Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello All,
I'm in the market for a new tig machine...,. I am also in Toronto, the land of everything you buy is three times the price of items in the US Of A! Miller and Lincoln machines for something in the 250 amp range complete with cooler is in the range of seven to $8000 Canadian funds. I have always been a proud purchaser of north American products but unfortunately in this case seven to $8000 is a bit steep for a decent 250 amp Tig welding outfit. I will occasionally get into five eights and three-quarter stock and including aluminum it is only occasionally where I have heavier Materials but want to be able to slam the pedal down when needed! the Everlast 255EXT complete with cooler is about $3800 Canadian taxes in which is pretty much half the price of the new I believe it is miller dynasty! As the saying goes you get what you pay for however I have seen a lot of YouTube videos including Jody using this Everlast unit does anyone have any thoughts on this ? As mentioned I am a proud North American and buy American and Canadian whenever I can But if I were to pick up the Everlast I can get the Everlast and cooler and also pick up a hypertherm 45 plasma cutter for the price of the Miller. Any and all thoughts are appreciated

Thank You
David

This is a common conundrum. Comes down to how much the known reliability and day to day abuse a Miller takes is worth to you! I use miller and Hypertherm at work but have a Thermal Arc and Lincoln at home. Plus a Chinese plasma.

Welcome to the forum! Are you near Burlington, by any chance? Everlast Canada is in Burlington, and the guy that runs it (Duncan, iirc) also oversees factory production. I've heard a number of good customer service stories about them- if you decide on Everlast I bet he can set you up.

David wrote:

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So you then you decided on the everlast?

Yes I'm about 25 minutes from Burlington, Brewington is a small town of about 250,000 people just west of Toronto which is about 5 1/2 million now . I called Everlast in Burlington at 1 PM today which is Friday and received a message stating that they're open full days Monday to Thursday and half day until noon on Friday anyhow I left a message for someone to call me back.... they call back in about 15 minutes I really nice lady which I did not get her name but I actually called Everlast in Burlington on Tuesday and unfortunately I didn't get the fellows name but I was on the phone asking questions for 45 minutes and we were talking about everything from Miller to Lincoln to ever lost a plasma cutter's really nice people anyhow I spoke with the lady today and she asked where I was coming from I told her and I was there she waited for me I got there at about 330 they closed at 12 as mentioned the lady was really nice unfortunately I didn't get her name but I did talk to a fellow named Mike who was really nice well both of them and actually there was a third fellow as well who is really nice and they all proceeded to greet me there. Anyhow I've bought the 255 EXT and the cooler and just got it home and haven't even connected the torches yet it comes with two which I didn't realize a number line and a number 20 the number 20 is water cooled and the nine is just air cooled but that's OK because it's only rated for 150 A anyhow. I have a Lincoln square wave 200 which I picked up last August and quickly outgrew but it is a solid machine I did some modifications to it and put A couple of valves and a T in the ergo online internally and brought a line out through the grill which is stamped into the cover on the sides so I can run a water cooled torch with it and I will keep this machine to throw in the van and use it for the portability and just keep the Everlast and the cooler at my shop. I attached a photo of it hopefully the photo will appear so it at least lit up!

I do voice dictation with my phone and unfortunately it doesn't always come out properly sorry about the typos

David wrote:I do voice dictation with my phone and unfortunately it doesn't always come out properly sorry about the typos

LOL!

I sense excitement! I was going to suggest you switch to decaf...

I think you're going to be very happy with your choice, especially with friendly customer service so close.

Steve

If we start talking about domestic product and quality I mentioned in an earlier post that I picked up a Lincoln square wave 200 back in August 2016..... well I started making room for the new Everlast and decided that I would disassemble The Lincoln square wave and started to unthread the pin connecter for the pedal and I think because it is aluminum it seized up and there is a three-piece threaded connecter which has a attached wiring restraint on it. I wasn't really paying attention other than turning the knurled nut but unfortunately it decided to turn at the wrong location and busted off two of the five wires off of the pins which I have just taken apart and now I have to solder that back up before I can set up the Everlast so I don't know if quality is all that much better with the domestics although I hope it would be. The ticket 200 is a pretty good machine for the amount of time I've had it I have welded half inch aluminum with it but I had to pre heat with the torch..... i'm hoping the extra 50 A will make the difference . Thank you for the input !
David

So now what you gonna do with the 200?

