Advice on ebay tig welder.

[Zenji]

Hi folks,

I purchased a 200amp HF tig of ebay from an unamed seller discounted from 950 down to 750, after the puchase he contacted me advising a new and improved model was available.
I declined, I had no spec sheet or comparison to other copies.
(interestingly, the prices jumps back to 950 on the ad)
3 weeks later the 'new and improved model' arrives, not happy.
(i reckon gouged his price to deep)
So the ensuing paypal dispute goes forth, no further instructions from seller came and my refund comes, sweet!
I immediately buy the welder I wanted from the competition.

No to keen on ill gotten gains, what happens to the other welder?
Do I sell it? Does the seller pay to return it? Do I?
It seems an ok machine, it's HF up to about 70hz, it has a ramp up and ramp down current up to 200 amps.
The one I replaced it with has ramp/down currents of up to 90 amps, but a HF of 300hz.
The only reason i wanted a tig was to weld aluminium, and have read that the ideal welding pulse is 100hz to 150hz.
I have seen Japanese domestic market tig welders that pulse at 500hz, thats alotta current switching.

Thoughts?

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[G59]

Don't think you'll get away with doing that, as he more than likely will ask you to return the item. If after a reasonable amount of time goes by and you don't hear anything, then do what you want with it.
PayPal is too compliant to the buyer, and ignores that the seller should have some rights too.
Morally, it would be best if you at least attempt to contact the seller a couple of times and ask him what to do.
How would you feel if the tables were turned in his favor?

[Zenji]

I relunctantly agree paypal favours buyers, but ideally I would have got my original purchase first up.
The shipping is the headache when things go wrong, 27kg 700x600x300 box shipping gets up around $120 aud because postal services only handle up to 25kg.
Ideally the seller could onsell it to a buyer in my city and arrange a pickup, I'm happy to hold it until the right situation arises.

EDIT

The reason for the low pulsing frequency on the newer on is that it was based on IGBT technology, the one i bought afterwards is based on Mosfet technology which is sensitive to overheating.
A low pulse gives a weld with an appearance of large, shiny blobs on aluminium, a high pulse gives the finish of a 'stack of coins' or finely overlapped and smaller blobs.
These IGBT welders are more reliable at the expense of surface finish.
The Mosfet welders tend to go bang when used for stick welding or plasma cutting which place heavy strain on them, I have an old shunt welder I'll keep for stick welding, the Mosfet welder will be tig useage only.

Am i right thinking?
It was a better machine they sent from a life expectancy standpoint, they must have had major issues with their multifunction mosfet tig machine.

IGBT vs Mosfet could be the subject of an entirely new thread.

[aarggh]

Paypal should never have issued a refund unless the seller first organised at his expense to have the unit returned, or at your expense if you had a change of mind. There seems to be no rhyme or reason with how paypal and ebay works sometimes. Granted the seller did a dodgy, but it's just plain wrong that he's now out the item, the postage, and the refund. That's a lot of money to lose for no valid reason.

I recently had issue with paypal as I bought a box of controllers that were sent from China in a bag, no packaging of any kind, so the whole lot arrived smashed to pieces, paypal absolutely insisted I had to return the destroyed items, around 2.5kg's, at my expense to claim a refund, even though the way the seller sent them guaranteed they could only arrive destroyed. They expected me to spend $50 on postage to claim an $85 refund! It took me a week of hassling them to agree to send it snail mail, and they covered half the cost.

It's a crap system for sure.

cheers, Ian

[Zenji]

Meeting the seller halfway on return freight sounds like the go, $60 each.
By the way, I found out the IGBT unit was 5hz!!!!! Like a gas stove ignitor or a tazer, it's the bottom of the range IGBT circuitry.
I lifted the bonnet on the Mosfet box, 48 mosfets, inverter, the foot pedals just a switch, not a potentiometer, seems ok, gotta do some welds asap.

It's dicey game these choonese welders.

[RCaffin]

It's dicey game these choonese welders.
Wisdom results from foolishness!

Both true.
I am starting to question the economics of some Chinese gear. Very often it works out more expensive, when you count your time (even at a discount rate).
On the other hand, some Chinese hardware is not too bad: when made on a German CNC machine with a Western factory mgr.
Tricky!

Cheers
Roger