Welding Tips and Tricks

Looking for a rig to learn TIG on. Not looking to break the bank, also not looking to weld anything too large - I have a MIG for that.

The idea of a very portable TIG/Stick setup is pretty appealing. Has anyone used one of these machines?

Just how big are you thinking? I use a miller 150 STL at work for a lot of my common stuff. It can be had in a kit.its small light and will run off 110V or 220V. It will do DC tig and stick. It will do a lot.! It's got a fancy big company name. But I know mine maxes out at about 130 amps continuous on a 20 amp breaker at 110v.

Nothing very large at all. For the most part, the initial run will just be me practicing... and practicing... and practicing.

Don't want to try learning on a crappy machine, wondering if it's the machine screwing up, or me. Tough to learn anything that way. Sadly, I don't have tons of capital to blow on a welder right this moment, so I either find a decent low cost TIG capable setup now, or wait and save for something really good.

The problem with the miller is they accidentally put a 1 in front of the price!

Edit: May help to point out that I have both 20A 110v outlets and a 50A outlet available in my shop/garage.

The_Bishop wrote: The problem with the miller is they accidentally put a 1 in front of the price!

I hate it when that happens, sometimes its a 2, 3, 4 or 5!

I have no experience with Everlast, however they seem to win many people over. No brand is perfect. I recently found out Everlast can be purchased thru Home Depot, so it could be returned if there was a problem, or you changed your mind. I don't know if this model is one they sell though.

Great little machine, excellent duty cycle. AHP has a 160 amp stick welder that I think is even smaller, coming out gmail the next few weeks hopefully. It will be $249 or less. Will know once I get some in stock

Hmm, maybe I'd be wise to wait a bit and see how that one shakes out.. Thanks for the heads up!

Poland308 wrote:Just how big are you thinking?

It would have helped if I had answered this, right?

99% of the time? 1/8" and thinner. I've got MIG for anything thicker, or I'm not afraid to do multiple passes.

I bought my girl friend a 140 for Christmas and I have a 160 a 210 and a 325. I have had some issues with their machines but they have been very good about fixing them. (bad breakers on the 325, board issue after 2 years of hard use on the 210)

As the 140 is a lift arc machine I think the 160 with a foot pedal would be a better machine to learn tig on. Thats just my opinion though.

Ive put a lot of hours on all three of my machines and have been happy with them.

Any machine in the 150-200 amp range will do fine. After that it becomes a mater of duty cycle and features. Do you want AC for alluminum?

Not looking to weld aluminum. I know it requires AC and a beefy machine, and at this point I haven't run into any circumstances that required it.

If I do run into it, I'll just stick a spool gun on my MIG welder. If it's delicate and needs to be 'pretty' then I'll bribe someone to weld it for me.

I'm thinking lift arc and no frills will be a bit easier, but more of a challenge at the same time. Adjust amperage, then weld. It's all on me at that point.

Also, I owned a Horrible Freight TIG machine (The new one with the pedal and HF start) for all of one day. The HF start was so electrically noisy that it caused glitches on the computer and TV, even after trying all the fixes (Attach welder to dedicated ground rod, strap the leads together) it didn't help. No matter how I prepped the tungsten or changed argon flow, the arc wasn't stable even though the metal was cleaned down to shiny steel. The pedal completely bypasses the amperage adjustment, which makes it a real challenge to keep the heat consistent.

The it would randomly trip it's own breaker/power switch. It went back, and now I'm trying to avoid making the same kind of mistake again.

When the machines weld.....they work exceptionally well. When they take a crap on you like my Powertig 255EXT did, then it can take some real time and hassle to get it fixed (in my case they just replaced it with a brand new one after two months and multiple failures on their part via sending me replacement parts). I have nearly $4K tied up in that machine, including the water cooler - argon bottle and miscellaneous consumables so i was very unhappy for those two months. On the plus side the new machine welds even better than the old one did.....before it took a crap.
Do yourself a favor and heed the advice of the guy who said to get the one with a foot peddle. You'll never really learn what tig welding is all about otherwise.
I love my everlast machines and they do make good on their guarantees but it can be a painfully slow process. There also seems to be some quality control issues at the factory. I developed an internal gas leak on the mig welder that i bought from them. Took it apart to fix it and found that one of the circuit boards hadn't even been screwed down. I didn't even bother contacting them about that and just decided to zip tie the board in place. All in all that mig welder has the sweetest, most crisp arc of any mig i have ever used - regardless of manufacturer.
Everlast makes good kit but i only give them 3 1/2 stars for all of the runaround monkey business that I've had to endure.

