DYNASTY 700 Arc Starting is a JOKE

[Electric4Life]

The hi-frequency starts are non-exsistent. Establishing arc requires either a lot of patients as the arc stumbles continuously, or with a light scratch of the tungsten to the material. I personally own a Maxstar 150 with lift arc and I've been using a similar technique with the Dynasty to get it to start (I'm only comparing arc starting here and I get fed up with $17K+ machine performing the same as a sub $1K unit)

Miller has replaced the boards in all 5 units once already. The starts were crisp for about a week and slowly trailed off yet again. They were purchased in early 2008. The issue isn't only with AC but DC as well. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Currently we are welding a ton of Alumium assemblies which require between 320 and 360 Amps. We have a variety of tungsten being used thruought the dapartment, though I choose 1% Zirconiated. Good ground. NEW Speedway 320 torch, almost 20 CFH on the argon, and no contaminated tungsten. Additionally, I wait for the tungsten to properly cool before repositioning after exstinguishing the arc.

The Dynastys are great machines however this issue is quite time consuming

[Steve HR Hooligan]

Wow that sounds bad, could be an opportunity for miller to do some r&d and find out what the problem is and fix the issue, i had the same problem with a lincoln precision tig 375 with welding lost of aluminum castings and the high freq would be be hit and miss

[TJS]

There is even a miller rep. out there on youtube stating to touch the work before striking an arc. I do it as second nature with my 300DX machine.

[FusionKing]

I have a pre-Blue Lightning 700 as well
#1 I wouldn't use zirc. on that machine. Use what is recommended. I use lanthanated. I use GOLD but blue should hold up even better. Just what my LWS carries. Ceriated (orange) is also rated well with some people, including Miller.
If you let the tungsten form a ball it will have the starting issues much more. It should be pointed. Zirconiated is known to form a nice ball for the old transformer machines. I have a pile of it still laying around from back in the day. (2%)
Get rid of it.....it's junk on that machine. Unless you have it set on sine and all that goes with it like 50% balance and 60 frequency I see no good choosing that

#2 You can simply touch the cup to the work before you light off and it normally helps a ton

#3 Why do you need to wait for your tungsten to cool? Sounds like a waste of argon to me

I also had my boards changed on my machine as well and no problems since. Altho it was an upgrade not a starting issue.
I hope you get this problem solved quickly....good luck.
HTH!
Garry

[ironrail]

Use 2% lanthanated or ceriated ground to a 30deg. blunted point. Change your coolant,use low conductive coolant,and I think in the hidden menu you can make an adjustment for tungsten size.

[awill4x4]

Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done about it.
When my friend bought his pre "blue lightning" Dynasty 350 we referred to it as the most expensive scratch start Tig money can buy. (we were wrong, obviously the pre blue lightning Dyn 700 was)
We tried all the internal settings to no avail. Boards were swapped by the Miller techs and we then tried another 2 machines until the local welding dealer finally sourced a Blue Lightning machine and it was ok from then on.
It was a very frustrating exercise for us particularly since we've been used to excellent start characteristics from some of the European and Japanese inverter Tigs we also use.
The blue lightning Dyn 350 though is a truly fantastic machine.
Regards Andrew from Oz.

[petesc]

Have you talked to anyone from Miller Service to see if there is a HF coupling coil Modifcation you can do like on the Maxstar 200s and Dynasty 200s. Its very simple and it really makes a difference in the starting. Just add one extra wrap on the ferrite core for a total of 4 1/2 turns and regap points to .016 as per Miller field FORM: F217 608E. This for all Maxstar 200s and Dynasty 200s with Serial Numbers Between LC374378 And LJ280221L

[4sfed]

Use 2% lanthanated or ceriated ground to a 30deg. blunted point. Change your coolant,use low conductive coolant ...

How does the coolant help? My 300DX has had the same problem from day one.

Thanks

[ironrail]

How does the coolant help? My 300DX has had the same problem from day one.

Thanks

Coolant flows through your power cable , over time it can become contaminated and conductive to the high frequency wave.Electricity always finds the easiest path.Too much gas or a surge of gas hurts starting as well.

[Helios]

There is even a miller rep. out there on youtube stating to touch the work before striking an arc. I do it as second nature with my 300DX machine.

I do that also with my Sync250 and it seems to make arc starting more reliable.