Welding Tips and Tricks

Well, it's tax return time! Hoping to get a fairly decent tax return, and with that money I wanna buy a cheap welder for extra practice when I'm not at school. I've heard a few good things about the Eastwood welders, especially compared to Everlast and Longevity. Anyone have experience with them? $1,200 for a 200 amp AC/DC TIG welder and a Plasma Cutter seems hard to beat. Only real concern here is that they don't take normal torches. BUT, HTP does make a 9 series torch with the Eastwood connecter.

I plan on shelling out and buying a NICE welder (HTP/Lincoln/Miller) when I'm out of school and am actually making a decent wage. So for now, I want something to play with and do little projects on my car/truck with.


So, thoughts?

I have never heard of these welders. I never heard of Everlast until a few months ago and then I bought one and love it. I had an issue with it at first but found out it was a simple fix and they had great service. Here is an Everlast machine for the same price as the Eastwood machine and it does the same thing all on one machine. It is only 160 amps but for a couple hundred more you can get 200 amp. I am not trying to persuade you but I will say I have had a lot of luck with the machines and really like them. Plus they are easy to get parts for. http://www.amazon.com/Everlast-PowerPro ... pro+welder

My former teacher always tell his new students "go out and buy a cheap Chinese power source, plug it in at home and practice practice practice".
There are many brands of these out there so it is not easy to know about all of them, what I have seen is that they work ok in the home/hobby environment - they just can't stand up to being bashed all day every day on the industrial job.
You say you intend to upgrade when you are earning on the job, so if you have found a suitable power source for the right price go for it - don't spend extra bucks where you don't need to. You're on the right track.

Good luck and happy practicing!

mcoe wrote:I have never heard of these welders. I never heard of Everlast until a few months ago and then I bought one and love it. I had an issue with it at first but found out it was a simple fix and they had great service. Here is an Everlast machine for the same price as the Eastwood machine and it does the same thing all on one machine. It is only 160 amps but for a couple hundred more you can get 200 amp. I am not trying to persuade you but I will say I have had a lot of luck with the machines and really like them. Plus they are easy to get parts for. http://www.amazon.com/Everlast-PowerPro ... pro+welder

Honestly, I'm scared to (N)everlast. I've heard a LOT of bad things about the company. Might be old news, but the fear is still there. I will look into them a little more, though.

coldman wrote:My former teacher always tell his new students "go out and buy a cheap Chinese power source, plug it in at home and practice practice practice".
There are many brands of these out there so it is not easy to know about all of them, what I have seen is that they work ok in the home/hobby environment - they just can't stand up to being bashed all day every day on the industrial job.
You say you intend to upgrade when you are earning on the job, so if you have found a suitable power source for the right price go for it - don't spend extra bucks where you don't need to. You're on the right track.

Good luck and happy practicing!

Kind of my mindset, here. I won't be relying on it for money (making a living), but I do plan to beat on it as much as money allows.

I heard the same things and they honestly scared me and I almost didn't get the machine but I thought what the heck and I bought it. My first machine had a defective air regulator for the plasma function, I sent it back and got a new machine a couple days later and it has worked like a charm. It is a great little machine. I got a model I never heard of and love it. I got it on amazon it is the Super Ultra 205 DC only. That is my opinion. If I had someone else's check book I would have bought separate machines probably Miller or Hobart but that is me.

I was extremely dissatisfied with my Eastwood TIG. I too bought it for a cheap at home unit I could use for learning on and then upgrade later on. I ended up selling it off to my friend for 400 dollars (terrible investment!) and now take everything I want to tig into work and use our old syncrowave 350.

I know you cannot compare apples to oranges here but you can compare the money spent and what you COULD get with 1200 dollars.

I personally would save a couple hundred more and get something used like a lincoln 175 or miller diversion 180.

I know there arent any bells and whistles with those machine but they are great and you will learn all the basics with one of those. Best part is that they will still be a sought after, quality machine in a couple years when you decide to upgrade, and selling wont be as bothersome.

I hope this is good food for thought! I regret buying the eastwood just wanted you to know!

Best of luck with whatever you chose

Well if you are wanting an A/C D/C tig for home use and practice, then I would go Hobart. Their Ez Tig 165 is a very good machine. It is identical to MIller's Diversion 165. It is a couple hundred cheaper than Miller's coming in at about $1200 and it is a very good machine. That is what I learned on it is very simple and very good running machine. Plus it is made in USA. I haven't ran any other tig machines so I can't compare but I really love the machine and would recommend it to anyone.

My neighbor has the eastwood machine and he absolutely hated it. He ended up buying a sync 200. If 1200 is your price range I would check craigslist to see whats out there. You may be able to find something you'll keep for a while. Make sure that if you find a good deal on a larger unit you have the power to be able to run it.

I found a Lincoln Square wave 175 on CL for $900, Loaded!!!! bottle, foot pedal, leads etc.
Sold it for $2000

~John

I will echo what others are saying, for 1200 I would be looking on clist, you can get a pretty good machine for that money used. And when/if you decide to sell/upgrade it will still be worth what you paid for it. The Eastwood, you might get 200 back or so. You could look at thermal arcs as well for new in that price range and still have a quality machine that holds some value.

