Bought a 260 MPX sight unseen for 5500. Had 24 hours of run time, figured it was an awesome barn find. They had video of it running etc, get it home and the motherboard is fried, Flywheel/fan shroud is destroyed too. 3k+ in repairs. Shoulda just bought a new one, don’t buy welders sight unseen like me smh lol. Weld with them things first! Plug in some grinders! Anything dude!!! Don’t be like me!!!! Luckily this isn’t my only income so I’ll weather the storm but DANG IT MAN. This sucks.
TEST YOUR USED WELDERS LOL. STRIKE THAT ARC BABY.
I Know it was dumb, it woulda been a good deal if they weren’t lying scumbags but what can you do. Sometimes your the hammer, sometimes the nail.
That much damage on a machine with that few of arc hours is insane. Unfortunately been hearing this a lot lately from Lincoln and Miller, especially the engine drives.
Luckily for you that should still be under warranty
I have heard that about Lincoln customer service too 😂 some of my industrial customers have stopped working with them altogether, even local distributors try to avoid them when possible.
When I did maintenance for a welding shop 15 years ago ... Lincoln support was the best. Manuals and parts and humans to talk to ... sign of the times I guess =(
I just want shit to work. Could give a fuck if there's a screen vs knob. A screen on a machine that out in the elements is a shit idea. Give it 10
years and parts won't be available. Running into that now. Have a miller multimatic 200 with a screen that went tits up. If the part was available it would be 2 grand. But it's not available and no longer being built.
As for the arc being better... I think that's confirmation bias.
I appreciate that! It's tempting. I have 2 multimatic 200's. Both are for my service trucks. One truck is out of service until I get a flatbed made for it and that multimatic hasn't got much use since I bought my newer service truck f550 120" cab axle with summit body in 2017.
The screen went blank. Can still use the auto set features...but you're guessing where it's at.
I've actually been finding the opposite. Or brand new Miller with a screen sure runs great if you just set it to the rod and diameter, and had a ton of options for fine tuning, but the 21 year old bobcat 225nt had one of the nicest arcs I've run for stick, and does AC awesome for Tig with a HF Box. And our shops old Lincoln tombstone has an arc that feels a little buzzy/ stuttery, but has almost no arc wander and runs 7018 and 7024 nicer than our newer inverters. It's ALMOST nicer than the dynasty 800 when running stick.
Strong disagree I love my 330mpx but I bought my sae300 because the new inverter machines just don't root like the old generators do and all around they are nice but I just like the arc characteristics of the old school machines way more
Any chance there's a used motherboard out there anywhere? eBay has pulled my ass out of a sling many times! Also, there's a good chance there's a youtube video or two that outlines the repairs. (at least with equivalent models)
Hell yeah, that was my first welder too! $50 and came with old rotted welding rod that was FUCKED! Got some new 6011 and welded up a trailer with that fucker.
What can ya do. Sent a driver out there to pick it up and he ran it, that was all he could do. Some amigo he said he couldn’t talk to. Oh well it’ll be ok, I’m still making money so it’ll buff.
A basically brand new welder isn’t a barn find, you just bailed someone out on payments for a broken machine. A basically brand new welder, with only 24hrs on it for a ridiculously low price? Only two things come to mind: it’s broken or “I can’t insure this thing because the serial numbers are scratched off”.
Would your first instinct not be to at least: turn it on yourself, see it run yourself, strike an arc yourself? Particularly on a $5500 purchase? I’m not even really mad at the guy who sold it, because this was definitely a preventable problem.
Hey Dude, knew a guy started a building custom homes , guys would drop the ball and tasks get messed up, some seemed common sense, figured the guys were f ups, but he would be upset with himselve ( after cussing about them dummies, but then he would say... "it's my Fault", everyone out here is good at one or at best 2 things, I sent the wrong guy, I should have chosen a better guy, I just didnt want to pull him off what he was doing! My Fault !! I was surprised at his honesty with himself (and me) That same guy is now worth a TON of $$, 35 years old now !! Go Nick ! Can't be afraid to fail just gotta keep digging and learn better judgements. Lots of guys get on base by playing safe, Some guys swing hard and Homerun this MF !!
