And if you source the board will the repair shop bill your for
diagnosis time?

assuming by some miracle you find it for say $100 an hour or 2 at the
repair shop will have that back up at 250

just like unless you have an electronics repair guy on staff or are
brave the cost of having a guy rebuild the board with cheaper
components form a supplier like Acklands youre still going to spend
more labor rebuilding it

I'm making the assumption that youre not comfortble rebuilding the
board otherwise i think i'd see this post asking about timer board
components on sci.electronics.repair rather than SEJW.

I honestly think that other than the few alternate places mentioned for
a genuine miller board youre WAY better off taking the sticker shock.
Amazingly miller is one of those companies that actually MAKE and
support their products. Its not something common anymore but millers
OEM is Miller and they still ahve readily available replacement parts
for a machine as ols as yours. there is something to be said there

I have a better way to look at the sticker shock. How old is the
machine? if youre calling it older i would assume you mean MINIMUM 10
years possibly 15-20 if its needed one 250 dollar part after 10 years
of use thats FAR less than a tank of argon a year in upkeep and wahts
it worth without the timer board. let alone if its closer to 15/20
years old thats less than a pack of tungstens a year in "maintenance
and upkeep"

otherwise i'm sure there are dozens of people on this group who would
pay what the broken tig welder portion is worth to fix it

soka wrote:

One of my welders is an older Miller Syncrowave 250. The timer board
for the relay controlling the gas needs to be replaced. It's a very
small PC board and my local supplier can get one from Miller but it
will cost me $250. Am looking for information on other places to
contact for this part and other parts in the future.

Thank you



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

I don't think we have to take such a doctrinaire approach to the
question of repairing vs. replacing the timing board. That's why I
asked about a schematic and asked if the timing function was in a
timing relay or in circuitry on the board. If the board is just a
carrier for a plug-in time delay relay, it seems to me to be quite
feasible to consider locating a plug-in replacement. Conversely, if
the timing board uses discrete circuitry or a microprocessor, the
solution is clearly to buy a replacement.

Don't forget, many welders are hobbyists or retirees who may not be
able to justify a few hundred dollars outlay for a repair but who can
justify a few hours of time and who might get considerable satisfaction
out of repairing his machine with a little help. There's a big
difference in financial motivation between commercial welders with a
high chargeout rate and a guy who bought a welder at auction for hobby
welding. Being one of the latter myself, I can understand the
satisfaction of restoring an industrial grade machine.

Since the original poster mentioned his reluctance at spending $250 for
a replacement timing board, I wouldn't be surprised to find that he was
closer to my class of hobbyist-welder than to a professional welder.
That's why I suggested exploring getting a replacement timing relay.

awright

I took the OP as being an industrial user when he said ONE of his
welders and wasnt concerned about it being HIS TIG welder few hobbyists
i know have multiple welders and especially few have multiple welders
of the same process. I figured someon not concerned about a welder as
big as a Sync 250 being out of service would eb an industrial user with
a backup since for a hobbyist that is 90% likely your big machine.
Youre totally right i gave an industrial type answer.

My logic too in regards to repairing welders is most welding/metalwork
machining hobbyists are not electronics/electrical experts. Their
background is usually in metal/mechanics though i'm sure there are
exceptions. I'm one My career and training is industrial electronics
and telecom and i've worked jobs as a bench repair tech. Metalwork and
welding are my hobbies.

TIG is an expensive welding process though and if spending 250 is
asking a lot then it might not be the right process to be into.

the relay swap is a very good point but it it were a suspect relay then
the better newsgroup for partsmatching or dinding a replacement has to
be sci.electronics.repair

But youre right i did do up that response geared towards an industrial
user rather than a welding hobbyist. If its a relay rebuild or a trace
jump then there ARE cost effective and cheap ways around replacing the
board. But thats something tobe dealt with in situations where time
does not equal money like a retiree with a good electronics background.

Brent Philion
Ottawa Canada

awright wrote:
I don't think we have to take such a doctrinaire approach to the
question of repairing vs. replacing the timing board. That's why I
asked about a schematic and asked if the timing function was in a
timing relay or in circuitry on the board. If the board is just a
carrier for a plug-in time delay relay, it seems to me to be quite
feasible to consider locating a plug-in replacement. Conversely, if
the timing board uses discrete circuitry or a microprocessor, the
solution is clearly to buy a replacement.

Don't forget, many welders are hobbyists or retirees who may not be
able to justify a few hundred dollars outlay for a repair but who can
justify a few hours of time and who might get considerable satisfaction
out of repairing his machine with a little help. There's a big
difference in financial motivation between commercial welders with a
high chargeout rate and a guy who bought a welder at auction for hobby
welding. Being one of the latter myself, I can understand the
satisfaction of restoring an industrial grade machine.

Since the original poster mentioned his reluctance at spending $250 for
a replacement timing board, I wouldn't be surprised to find that he was
closer to my class of hobbyist-welder than to a professional welder.
That's why I suggested exploring getting a replacement timing relay.

awright

I took the OP as being an industrial user when he said ONE of his
welders and wasnt concerned about it being HIS TIG welder few hobbyists
i know have multiple welders and especially few have multiple welders
of the same process.

Brent, I am very much a hobbyist level welder, having never been paid a
penny for any of my welding. I have a WWII era Harnisfager/P&H
transformer type stick/TIG welder rated at 300 amps 100% duty cycle/450
amps 35% duty cycle in my home garage and a Thermal Arc 400 inverter
stick/TIG machine in my basement. That's in addition to my original
Sears plug-select buzz box with outboard HF unit that I started out
TIGing with 4 decades ago (that was a laugh), the Craftsman stick
welder I picked up recently at a salvage store, and my Lincoln Weld-Pak
150 (I think) wire feed unit. My point being that you can't tell a
hobbyist by his hardware.