I owned a Eastwood AC/DC TIG200 new, bought in November 2011. I personally never had any issues the machine. I did however go through two of their 1pc power/gas hoses. The first one succumbed to heat from high-amperage welding (or welding practice) and deteriorated the rubber at the torch end. The second one developed cracks near the machine end of the cable due to how the cable hangs downward and puts a lot of strain on the cheap rubber it is made out of.

Other than that, it is a solid machine that is capable of going for more than it's rated duty cycle. I had to "force" it just to see when it would buckle at the knees. Took about 30% duty cycle to make it cave, even though it is rated @ 20% duty cycle @ 200A. For hobbyist use it is just fine as it can be used to weld as low as 10A to obviously 200A. Setting up the machine couldn't be easier. The foot pedal leaves a lot to be desired, but someone can always modify it to be more "solid" with just a little ingenuity.

Sure lots of people got bad ones as per their reviews on the eastwood website, but they do honor their warranties with little to no hassle. I had zero problems getting the deteriorated tig power/gas hose replaced. They simply took my word for it, that easy. I would definitely upgrade to a 17series superflex hose with a CK torch from HTP if I were you. You will likely have less issues, and it is WORLDS better than the heavy power/gas hose it comes with. Once you use a superflex cable, it spoils you rotten because it's that much better.

For heavy duty AC welding you'd definitely need a 26 series torch to handle the reverse polarity that heats up the torch 10x as fast as normal DC welding. Even with the flimsy 17series torch, with enough pre-heat I was able to do some practice welds on a 40lbs junk aluminum head in the combustion chamber just to see if it could do it. You could even go as far as getting a water cooled 20-series setup from HTP and it would make that machine 100x better simply because of it.

That said, I wanted to experience more bells and whistles as I learned of the more advanced TIG features that other machines had (even though I didn't and still don't need them), and I was able to sell it for $450 on the weldingweb forum not too long ago. I used that $450 to help fund an HTP Invertig 221 DV with water cooler and everything and that thing is bad!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Miller-Sincrowa ... 27dee46a4e

Local pickup 6days left. good luck!!

~John

noah240t wrote:I was extremely dissatisfied with my Eastwood TIG. I too bought it for a cheap at home unit I could use for learning on and then upgrade later on. I ended up selling it off to my friend for 400 dollars (terrible investment!) and now take everything I want to tig into work and use our old syncrowave 350.

I know you cannot compare apples to oranges here but you can compare the money spent and what you COULD get with 1200 dollars.

I personally would save a couple hundred more and get something used like a lincoln 175 or miller diversion 180.

I know there arent any bells and whistles with those machine but they are great and you will learn all the basics with one of those. Best part is that they will still be a sought after, quality machine in a couple years when you decide to upgrade, and selling wont be as bothersome.

I hope this is good food for thought! I regret buying the eastwood just wanted you to know!

Best of luck with whatever you chose

Why'd you hate it?

As to everyone else, I want a few more bells and whistles on my machine, I'm used to a Dynasty 350 and PrecisionTig 375. I've been having hell finding anything used and good under $3,000 here.

Oscar wrote:

I owned a Eastwood AC/DC TIG200 new, bought in November 2011. I personally never had any issues the machine. I did however go through two of their 1pc power/gas hoses. The first one succumbed to heat from high-amperage welding (or welding practice) and deteriorated the rubber at the torch end. The second one developed cracks near the machine end of the cable due to how the cable hangs downward and puts a lot of strain on the cheap rubber it is made out of.

Other than that, it is a solid machine that is capable of going for more than it's rated duty cycle. I had to "force" it just to see when it would buckle at the knees. Took about 30% duty cycle to make it cave, even though it is rated @ 20% duty cycle @ 200A. For hobbyist use it is just fine as it can be used to weld as low as 10A to obviously 200A. Setting up the machine couldn't be easier. The foot pedal leaves a lot to be desired, but someone can always modify it to be more "solid" with just a little ingenuity.

Sure lots of people got bad ones as per their reviews on the eastwood website, but they do honor their warranties with little to no hassle. I had zero problems getting the deteriorated tig power/gas hose replaced. They simply took my word for it, that easy. I would definitely upgrade to a 17series superflex hose with a CK torch from HTP if I were you. You will likely have less issues, and it is WORLDS better than the heavy power/gas hose it comes with. Once you use a superflex cable, it spoils you rotten because it's that much better.

For heavy duty AC welding you'd definitely need a 26 series torch to handle the reverse polarity that heats up the torch 10x as fast as normal DC welding. Even with the flimsy 17series torch, with enough pre-heat I was able to do some practice welds on a 40lbs junk aluminum head in the combustion chamber just to see if it could do it. You could even go as far as getting a water cooled 20-series setup from HTP and it would make that machine 100x better simply because of it.

That said, I wanted to experience more bells and whistles as I learned of the more advanced TIG features that other machines had (even though I didn't and still don't need them), and I was able to sell it for $450 on the weldingweb forum not too long ago. I used that $450 to help fund an HTP Invertig 221 DV with water cooler and everything and that thing is bad!

Glad to hear you didn't have too many problems with it. I've definitely been eyeing the HTP welders, as I have heard NOTHING but 5 star reviews about the welders. However, that would have to include me giving up my truck to afford it. I don't know if I can do that.