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Thread: Choosing an AC/DC TIG machine
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9th Sep 2016, 11:23 PM #31Golden Member
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Yeah watch Jody's heat input video where he does runs on the same material from 80 - 140A only varying travel speed. I mostly know enough about the material I'm welding to stomp and go, at least with the 1.5mm to 3mm mild steel I mostly work with. The pedal just acts as a momentary switch really. But it's great for unfamiliar material/thicknesses or weird joints or aluminium or stainless.
Rusty, that's the other great thing about tig - all positions, all joint configurations are (relatively) easy.
Pulse features are nice too, if you like to stuff around and if the machine offers it.
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10th Sep 2016, 12:07 PM #32Most Valued Member
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The sad reality in todays world is that in many cases, the purchase of a BOC, a Cigweld or even a WIA only buys you an ebay special standard of machine at a premium price. Build quality is questionable, as is repairability.
Having used BOC Smootharc Advance migs, both single and three phase, BOC Smootharc elite multiprocess units and a couple of Smootharc Tig welders, I am completely underwhelmed. Cigweld make a nice litle Tig in their Professional range, but last I heard it was a $5000 machine. Perhaps the greatest shame is what has become of WIA overall. What were once the cream of the crop have now become also rans in many cases.
What would I buy? If three phase is available and portability no issue, then a good transformer based tig will keep me smiling. For single phase, I would look closely at the Lincoln offerings along with the token tools machines as they seem to stand by their machines.
As far as duty cycles go, your hand will probably give out before the machine does if you're using air cooled torches.
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8th Oct 2016, 08:28 PM #33Diamond Member
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Went into the industrial supply shop (the one where nothing is cheap) to get some key steel. I made the mistake of taking in the taper lock bush with me to ensure I got the correct sized key, and then got told off for not buying the bush (and he surmised that I'd also purchased other bits) from them.
Anyway, they now had brochures for their "Duralloy" welders, and they also have a website, this being the machine they want $2,400 for: Duralloy TIG 200 AC/DC PFC MV 240V AC/DC HF Pulse Inverter TIG Welding Machine
Given the lack of track record, and the price, the only thing that might make me consider it is if it had a quiet fan, but I suspect it doesn't.
The machine that caught my eye was this UniMIG: http://www.unimig.com.au/catalogue_p...subcategory=25 which they had on sale for $1,600 including a foot pedal, which contradicts my nothing-is-ever-cheap opinion about the shop, as that price is pretty damn good - other shops are flogging that for the same price without the pedal. I like the 10kg weight of the machine, not that I'm really looking for a portable TIG setup. My only concern is that the small unit may have a fan running flat chat to evacuate heat.
When I'm ready to buy I think I might ask them to fire up the units just so I can compare fan noise.
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9th Oct 2016, 01:43 AM #34
Both those machines look a bit light on duty cycle. Your not going to get a super quiet TIG machine they all have fan noise, some of the dearer brands($3k+) have "fan on demand" so will only be quiet for a few seconds even at low amps. My machine is louder than my old cheap POS CIG transformer arc but thats only because of the added water cooler, when using it on stick its pretty quiet and I must say the smoothest stick machine Ive ever used(I weld at work a fair bit on CIG's and old WIA's)
I dont know which Everlast machine the guys are saying they are the same machine other than there about the same shape box, definitely none look like my machine except RTec in england(pretty sure thats everlast anyway) possibly some look like the 230EX.
The video/blog mentioned above I think is the one from a guy who was disgruntle to towards Everlast and the machine that he reviewed was one of the 1st Everlast TIG's available and a lower end one at that... many people commented on his video shooting holes through his review to the point of him disabling any comments!
Jeez Im starting to sound like an Everlast lover! (And that smiley is almost Everlast kermit green)....................................................................
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9th Oct 2016, 02:48 AM #35Golden Member
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Well my expensive dynasty makes a constant annoying buzzing noise apart from the fan. The fan itself is quite conservative and starts off a lot. I've been told they all make the buzzing and it's by design, as it auto-senses and adjusts to input voltages.
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9th Oct 2016, 11:26 AM #36Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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15th Oct 2016, 10:29 PM #37Golden Member
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Hi Rusty,
Regarding Tokentools machines, I've had an Alusync (I think it is the first model) since early 2010 and it's still going strong. I've also got a TT Mig machine - a synergic one where you can save the settings.
- I have never ever run foul of duty cycle with either machine. I'm not a production welder by any means, but there's been times when I've thought that maybe I should give the machine a little rest, but just kept going anyway - no issues.
- foot pedal. I have an old clunky one from TT, I pull it apart occasionally to clean it out. It's not the best design, but it's always worked and was less than $100 at the time. It's definitely a good thing to have, and I wish remote control ones were available for my machine then as the having the cord can be a hassle. A remote control one you can just kick it along the floor to the other side of the bench when you're changing positions.
- fan noise, is it really an issue? The bigger issue I have is the height I have my welder on its trolley, where sometimes the fan will blow in the wrong direction and muck with my shielding. Next time I'd set my welder a bit lower so it blows below bench height. Although the fan is somewhat noisy (I guess - now that I think about it), it's never interfered with anything. (BTW - I don't know about you guys, but I always have to take my ear plugs out when MIG welding)
- saving settings. I never do it on the MIG and wouldn't bother with the TIG even if it had the feature.