David, you a NOT planning to try to use the Lincoln pedal on your Everlast, are you? Don't even try. The Everlast uses a 50 Kilo-ohm potentiometer, and the Lincoln will be a 1 Kilo-ohm. You will do damage, unless you tear down the pedal and change the potentiometer.

Steve

The Everlast and cooler are much heavier and will be much more difficult to move around so I will keep the 200 where I can just toss that and the small Argonne bottle into the truck when I need to do some small repairs or make up a bracket on site or something along those lines. The Lincoln is actually a pretty good machine but I sort of outgrew it where you cannot adjust your pre-and post flow you're limited to your AC balance in AC frequency I mean it still has a lot of capability and even with the stick I can blow holes right through quarter inch and 3/8 plate

Hello,
No I am not attempting to use Lincoln Pedal on everlast... I was moving the Lincoln over and disconnected pedal and leads, when I started unthreading pedal connection to machine, the wrong nut rotated causing the wires to twist and some to break.... I had to pull apart connector and resolder to pins. There are 6 pins but only 5 wires, leaving the 12 o'clock pin non active. My post earlier post was about domestic quality..... which is supposedly superior but the Lincoln pedal male plug is constructed of aluminum as well as the machine female plug and seems that some form of electrolysis has taken place and
has made removing the pedal plug from the square wave tig 200 difficult. So in a nutshell..... no I was not attempting to swap the Lincoln pedal to the everlast machine. Actually the everlast pedal isn't bad..... if I hadn't ever had my foot on a Miller or Lincoln pedal, I would classify the everlast pedal as reasonably good quality. Appreciate the input all the same Otto/Steve! I was up until 4am playing with settings and don't know if it's my imagination but the Lincoln machine at 20 AMP is the Everlast 40 or 45 AMP But I think it may just be some getting used to. BTW Nice ride in your avitar, I have a couple of hard tails and had one out for the first time 2 weeks ago it was 20°C or 68 Fahrenheit for a couple of days but has dropped down into the 50's, buds are on the trees so it won't be long to warm up. Do you build your own bikes?

David wrote:Hello,
No I am not attempting to use Lincoln Pedal on everlast... I was moving the Lincoln over and disconnected pedal and leads, when I started unthreading pedal connection to machine, the wrong nut rotated causing the wires to twist and some to break.... I had to pull apart connector and resolder to pins. There are 6 pins but only 5 wires, leaving the 12 o'clock pin non active. My post earlier post was about domestic quality..... which is supposedly superior but the Lincoln pedal male plug is constructed of aluminum as well as the machine female plug and seems that some form of electrolysis has taken place and
has made removing the pedal plug from the square wave tig 200 difficult. So in a nutshell..... no I was not attempting to swap the Lincoln pedal to the everlast machine. Actually the everlast pedal isn't bad..... if I hadn't ever had my foot on a Miller or Lincoln pedal, I would classify the everlast pedal as reasonably good quality. Appreciate the input all the same Otto/Steve! I was up until 4am playing with settings and don't know if it's my imagination but the Lincoln machine at 20 AMP is the Everlast 40 or 45 AMP But I think it may just be some getting used to. BTW Nice ride in your avitar, I have a couple of hard tails and had one out for the first time 2 weeks ago it was 20°C or 68 Fahrenheit for a couple of days but has dropped down into the 50's, buds are on the trees so it won't be long to warm up. Do you build your own bikes?

Hi, David,

The question about the Lincoln pedal is because we don't know much about your skill/experience level yet, and we try to protect green welders from themselves... Clearly it was not needed, so I hope you'll take it in the spirit it was given.

