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Bryan1

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Joined: 22/02/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 1619

Posted: 05:47am 23 Jan 2026

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Well decided to get my Unimig Viper 182 mig out of storage and switched from gasless to normal mig wire and I connected my argon bottle for the gas.

Well the old Kipoint inverter that has now clocked over 20 years powering my shed did it's best but it did the start stop thing and honestly wasn't up to this job so tried my 4Kw genset only find that also was getting bogged down with the start stop thing again.

I went to Paramount Browns where I bought this 7Kw genset that did us a few years and stopped working, I went in and asked for spare parts only to be told they didn't sell spares so that 4Kw was bought.

Now I was back in there yesterday buying steel where when I asked again for run cap where I was told it's a AVR and yes they do sell spares and for $37

So it will be great to get that genset going so it can power the mig welder.

A bit of history with this mig welder

Bought it precovid at TotalTools and found back then the kipoint wouldn't run it so fired up my 16hp Listeroid with that 5Kw genhead without a AVR and went to town welding bolts together to make a T-rex and heard the mig go a nice bang and it stopped working as I did let the magic smoke out

Took the mig welder back into TotalTools and told turned on the mig and it went snap crackle pop so can I get this fixed under warranty. It took close to 2 months and got told all the pcb boards were replaced and it has been tested so you have a new mig welder again.

Godoh
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Joined: 26/09/2020
Location: Australia
Posts: 605

Posted: 08:01am 23 Jan 2026

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HI Bryan, I run my 180 amp mig off grid, I run it off my 4kw home made inverter.
It switches off on overload if I try to weld stuff that is too thick. But for thin metal up to about 4mm it is fine.
Running your generator without an AVR is pretty risky. It sounds like the voltage went too high and blew up the MIG.
There are plenty of AVRs around that are pretty cheap, it is not too hard to cobble one in to do the job.
Good luck getting the 7kva genset running.
My 180 amp mig manual suggested having at least a 10 kva generator to run it.
But if yours has a diesel motor then it may have enough torque to not bog down when you are welding.
Pete

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