Hello all, My buddy has a late 90's Lincoln Idealarc 300 AC/DC tig (single phase); which he is willing to trade me, for some old machining equipment in my garage (10" SB lathe, and delta drill press). The high frequency doesn't work on his Idealarc. I am wondering how difficult or expensive it would be to fix the high frequency feature on this model Lincoln? TIA!
You only need a constant high frequency to weld aluminum. You can use it for mild steel all day long if it does in fact still work. If you don't have much invested in the other stuff, I'd pick it up and get it fixed anyway. Assuming, you will still have another lathe and drill press...
A lot of TIG machines that have a malfunctioning high frequency circuit simply need to have the spark gaps cleaned and adjusted. Do a search on "lincoln tig spark gap" and you will find a variety of information regarding the cleaning and adjustment of the spark gap. It's at the heart of virtually all TIG welders, and is a very common failure point. It's very common for folks who don't read their users manual to have problems like this and as a result sell or trade good TIG machines, to those of us who do read the manuals, at bargain basement prices.
Thanks much all for the input! The tig appears on the outside to have been taken care of. No big dents etc., so that's good news. I think I will go ahead with the trade; as I have a back up lathe, and I can eventually pick up another used drill press. 440Raodrunner; thanks for the the Lincoln Electric link - I will look up an instruction manual, for some schematic info. Ebbsspeed; I think you may have hit the nail on the head, regarding spark gap. I totally forgot about that on these machines I bet as you have mentioned, that the gap is not adjusted properly (I hope). Once I test the beast out, I will let you all know what I find.
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