Air Solenoid

[Astro_Al]

There's a prob with the air system on me plasma:

Anyone know how to diagnose which bit is caputski? Not sure if its the square electric jibber-jobber, or the valvy brass tube bit...

Any thoughts / free replacements?

Ta, Al.

[SteveG]

square one is the solenoid, I would suspect the other one is a pressure sensor.

Cheers

Steve

[FridgeFreezer]

The elecamatronical doohickey is a standard coil, readily available in a variety of flavours. It creates magnetifications which move the whassname in the valvey thing. If the whassname has stuck, it won't work - some are take-apart-able, sometimes a sharp tap with an aircooled flatness adjuster frees them off. Test the doohickey by pulling it a little way off the mount, then pulling the trigger - if it moves, it's magnetifising OK.

The top bit looks like a pressure sensor, not sure where that fits in to the equation.

I'd take the whole contrivance to a place like Hyphose and they will probably re-create it from new bits for about £30.

[Astro_Al]

The plot thickens.

I called the company that sold it today (to the original owner - there was a label stuck on the front).

Me: 'Hi I'm after some info on an old portamig plasma you sold.'

Him: 'Oh dear. They've been out of business for 15 years.'

Me: 'I know, I just wondered if you might know something about spares for it, or have an old manual lying around'.

Him: 'What do you want a manual for, are you some kind of electrical whizz?'

Me [oh dear...]

So that was fruitless. But there was some progress. I think I have some wrong bits in my torch - the problem being there are eleventy-billion torches that look the same, but are slightly different. I might experiment with a few different consumables. After that its new torch time. Good job it was stupidly cheap.

Torches - new vs. 'other one'. Almost the same, but just different enough to be annoying:

But - back to the air:

There is a gauge on the front which taps directly off the regulator on the back of the plasma.

The small used-to-be translucent plastic tube taps off air to the gauge:

Q1: can anyone tell me if this is likely to be pre- or post-regulator air pressure? It comes out the middle so looking at it is no use. I know I could have checked, but I clean forgot in all the excitement.

Now for the interesting bit. It wouldn't fire up because the air pressure switch was always tripped out. This is linked to the 'roundish' pressure sensor in the pics above. Confident that I had a good level of air pressure for testing - around 4 bar - I unplugged the pressure sensor and bypassed it with a wire - the trip now 'untripped' and I could at least hear/see something working when I hit the button:

Q2: So in fact I think I need a new sensor, but it has no markings on, so any ideas?

Cheers, Al.