Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello all,

My name is Damien from the north west of Australia, I am shortly going to purchase a new AC/DC tig welder,
I have other welders including a dc Kempi pulse tig but wish to weld aluminium, all the research I have done so far leads
Me back to a Miller 201 DX, over here this welder is upwards of 7K and would like other people's opinion
Of this machine. I have never bought cheap tools, and I realise you generally get what you pay for.

Thanks

Hi mate, Welcome to the show.
My current recommendation to people is products from TokenTools. They have great customer service, 5 year warranty and the machines are better than your average bear.

Damien, welcome to the forum.

Hey Damien, Welcome to the forum, have you checked out Everlast welders they also have a pretty good range i have a 210 EXT water cooled and it does what i want it to . If not coldman on this forum has the Miller dynasty 200 or 280 and he loves it and if i win the lotto i would say that will be my next Tig machine. Oh by the way we are in Aus as well.
Cheers Troy

The 210DX is a great machine. For welding aluminum as its primary target, the 280 might be a better choice. Higher amperage than the 210. If you'll be welding mostly 6mm or less thick aluminum, the 210 will do the work. A water cooled torch would be my recommendation.

Have a 200DX thats over 12 years old and still is the Bee's Knees on DC and AC. A buddy just bought the spanky new 280DX, and its the nicest TIG box I've ever used.

Regarding the amperage limit on the 210, I've taken to using Helium when doing thicker aluminum to compensate and getting along fine with this approach until my unit gives up the ghost.

weldin mike 27 wrote:Hi mate, Welcome to the show.
My current recommendation to people is products from TokenTools. They have great customer service, 5 year warranty and the machines are better than your average bear.

thanks for the reply, i will have a look.

Mike wrote:Damien, welcome to the forum.

thank you

Troy Boy 72 wrote:Hey Damien, Welcome to the forum, have you checked out Everlast welders they also have a pretty good range i have a 210 EXT water cooled and it does what i want it to . If not coldman on this forum has the Miller dynasty 200 or 280 and he loves it and if i win the lotto i would say that will be my next Tig machine. Oh by the way we are in Aus as well.
Cheers Troy

hi Troy,

i had a brief look at the EXT, i originally did my TIG pipe ticket on a Miller and i think the "Blue" has stuck. it was a great welder. i will check everlast out again.

thanks for your help

cj737 wrote:The 210DX is a great machine. For welding aluminum as its primary target, the 280 might be a better choice. Higher amperage than the 210. If you'll be welding mostly 6mm or less thick aluminum, the 210 will do the work. A water cooled torch would be my recommendation.

Have a 200DX thats over 12 years old and still is the Bee's Knees on DC and AC. A buddy just bought the spanky new 280DX, and its the nicest TIG box I've ever used.

Regarding the amperage limit on the 210, I've taken to using Helium when doing thicker aluminum to compensate and getting along fine with this approach until my unit gives up the ghost.

thanks for your help,
i havnt had a look at the 280, i am stuck with single phase supply, (240v) but i cant see myself doing much over 6mm, but as you said the blended gas may be the answer if i have to.

thanks again

Hi flyer,
Been watching the conversation. The token tools power source is a good unit but single source in central nsw and while they support their products diligently its a long way for you to access. The 7K for a new 210dx is a lot of money it will be for the "contractor kit" including tig and stick torches and leads peddle regulator and dust cover. What I did was buy the bare power source for considerably less and leads made up the way I wanted and also bought the wireless pedal which is awesome. I'm a bit blue blind but with good reason, they are obviously great power sources but also very well backed up with warranty. If you go to the importers website welding.com.au you can search for authorised repairers in your area and I think you will find at least one.


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Also I don't believe the dynasty280dx is offered in oz it's either the 210 or the 350. The 210 is still autoline meaning it will go single phase to three phase seamlessly.
I have no experience with everlast so can't comment other than suggesting you check for local backup.


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Coldman wrote:Also I don't believe the dynasty280dx is offered in oz it's either the 210 or the 350. The 210 is still autoline meaning it will go single phase to three phase seamlessly.
I have no experience with everlast so can't comment other than suggesting you check for local backup.


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Well that's dumb. Why can't you get a 280? Now it's either a 210 or 400. That's a little crazy if you ask me

That's just the way it is when you live in the backside of the world. Don't forget we have completely different electrical supply systems here to the USA and different approval standards. The models we see here may have the same name but the part number will be different made specially to comply with our standards. I guess it makes sense not to remanufacture the whole range just for a small market.


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Coldman wrote:Also I don't believe the dynasty280dx is offered in oz it's either the 210 or the 350. The 210 is still autoline meaning it will go single phase to three phase seamlessly.
I have no experience with everlast so can't comment other than suggesting you check for local backup.
Sent using Tapatalk

That's a pretty wide gap in the product line though. The 280 is portable, but the 350/400 certainly is not. The 280 does not run on 110/120, only on 208+. It's surprising that it's power capabilities wouldn't actually make it more viable than less. Perhaps the purchase consumption of the unit within the range is so low, that it's not worth the compliance efforts?

