[Nigel Pisswater]

I'm looking for a decent welding hood for close to $200. There is a lot out there, does anyone have experience with hoods in this price range? I plan on using it for pretty much everything. Some guys might tell me I need a $500 helmet but that just isn't an option for me right now. I know for about $200 that you aren't getting the best thing out there, I don't expect it to be. Any recommendations would be great. Thank you

[Gdarc21]

I personally use speedglas, but they are 600 dollars and 2300 for my adflo.
However I recently bought a unimig rwx 8000 for home and am quite happy with it.
The consumable costs like lenses are easy to find anywhere and heaps cheaper than speedglas ones. Its crystal clear to look through aswell. It appears with the jasic ones, that the more expensive ones have a bigger veiwing area, but usually you will get by fine with whichever one. Im sure alot of us started with a 20 dollar flipper so EVERYTHING was a step up. They are unimig here, I think they are razorweld or jasic over there.
Steer clear of lower end esab ones, we have them here as cigweld, you wont get to the end of the warranty with them as they are precious and dont like knocks.

[Poland308]

Lincoln 3350 is a good solid helmet that’s in the 200 to 300 range.

[Louie1961]

The ARCsafe hood from Harbor Freight is supposed to be on par with the $400-500 hoods from Lincoln and Miller. https://www.harborfreight.com/arcsafe-a ... 63749.html

The HTP Stryker helmet is also very good. I have one. I like it but do prefer the Lincoln 3350 just a bit more because of the shade color (blue vs green) https://usaweld.com/collections/htp-ame ... ing_helmet

The Antra welding helmet is also supposed to be very good with a 1/1/1/1 optical clarity rating. I have no personal experience: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Antra-Digit ... /301211767

All three of those hoods are under $150

[Toggatug]

I recently picked up a Lincoln 2450 on july. It cost me $389 CDN.


Edited model and price cause my brain was waaay off.

It's a hell of a good good for the cost and I foresee many years of good service from it.

Nice and clear vision with a slight blue tint. Changed to it from a old cheap china green tint and wow what a world of difference in clarity when the arc is struck. Even in the light state I rarely need to flock the hood up to see the next weld joint etc which is a nice time/energy saver


Only detail I can say is a little funny about it, without looking at the manual it looks like you have to fully pop the filter element apart to do a battery change. There's probably a detail I'm missing on that though.

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[Poland308]

You didn’t miss. You have to release the screen to change the batteries. No different than changing the cover

[Toggatug]

You didn’t miss. You have to release the screen to change the batteries. No different than changing the cover

I can get the filter out but there's an additional cover on the filter that I haven't figured hoe to remove that is preventing the battery covers from sliding out.

I'm still probably just missing a detail but I've got some time before the batteries die to figure it out at least

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[Poland308]

The little battery door just slides open. Push it with your thumb.

[Poland308]

https://youtu.be/sc60hZyyCwY

[Toggatug]

The frame he pulled off the filter is what I couldn't get apart without feeling as though it was going to break. I never tried from the front side so maybe that's the trick to it.

Thanks for the link

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[sbaker56]

Well, I was about to say your budget, assuming 200$ wasn't a hard cap left you with a LOT of absolutely fantastic options with close to top tier optical quality or , like the Lincoln 3350 or Miller digital elite, both of which I remembered being more like $220 helmets for your OG black variant, not nearly $300 a piece. Out of the list of helmets I can personally vouch for having great optical clarity compared to budget hoods only a few years ago, the Hobart Inventor for only $100 has shockingly good image quality, I'd rate it very nearly identical to the optical quality from my 2016 era miller digital elite, and exponentially better than any helmet Hobart sold just a few years ago. I can't vouch for how the other options like the HTP stryker or ARCsafe stack up because I've never gotten to use one. I can tell you more things matter than just which helmet has the largest viewing space. Sometimes the resting shade makes all the difference when you're in a low light area where either you can manage to see just well enough with a #3 resting shade, but a #4 simply blocks that last bit of visibility, likewise even resting shade aside, some helmet seem a bit more clearer than others even without the shade activated, which helps fight the urge to flip the hood up all the time in situations you might get flashed.

What I really WANT to say, is go with the latest gen digital elite or Lincoln 3350, both have absolute top tier excellent clarity I can vouch personally for, and are industry standards for a reason. But I realize they're more than just a little over $200 now, and I think given your options the harbor freight probably wins out as wrong as that sounds to say. While I can attest for the Hobart being of good clarity personally, that 5-8 range is far more useful at times than you might think. Good luck trying to tig weld at 20 amps using a #9 shade, or if you're plasma cutting you might prefer about a 7. Torch work, you don't need to worry about getting shades, just set your helmet to 5.