Help! I need to fix my cutter

[johnboymx]

I have a Hobart Airforce 400 that quit working. When I try to use it it doesnt shoot fire and the cup light blinks. I took it to the local welding shop that sells and repairs them and they had one they used as a parts machine to eliminate parts on mine. They told me mine needs a new PC board and it would cost over $700 for the part and labor. Can anybody help? If I could get the part I am sure I could replace it myself. I have had the machine apart when I bought it from a friend it needed a new filter in it and I replaced that with no troubles. It didnt look like it is to complicated to work on. Any suggestions?

[grainger2]

bad board

I am unfamiliar with the unit, but am fair at finding and fixing problems on boards that have failed. Were you using the unit when it failed? Did you see or smell anything burning in unit when it failed? Sending the entire unit to me would be fairly expensive, but would give me the best chance at success. That being said, I may have luck if you sent me the board only. Most places and alot of technicians don't do board level repair as it is time consuming. They like to sell a new board or rebuilt board as it affords them larger profits in a short time. Your old board is then sent off to some place to be repaired and sent back out as new/rebuilt. I make this offer only if you run out of faster options. My shop fee is way below 700.00, usually parts/supplies plus 50.00. If you look at the board and can see something burnt up I maybe able to get you the part if you can give me a part number off the part since you say the shop had a good board to test your machine with. Just compare the bad one with a good one.

[johnboymx]

Thank you

Thank you grainger. I will try to get mine apart later this week and take a look at it. Could you email me your contact info? My email is [email protected] Thank you. Do you know how much I could buy a pc board for and just exchange mine?

[welderboyjk]

Try posting on the miller site too. There are some repair guys that hang out on there.
I also googled up this site:
http://www.plccenter.com/repair/defa...ory=&Category=

Good luck.

[Archaic]

Really Good Line

Welderboyjk:

That is a really valuable link!

Thanks

[Zrexxer]

Hobart hasn't been marketing the Airforce line that long - how old is the machine? Are you sure it isn't in warranty? PC boards are warranted 3 years on these things. Call Hobart's tech support and see if you're covered before you start shelling out money.

[johnboymx]

Link

WOW! That link is amazing. Now how do I find the part number for my board?

[welderboyjk]

The repair shop if any good should have checked warranty status. If you don't have a receipt I think the mfgr. goes by build date.
If I remember right my LWS told me miller got their guts for plasmas from hypertherm (got a powermax 1000 myself), and hobart & miller are both owned by ITW. I just googled miller board repair. It was just one that popped up & looked decent.
Good luck.

[Zrexxer]

The repair shop if any good should have...

That's a big IF.

[Pat]

If all else fails here is another place you may want to try

http://gemelectronics.ieasysite.com/

[breauxtus]

If all else fails here is another place you may want to try

http://gemelectronics.ieasysite.com/

I'm in the same boat as the OP, with the same Airforce 400.

Found that site earlier and found a new (rebuilt) board for my unit runs about $220. That's much better than the $630 quoted to me by Hobart for a new board.

To the OP, Good luck. Keep us up to date. Maybe we can both learn something that will benefit the other.

Cheers,

Mike