Duty cycle of Lincoln buzz box

Earlier this year I got to wondering whether it might be old enough to have copper windings, and also what the duty cycle was for each setting.

I e-mailed Lincoln Electric tech support with the info they required for them to get me the answers I wanted. They responded with bad news and worse news. The bad news was that the welder has aluminum windings; the really bad news was that the duty cycle is 20% at every setting.

I e-mailed again for clarification, thinking that my question must have been unclear. The support tech's answer was very clear, and he let me know that he had understood me the first time. Only the 70 amp setting had a higher duty cycle, he said. That's the setting which is circled on the face of the machine, and is supposedly the setting to use to thaw frozen pipes. He said the duty cycle for that was much higher, but I can't find the e-mail now, or remember it.

Can this be true? I thought that increasing duty cycle with decreasing amperage was a matter of physics, not a manufacturer's decision. Whether you're a Lincoln fan or a Miller fan, I don't think anyone would expect Lincoln's most widely sold welder to be technically inferior to an entry level Hobart, which I know to have a 100% duty cycle at a certain reduced amperage point.

I have a old Lincoln AC, CU wound that has a enternal thermo overload. That works well and the machine will weld very easy more than the rated 20% duty cycle before triping on the overload.

I bought a Miller Thunderbolt AC/DC for my son and it doesn't have a enternal overload plus AL windings. I would not want to push this machine like I would the old Lincoln.

With the way mfg's now have to be so careful it really doesn't supprise me Lincoln won't tell where 100% duty cycle is as the old CU wound machines would have a higher duty cycle than the newer AL wound machines.

T_Bone

But the bottom line is that you've got a good entry-level welder. Who cares if it's aluminum or copper wound? I've got an AC-225 welder that I bought new about 10 years ago and it's worked perfectly for me. Nice, strong, stable arc. Which is more than I can say for some other "crackerboxes" that i've used. Never had a problem with it. It has aluminum windings, too.

They're good welders for the money in my opinion.

OK-AL