Very likely. Also I don't really know or understand what changes are required for compliance. For example I was keen to check out the extreme range of plasma cutters after Jody demonstrated the 625 (?). They were not available here, the models that were weighed far too much for true portability and cost a huge amount. Nobody was buying them so they were withdrawn from the market completely. No miller cutters in the oz range anymore. Very disappointing.


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cj737 wrote:That's a pretty wide gap in the product line though. The 280 is portable, but the 350/400 certainly is not. The 280 does not run on 110/120, only on 208+. It's surprising that it's power capabilities wouldn't actually make it more viable than less. Perhaps the purchase consumption of the unit within the range is so low, that it's not worth the compliance efforts?

Australia is a lot like Europe/UK (and unlike the USA), so you tend to get 2 'flavors' of power in homes and small commercial locations:

- basic single phase 13/16A 230 or 240V AC wall outlet sufficient for most appliances including washers, driers, etc.
- three-phase 400V 16A or higher for electric stoves/cookers and in som countries heating that need significantly more
power than single phase can deliver on 16A.

We normally do not have single phase 230V with 50 or 60A like in the USA because the whole electric grid is mainly 3-phase out near or even into the homes while this is often not the case in the USA where ony the 'core' grid is 3-phase and the outer edges are separate, individual single phase 'feeds'. (OK ok... the UK is different in their setup and wiring generally becasue of some legacy decisions.. interesting read, but way of-topic..)

Industry of course gets three-phase at 400, 600V or more here and if you're big enough power-draw wise then you'll be able to upgrade to an in-house transformer setup and get a 3-phase 10Kv feed or bigger to a compound/building and be your own little 'sub power' division.

Sometimes here in Europe there's a 32A single phase 230V available, but it's rare and usually needs to be 'hardwired' in many cases so often split into dual 16A connections again. (yes there are a lot more oddball connections out there, but these are quickly un-common..)

So for welders/cutters/etc. sold here you quickly tend to see a divide in single-phase units that run off of 230V with a common wall-plug and up to 16A power (so around 3700-3900W of power) which for most weld inverters tends to top out between 160-200A welding current.

Any model bigger than that (eg 300A units) 'by default' goes to 3-phase power and usually gets the red three-phase IEC 60309 plug common in industry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60309)

Having said that..

Various 3-phase models are sold/available here in europe that are pretty much in a similar size/portabilty scale as the bigger single phase units, but I can imagine that commercial situations may make the market for such devices too small to be sustainable (eg. in OZ with the extra transport costs) so the vendors may well choose to sell up-to-200A portable single phase units and then step up to (semi)fixed 400+A 3-phase units and skip over the area inbetween.

So where in the USA there's basically a bit of an overlap between high end single phase 220V units and three-phase ones there can be more of a gap in EU/UK/OZ or at least a differentiation in product-line(s).

Bye, Arno.

Thanks for your feedback

weldin mike 27 wrote:Hi mate, Welcome to the show.
My current recommendation to people is products from TokenTools. They have great customer service, 5 year warranty and the machines are better than your average bear.

thanks, sorry for the late reply, just tried a Token metalmaster210, its very impressive, thanks for the tip

regards Damien

Mike wrote:Damien, welcome to the forum.

thank you

Troy Boy 72 wrote:Hey Damien, Welcome to the forum, have you checked out Everlast welders they also have a pretty good range i have a 210 EXT water cooled and it does what i want it to . If not coldman on this forum has the Miller dynasty 200 or 280 and he loves it and if i win the lotto i would say that will be my next Tig machine. Oh by the way we are in Aus as well.
Cheers Troy

thanks Troy, sorry for the late reply, thanks for the recommendation, i believe the Token Tools welder and the Everlast are very similar internally.

Regards Damien

Coldman wrote:Hi flyer,
Been watching the conversation. The token tools power source is a good unit but single source in central nsw and while they support their products diligently its a long way for you to access. The 7K for a new 210dx is a lot of money it will be for the "contractor kit" including tig and stick torches and leads peddle regulator and dust cover. What I did was buy the bare power source for considerably less and leads made up the way I wanted and also bought the wireless pedal which is awesome. I'm a bit blue blind but with good reason, they are obviously great power sources but also very well backed up with warranty. If you go to the importers website welding.com.au you can search for authorised repairers in your area and I think you will find at least one.


Sent using Tapatalk

thanks for the reply, i have had a look at a few other machines now, and not sure where to go, i think the $$$s will be the final decision, as they all seem to weld very well.

Regards Damien

Damien, welcome to the forum.