Last night my Miller 175 started giving me some feed issues. The first time it messed up, the wire kept feeding after I released the trigger and wouldn't stop until I turned off the machine. This happened a few times but then for around 5 times straight, I'd pull the trigger and it sounded like the feed rolls were getting bound up and slowly died out. As I'd let off the trigger when this happened, the rolls would blip back on at regular speed. Now I'm just stuck with it feeding after I release the trigger. It seems to work ok the first time I turn the welder on after I unplug and plug back in the electrical connector for the torch. Anybody ever experience problems like this?

I keep going back and forth on whether it's the switch in the torch or not. I keep leaning towards no because of the middle symptom.

Any suggestions?

Last night my Miller 175 started giving me some feed issues. The first time it messed up, the wire kept feeding after I released the trigger and wouldn't stop until I turned off the machine. This happened a few times but then for around 5 times straight, I'd pull the trigger and it sounded like the feed rolls were getting bound up and slowly died out. As I'd let off the trigger when this happened, the rolls would blip back on at regular speed. Now I'm just stuck with it feeding after I release the trigger. It seems to work ok the first time I turn the welder on after I unplug and plug back in the electrical connector for the torch. Anybody ever experience problems like this?

I keep going back and forth on whether it's the switch in the torch or not. I keep leaning towards no because of the middle symptom.

Any suggestions?

You probably have a short in the mig gun. Take it apart and see.

Try disconnecting your whip and actuate the power relay with a jumper at the plug. I don't know 175's at all but it's easy enough to remove the trigger from the equation. If my welder was doing that I would guess that the welding relay had gone south or there was metallic dirt causing an intermittent short somewhere but yours might not operate like mine. Does the welding current stay lit too after the trigger is released or just the wire feed?

Your welder just needs a little lovin'. Stick your balls under the hood of the welder and have some fun.

I have a miniature auto dark helmet just for my balls so they can watch while I weld. They were the most sad last night when it started going on the fritz.

The terminals like to fall off the switch inside the gun. I hate miller M10 guns, never seen one without a problem. Tweco is suposed to make a replacement that might be an upgrade.

Disconnect the gun trigger receptacle from the front panel when the problem is happening. That way you can isolate the gun. It may be the control board relay stickin.

You probably have a short in the mig gun. Take it apart and see.


+1 here

I had a similar issue with my Lincoln MIG gun, and it turned out to be metal dust from grinding the day before, shorting out the contacts for the trigger.

I messed with it a bit more last night and couldn't get it to repeat the problem. Just to check, i pulled off the connector for the gun and checked the continuity between the terminals as I pulled the trigger and it didn't short once and was very responsive. Hopefully this doesn't come up again.

I am still very skeptical about my second symptom. I can't see the trigger causing this to happen.

Same gun on my Miller, acted just the same way. I unplugged it, cleaned the terminals as well as the finger switch contacts and it's been working fine. Don't really know which one was the solution but it took about 5 minutes for both.

When I had problems with mine, the trigger wire on the machine end had broke right inside the sleeve. The wire turns back on itself right there and is zip-tied. It would work sometime, and then stop in certain positions. Drove me crazy till I figured it out and spliced the wire.