Ok, point taken. I'll just keep piling up the pennies until I can swing a good machine, I guess.

RamboBaby wrote:When the machines weld.....they work exceptionally well. When they take a crap on you like my Powertig 255EXT did, then it can take some real time and hassle to get it fixed (in my case they just replaced it with a brand new one after two months and multiple failures on their part via sending me replacement parts). I have nearly $4K tied up in that machine, including the water cooler - argon bottle and miscellaneous consumables so i was very unhappy for those two months. On the plus side the new machine welds even better than the old one did.....before it took a crap.
Do yourself a favor and heed the advice of the guy who said to get the one with a foot peddle. You'll never really learn what tig welding is all about otherwise.
I love my everlast machines and they do make good on their guarantees but it can be a painfully slow process. There also seems to be some quality control issues at the factory. I developed an internal gas leak on the mig welder that i bought from them. Took it apart to fix it and found that one of the circuit boards hadn't even been screwed down. I didn't even bother contacting them about that and just decided to zip tie the board in place. All in all that mig welder has the sweetest, most crisp arc of any mig i have ever used - regardless of manufacturer.
Everlast makes good kit but i only give them 3 1/2 stars for all of the runaround monkey business that I've had to endure.

So if you did it again, what would you buy?

I'm looking at the 140st for strictly stick practicing. I have access to bigger machines at work if needed.

Thanks

If I had it to do over again then I would spend the extra $300 and buy the powertig 325EXT and have an additional 70 amps on tap. But I don't think that's what you're asking.
If you only want to stick weld then get something that has enough continuous duty cycle to handle any 1/8" rod without ever petering out. That would put you in this range:

http://www.everlastgenerators.com/produ ... rarc-200st

RamboBaby wrote:If I had it to do over again then I would spend the extra $300 and buy the powertig 325EXT and have an additional 70 amps on tap. But I don't think that's what you're asking.
If you only want to stick weld then get something that has enough continuous duty cycle to handle any 1/8" rod without ever petering out. That would put you in this range:

http://www.everlastgenerators.com/produ ... rarc-200st

So the 140st won't burn 1/8" 6010 and 7018?

If all you want to do is practice and weld TIG on carbon steel and SS with a little SMAW in your garage just go to a farm sale or something an get an old single phase Lincoln IdealArc or equivalent. You will have more money wrapped up in Torch, Leads, Stinger,Ground Clamp and Gas than you do in the welder. From 1/8" material on up I can equal the quality with that setup with either my Dynasty or SA. I honestly don't know how anything got welded in the last 100 years before there were 10 knobs on the front of a welder.

It will weld with 1/8" rods just fine but you're only gonna burn about four of them beforethe thermal protection kicks in from that machine and it leaves you sitting for the next ten minutes while it cools down.
You will more than likely decide at some point in the not too distant future that you should have spent a few more bucks on a machine which won't leave you stranded like that.

DLewis0289 wrote:If all you want to do is practice and weld TIG on carbon steel and SS with a little SMAW in your garage just go to a farm sale or something an get an old single phase Lincoln IdealArc or equivalent. You will have more money wrapped up in Torch, Leads, Stinger,Ground Clamp and Gas than you do in the welder. From 1/8" material on up I can equal the quality with that setup with either my Dynasty or SA. I honestly don't know how anything got welded in the last 100 years before there were 10 knobs on the front of a welder.

I can't plug those into 110 though.

RamboBaby wrote:It will weld with 1/8" rods just fine but you're only gonna burn about four of them beforethe thermal protection kicks in from that machine and it leaves you sitting for the next ten minutes while it cools down.
You will more than likely decide at some point in the not too distant future that you should have spent a few more bucks on a machine which won't leave you stranded like that.

I have access to a bobcat 250 if I need. I just have to go get it versus pluging in a inverter with 110.

Not trying to seem like a know it all. I just font have 220 at one location.

Ok, now I am curious.....where in the US do you have a service entrance that is only one phase and one neutral? Not saying they didn't exist, they did but in 2016?

DLewis:
Some people just aren't cut out for working with electricity but in this case.......I believe this guy is just looking for someone to argue with.
Let him go on and find out things for himself (the hard way).

Well I can't judge, I learned the hard way in marriage and the cost of that was multiple truck loads of little 120v welders in terms of value.

There are a lot of houses built around the late 40's that have original screw type fuses that had only 110 circuits. Even though they had 220 feeding them they would require a changeout or a rewireing of the panel to get a 220 circuit.

Yep, seen them years ago 60amp was the standard and even seen a few 30amp entrances, but not for over 20 years. Collected a few pennies from the back of those fuses too lol

And nickles !