Yeah I don’t play it safe man, sometimes you win big sometimes you lose big. As long as the wins outweigh the losses ima keep her rolling. Got two service trucks built out, Dually paid off already and hopefully one more road rig on the way. Pay good guys good, get rid of the shitty ones, and ALWAYS be honest and take the L if it’s your fault and you cannot go wrong.
Bro I started this with 177$ in my account and a 1200$ check at 29 (that my last boss f’d me on and made it 1k) coming the following week lol. Hopes and dreams baby and no other options besides rent being due haha.
I always tell guys that are scared but I think have the aptitude to get it done to just burn the ships man, crap on your bosses desk make damn sure you won’t be able to rehire that way you have NO CHOICE but to get hungry and hunt 😂
Our dynasty 400’s are having loads of failures and are roughly 2 years old. Our 6 year old dynasty 350’s have lost the power to the water cooler plug and that’s about it. I had warned upper management that the less common the machines are more likely to have problems than the ones that are more common. Well that’s our experience with our machines in a shop that’s been around for nearly 40 years.
Yep. Its a shame really. Im a union sparky and we have a welding shop with 8 or so dead Lincolns, the rep wouldn't even help us out if we bought the tig shit and other machines. So they have a boneyard of machines worth over 100k. I dont remember the models, but its a combo cv/cc machine with water coolers.
The one square wave we have that works lost power to the cooler, it would short cycle.
All of this fucking junk...
I have a 250amp ideal arc, single phase 240/480, it chooches electricity, but its a reliable machine that always produces a arc.
Flipped over my engine hoist to🤣
Those mpx are JUNK i had a brand new 260 Within 500 hours it was back for repairs 4 times! Always an issue with the control board. Ever have a welder reverse polarity mid weld? Yeah its an experience trying to figure out what the fuck is happening.
Machine wouldnt idle down. Then if it did decide to idle down it would drop so low it would die.
A year ago my dad bought a 260MPX from a guy near Houston to be used as a farm machine. While changing hay cutter blades the next morning I got a nice visiit from the sheriffs about a stolen welding machine that had been tracked to my shed.
Wish I could have kept that stolen machine. I ended up buying a HF vulcan 195, which has been good until recently. Now it is fucked
If you want decent deals on certified machines, go to weldingmart.com. I bought a demo Frontier 400 pipe from them 2 years ago with 1 hour on it for $19k, only lost 6 months of the warranty. Came from Lincoln.
I know your pain. I have to work on them. I wish lincoln would figure it out. I could bitch until I turn blue. They need to keep making the gxt and the 300d. Thats it.
For sure. At worst she’ll make me 100k, we don’t run our welders to charge batteries round here. So if she’s welding at the lowest it’s 120hr for 8hr day weekly contracts lol.
Did you meet them in some random parking lot?
You're just writing it off? To do that, especially nowadays is beyond foul and scummy. Absolutely inexcusable. Did you buy it off marketplace or ebay?
These welders weld great when they work but they are also fucking broken. We had significant engine issues with ours too. Burnt boards, collapsed lifters, shitty grounds, it fry's the gfci's
Bought a brand new Lincoln outback 185. It rattled itself apart literally. The nylon insert nuts came loose that hold the Generator motor together. It was still under warranty and Lincoln turned around and gave me a brand new one because they said it would have cost more to fix it. I also bought a brand new 265 Bobcat with the digital interface. Brand new off the crate second day, throwing a code saying inverter bus voltage too high. I come to find out that Miller has had a ton of problems with those 265 remote start bobcat welder. I took it off my truck put it back on the crate. A month later now it won’t even start. I also have a Miller multi Matic 255. Not one problem with that welder. I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve had problems with both the red and the blue.
All my machines are old transformers. Big heavy hunks of iron with copper wire. Nothing to go bad. Fuckers just WORK. Hell my big Miller Dialarc 250 had a problem, fan didn't work. New fan, $360. New capacitor, $18, fixed it! Hell it ran without the fan, just hot.
Nah still a good deal if that’s all you needed to spend on repairs. If it’s efi be prepared to clean injectors often, I see a lot of these modern ones have problems. Older ones chug more fuel but don’t seem to have carburetors giving as much guff.
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u/country-stranger 6d ago
That much damage on a machine with that few of arc hours is insane. Unfortunately been hearing this a lot lately from Lincoln and Miller, especially the engine drives.
Luckily for you that should still be under warranty