As for the bike in the Avatar, that's actually an Orange County Choppers build that didn't make the TV show. I was on a big job building a cold-box for AirGas, not far from their headquarters, so the big-heads conspired to have a huge "open house", with this bike on display, among other goodies, vendors, barbeque, etc. The picture was actually taken by the senior vice-president for marketing at AirGas.
I have never built a bike, but it's something I'd love to do. When I've had time, I lacked money, and when I had money, I lacked time. Such is life.

Steve

Hello,
Absolutely no issues, I actually thought it was very nice to voice your concern...... thank you
I wonder what happened with that orange county choppers I heard that they went belly up !
I always got a kick out of the way that they would tig barehanded in short sleeves I don't know how they never ended up with sunburn? Again I removed the leads and goodies from the Lincoln square wave 200 to move it over to make room for the Everlast tig machine and was not paying attention and started unthreading the pedal from the machine..... I just reached over and started turning the only nut that would turn by hand....... unfortunately not I was on doing was the compression not compressing the wire restraint and twisted the wires and broke a few right off! I was pretty upset simply because I was anxious to get the Everlast fired up rate away and I had to repair the pedal connecter first otherwise it would just get tossed into the corner and possibly never get fixed so I had to fix it before I could plug-in the Everlast but it was interesting to try and re-solder the five pins everything was going in every direction then to try and read the six pans back in to another sleeve was really interesting but I manage to get a box together OK I will use that machine for on jobsites to weld up brackets and tack pipe and such. Are used to do a little bit of pipe welding years ago out in Alberta but I haven't been certified for years and never had the chance to play with tig machines it was strictly stick and Oxy acetylene when I did my apprenticeship. I didn't realize that the Everlast 255 EXT has a hot start function and actually has pulse I didn't realize that the Everlast 255 EXT has a hot start function and actually has pulse in stick mode !

Sorry again for the typos...... as I mentioned earlier, I often use voice dictation, including when I'm driving and then tap send!
I will stop doing the voice text

The instructions state to use ethylene glycol in the Tig cooler, I just picked up a gallon of Prestone. Any thoughts?
Thank you.....

David wrote:The instructions state to use ethylene glycol in the Tig cooler, I just picked up a gallon of Prestone. Any thoughts?
Thank you.....

Yeah.

Don't.

Prestone is Ethylene Glycol and a bunch of other shit designed for engines to keep them from corroding with all their dissimilar metals.

If you want to keep it cheap, get RV antifreeze (propylene glycol), the pink stuff that keeps your plumbing from freezing.

Else, get "low conductivity coolant" from your weld supplier.

Spend a couple dollars for de-ionized or distilled water, as well.

Cheap insurance, using HFAC.

Steve

Hello Steve
I hope you don't mind me sending all these photos I wanted to try out the stick function I think Paul's on the stick is absolutely crazy never seen it before anyhow I'm a little bit confused because if you see the photos hopefully the whole photo came through but the one photo shows a drawing of the machine with the negative on the left and the positive on the right and then the next one shows the positive on the left now my understanding was that I plug the tig torch in on the left Side of the machine with ground on the right Side of machine if you look at the photos it changes polarity in the sketches so if I go by the photo the stinger and the tig torch should be plugged in on the left side of the machine and ground clamp is on right side in both cases with the tig and the stinger??? If this is the case then it must be switching the polarity inside the machine? I just ran out to exchange the prestone for the RV..... I actually had the Rv stuff in my hands and at the cash earlier but I read it is no good for heat transfer, so I put it back and picked up the prestone. We have 50 gallons of Propylene glycol on a jobsite (we use it for our snow and ice melt systems (for driveways and ramps to underground parking) I am at a store called Canadian tire which is a bit of a higher standard than harbour freight and then we have princess auto which is the exact same as harbour freight . The funny thing is that the store called Canadian Tire has absolutely nothing in the store made in Canada! All Chinese junk but they have lifetime warranty on everything so if you pick up a socket set and you drive the crap out of it break it and return it they will give you a new one but they sell Lincoln strictly mig machines here. Princess auto sells what's called Pro point. What's your take on the stinger plug in on the everlast?
www.burnellmechanical.com if you would like to see my site..... a fellow is going to redo it over the summer!
Thanks for your time!
David

David, these pictures are, indeed, confusing. If polarity is switched within the machine, why are the terminals marked?

