History of Weldtron

The original business that became Weldtron, Inc. was founded in March, 1979 in Corpus Christi, Texas by David C. Herbert. It started out as an Industrial Electronic repair business for troubleshooting and repair of electrical and electronic controls for generator sets, welding machinery, NC equipment, DC motor speed controls and a host of heavy industrial manufacturing machinery. Through the demand for our electronic repair services for welding equipment, we eventually morphed into specializing in welding machines and welding related equipment.

During 1984 we shifted our business from exclusively repairing welding machinery to include repairing welding machinery electronic circuit boards on a nationwide basis. We were one of the pioneers in national repair of welding machine circuit boards by mail order.

In 1986 we started to develop a small remote amperage controller that would operate on both DC and AC auxiliary powered welding machines. We also started to develop a simple idler board for Lincoln SA-200 machines along with upgrades for older machines.

1988 saw the introduction of the first electronic upgrade module for old SA-200 machines with R-57 idlers and the first prototype of our now renowned "Pipeliner" remote amp control. It was also during 1988 that we discontinued the "hands on" repair of welding machines so that we could devote our time to both the development of our manufactured products for welding equipment along with repair of welding machine circuit boards. We also designed electronic machinery controls for various companies on a project basis.

We received a US Patent on our Pipeliner remote amp controller in 1993 and began production of it's first models that became what it is today.

1995 was a "watershed" year for us. It was the year that we ceased circuit board repair and turned our focus to manufacturing our own products exclusively.

Since we are a "total in-house" business (A business that has all of it's own technical capabilities from initial design, to prototyping, to the actual etching and production of our own circuit boards) we can repair any product that we have ever made, and more importantly, we can remanufacture any product we have ever made from the original schematics and board layouts we have always kept in file.

An example of some of the products we made before. We have designed and manufactured many, many more than what is shown.

	900-808	A simple oil pressure and water temperature sensing and engine protective device. No buttons or switches to throw. When the engine is cranked the system is activated. When the engine it turned off, it removes itself from the electrical circuit.
	900-827	Special electronic control for Miller Roughneck welding machines. This controller completely eliminates the manual switches on the unit and allows it to operate in a completely automatic manner to switch from welding power to auxiliary power.
	920-629	Fuel tender for engine drives. If the machine is not utilized within a manually programmed time the engine turns off to conserve both fuel and equipment operational time.
	920-705	A complete system to protect an engine driven welding machine. Contains a system to sense over-voltage (over-speed) along with the loss of oil pressure and over-heating of the engine coolant system.
	930-630	Our electrical energy saving device for electric welding machinery. If the machine is not utilized for any purpose for more than a preset time interval it is turned off to conserve electricity.
	SE-101	The static exciter board for Miller Roughneck welding machines. It's improved to contain terminals in lieu of long wires and is easier to install and remove.
	970-806	A simple triac ac/dc phase controller. Control motor speeds or AC or DC current with this basic controller.
	951-017	This board senses voltage and activates an isolated 30 amp SPST relay. Primary use is to sense an over-speed condition on a welding machine and turn the engine off.
	951-029	A switch eliminator for Miller AEAD-200LE machines. Automatically switches between WELD and POWER settings and eliminates the need to physically move the switch on the machine's front panel.
	960-529	A special 24 volt DC motor speed control designed to drive gear motors at extremely slow speeds with full automatic speed compensation.
	980-202	A constant current regulator designed for a plating and micro-welding process. The 980-202 develops a finely regulated DC output at an input/output voltage range of 9 to 18 volts. The unit is designed to control up to 35 amps without fan cooling and up to 70 amps with fan cooling.
	990-310	Quit blowing holes in thin materials when welding with a Miller SRH series welding machine. This simple device gives you an option to have a soft starting arc to enable you to use your SRH model welder in delicate applications. This unit operates on a wide range of magnetic amplifier type machines.
	951-108	The original circuit board for Ampmate electronic rheostat; the forerunner of the Pipeliner remote amp control
	PL-PCB	The old board used for the Pipeliner remote amp control. A newer board is now used that makes installation much easier and foolproof.
	50Amp 120 DC to 120 AC Inverter	Designed for a project with Glacier Bay Company to drive 110V air conditioners in Electric vehicles.
	950-415	Our original "idle-up kit" for R-57 idlers. Has been replaced by the Weldtron-UI which has more features. This is our original "REV UP" kit.
	DC-120 Inverter	This is a special DC to AC inverter we designed and sold exclusively for SA-200 welding machines. It produced 1,800 watts AC at 120Volts from the DC auxiliary system on a SA-200 DC welding machine. It was designed so that the machine could idle up and down without damaging the unit and also was designed so that while not in use, it would not trigger the idle system on the Lincoln welder. It was discontinued after cheap 12volt inverters became available on the market.
	Miller III	The generic replacement for a Miller Big 20 idler board, part # 005-172. Discontinued after demand died off.