Ok, I admit it, I have this bizzare fascination with welders and can't stop buying them, amongst other tools also. This is my latest purchase, a Cigweld 250 Amp Remote Wire Feed Welder. As usual the first thing I have to do is pull the damn thing apart and give it a thorough clean. I can't beleive it was in such a dirty state. It seems it's previous owners failed to respect it.

If you are going to own any tools then it is best to respect them and this is shown by regular cleaning and maintenance. Now the reason I purchased this unit is that it was a great deal. Secondly I was looking around for a remote wire feed model as I generally weld outdoors and get annoyed dragging the MIG outside. The remote unit is easy to carry and it comes with 10 metres of cabling. More than enough length to go outside and weld some stuff.

Cigweld Transmig 250
Primary Input Voltage
240V 1-Phase
Current Range
20-250 Amps
Duty Cycle
25% @ 250 Amps 24V
50% @ 180 Amps 24.8V
100% @ 127 Amps 21.6V
Welding Voltage Range
15.5V – 26V
Voltage Steps
Sixteen
Wire Sizes:
0.6 – 1.2mm Ferrous
0.8 – 1.2mm Stainless
0.8 – 1.2mm Aluminium
0.8 – 1.2mm Flux Cored

Specifications and features

• Adjustment of timers for stitch/spot welding.
• Precision, high quality wire feed unit ensuring a smooth, reliable delivery of wire
• 2 x Multi-positional switch for precise voltage settings. Fine and Coarse.
• Efficient fan cooling for increased duty cycle.
• Thermal overload protection ensures low maintenance performance.
• Reverse polarity for self-shielding wires.
• Industrial steel/rubber castors for ease of movement.
• Accommodates 1Kg, 5Kg and 15Kg wire spools.

Utterly dispicable. Years of neglect. Many welder failures can be avoided by simply cleaning out the dust.

Would you beleive this is the same machine. A quck blow with the air compressor and then a wipe down with WD-40 and a rag.

This is the other side. This MIG has filter caps to give a smoother DC waveform when welding. If you do not have filter caps then the waveform ends up looking like a series of pulses.

Ahhhhh, that is real eye candy. All the innards look like they are new.

This is a close up shot of the caps and the rectifier. The fan blows a hefty draft and expells rather than suck.

This is a close up of the voltage selection switches and control contactor.

This is the remote wire feeder, gear drive side. It wasn't all that bad. I gave it a clean anyway.

This is the sealed side of the remote wire feeder. It had some weired dust on the bottom. This thing must have been kept in one heck of a bad environment.

Just like new again. Cleans up easy with a bit of elbow grease.

This is the base unit re-assembled. Unfortunately the outer casing has some scratches and surface rust. I will need to spray it down the track.

Now then, this thing in the picture is the end of the welding cable that feeds the gun. This type of connection is known as a TWECO connection. The TWECO connection requires the manual connection of the gun trigger wires to the remote wire feeder. Euro connection torches have the gun trigger connections built in so there are no extra wires to connect after the gun cable is fitted.

The Transmig remote wire feeder has adjustable burn back, spot weld timers, dwell timer and continuous welding mode. The wire speed runs between 1 and 17 metres per minute.

The welding power source has 4 coarse and 4 fine voltage settings giving a total of 16 voltage steps.