TIG will be electrode negative, while (almost) all stick will be electrode positive, yet the drawings show both connected to the same terminals.

This suggests to me that polarity can be switched electronically at the panel, much as it can with a big switch on a Miller SW250

Artie Eff M would say "R.T.F.M.",

"Read the f#$king manual". (That's literally what his username means.)

Seriously. Get to know it, and your questions will make more sense.

Steve

Otto Nobedder wrote:David, these pictures are, indeed, confusing. If polarity is switched within the machine, why are the terminals marked?

TIG will be electrode negative, while (almost) all stick will be electrode positive, yet the drawings show both connected to the same terminals.

This suggests to me that polarity can be switched electronically at the panel, much as it can with a big switch on a Miller SW250

Artie Eff M would say "R.T.F.M.",

"Read the f#$king manual". (That's literally what his username means.)

Seriously. Get to know it, and your questions will make more sense.

Steve

Polarity is dictated by how you plug the work lead and ground in, there is a switch for AC/DC and that's it. Ground in Positive terminal, DCEN. Ground in Negative, DCEP.

I would imagine that it's significantly cheaper, and lends to the ability of packaging smaller when you don't have a massive switch inside to turn.

Dynasty welders are set up similarly, in regards to having AC or DC button, and it's up to you to correctly install the leads to get the desired result.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

Otto Nobedder wrote: Artie Eff M would say "R.T.F.M.",

"Read the f#$king manual". (That's literally what his username means.)

...and i mean that in the nicest possible way, really- it's how i learned to weld.

I have a 210 EXT and the first time i used it i reversed the leads and pretty much exploded the tungsten. That's when i figured i should RTFM.

I don't know about the 255 EXT but i'd bet it does not switch polarity automatically.

David, are you familiar with polarity (electrode negative, electrode positive) as it applies to welding, and why it matters?

On the new version 255EXT, the one pictured (has a gas purge button, spot timer and 4 fan cooling) when facing the machine, the positive electrode connection is on the right and the negative electrode is on the left. On the previous model 255EXT, these were switched. The reason they were changed was to accommodate the additional internal electronics installed during the upgrade. So, most likely, if you have a new manual, they just forgot to replace or change one of the pictures when they updated the manual. The information is correct as indicated, you just have to install the leads according to the manual on the correct side as marked on the welder.

How do I know?

There I was ... I was lucky enough to call Everlast at the right time and got one of the first new version 255EXTs before it had even been advertised. At the time, I had never touched the TIG welded before. I had printed the manual off of the website but the new version was not even on the website and the manual was for the previous version. I RTFM several times over the next few days, and watched a lot of Jody's videos, crash course in TIG welding. When the welder came in, I hooked it up, just plugged in the leads on the side I memorized not even looking at the welder itself. The welder (or maybe weldor) welded like crap, blew up the tungsten. I checked gas and tried a little messing with the controls but was afraid that there was damage in shipping and didn't want to damage anything more so I shut it down and sent Everlast a note.

That was Saturday evening, early Sunday morning I got a call from someone at Everlast, don't remember who it was but I think someone involved in the design. He had me go out to the garage and look at the welder and tell him which side the leads were hooked up on. Just about that point, having done some studying on this, I saw the positive indicator on the welder and the torch lead attached to it, bingo, lights on, feeling really stupid at that point. Anyways, the guy at Everlast was very nice, we shared a few laughs and he told me suspected the cause because they had changed the leads with the new welder. I changed the leads to hook up correctly and the welder has performed flawlessly every since (though not necessarily the weldor). Anyways that is why I suspect that the manual has the leads on different sides on the drawings.

Couple things though. I was impressed with Everlast customer service calling on a Sunday morning to ask about the issue. I thought that was best in class. I was also impressed that who I talked with was quite patient and affable with my ignorance, as he had gotten up on a Sunday morning to call. Finally, I have learned to weld on the 255EXT, hours on hours of practice and modern art for the recycle, made about every welding mistake a person can make in learning and the welder just keeps on working. For me it has been an excellent machine that I continue to use regularly.