- think about what sort of work you want the TIG for - if you are intending doing super low amperage stuff, then I think this is where you are likely to see differences in arc quality, starting, etc. I've had the chance to TIG on quite a few different machines now (Kemppi, Miller, Tokentools, BOC) and on my normal application (say 3-5 mm Al), there really isn't much to separate them. Haven't tried the extremes on different machines unfortunately.
Cheers
- Mick
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27th Oct 2016, 09:09 PM #38Diamond Member
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With Bunnings doing D-size bottles of gas, I decided to bring my purchase forward and get a bottle of Argon from them, rather than waiting until my E-size MIG bottle runs out. I went with the Unimig Razor 200 machine with pedal for $1,600. There were a couple of good reasons - the shop I got it from is only 6 minutes drive, and when I'm ready, they'll send out a pro welder to check my setup and give me a few pointers on my welding. That's pretty hard to pass up.
They also threw in half a dozen mild steel and aluminium filler rods and a similar number of tungstens to get me going.
The packaging for the welder was much more professional than the last Unimig I bought about 7 years ago. The earth and stick leads are much thicker, it came with some nice gas hose and a quick-disconnect for plugging in the gas - probably standard these days, but still nicer than my old welder.
Sharpened up a tungsten on the linisher and started with mild steel, running puddles over 2mm plate. Didn't use the pedal to start out with just to minimise the variables. Added some filler and got some half-decent looking beads, but heat buildup in the thin plate was a bit of a challenge, changing the bead profile as the increasingly-hot weld sunk into the metal.
Machine starts with no fan at all, but once you've been running some amps for a while, it cuts in full blast, and it is not quiet, but not the end of the world I guess.
The only aluminium I had was some 2mm sheet, and again started with running puddles, soon realising that amps control really would be useful. First I tried using the amps dial on the torch, but adjusting it without affecting the weld would take a lot of practice. I ended up plugging in the foot pedal and had reasonable success winding back the amps as the metal heated up.
Have burnt through 2 aluminium and 2 mild steel filler rods it all looks pretty promising. A couple of decent beads and fillet welds, and a lot of very poor ones where everything went to crap, resulting in many trips to the linisher to re-point the tungstens. Time to go watch some TIG videos...
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27th Oct 2016, 10:32 PM #39Golden Member
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that's a great initiative from the company. Even if they charged a nominal fee, it would be worthwhile as it would probably save half a bottle's worth of argon in practice time.
I reckon 3mm aluminium is the optimal size for practicing. Get 25mm wide strip then butt weld them as well as joining with fillets and outside corners.
Is the foot pedal remote or on a lead?
Cheers
- Mick
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28th Oct 2016, 10:08 AM #40Diamond Member
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It's on a lead. I found it interesting that the welder came with a spare plug for the pedal/torch socket, I assume so you can wire up a 3rd party pedal.
Will track down some 3mm aluminium as you suggest - although it's becoming hard to find around here. We used to have Capral, which was great for all kinds of sizes and profiles. Now it's just the overpriced metal shop with a small rack of a couple of profiles. 25mm shouldn't be a problem though.
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28th Oct 2016, 10:44 AM #41Golden Member
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You'll get it in no time Rusty. I use the pedal exclusively, although I've wired up my own momentary trigger switch for fun and I'm toying with the idea of building a voice-controlled potentiometer just for fun.
You can control the bead profile by modulating the pedal, varying travel speed or jamming filler in there. I tend to stomp the pedal (on steel) and control by the latter two, only easing off the pedal at the end. With ally (I have little experience) I set it way higher than I need, stomp and then back off pretty quickly. I find it hard to keep up with filler anyway so there's no extra-jamming going on there.
I tend to run hot. Running hotter I find is easier. Go watch a few hours of Jody's vids and I like to kind of do the move forward with super short arc/lift as you feed filler/move forward technique he sometimes uses. I.e. keep the arc as short as you can.
Keep your tungstens sharp (on steel) and you'll find the arc much more controllable. You can keep going after a dip/touchdown sometimes with little ill effects (for a backyarder) but the arc will suffer.
Clean your metal well. Galvanised is a nightmare on tungstens. Even little bits where you think is perfectly clean will explode and foul the tungsten awfully.
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28th Oct 2016, 10:53 AM #42Intermediate Member
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28th Oct 2016, 11:07 AM #43Golden Member
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I weld mostly galv. I clean it with flap discs to bare metal. But sometimes there's a tiny invisible patch I've missed, or it draws from the backside, or whatever. And there have been times I haven't cleaned as well as I've thought due to lighting or whatever, but by then I've fitted up and tacked and it's too hard to clean out the joint. So I try to proceed anyway and end up fouling all ten tungstens in ten weld runs. I hate those times.
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28th Oct 2016, 12:59 PM #44Intermediate Member
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Lol.
Yeah, not saying it can't be done, just that I hate doing it. 😎
Sent from my Lenovo YT3-X50F using Tapatalk
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28th Oct 2016, 01:27 PM #45Diamond Member
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Heh. I think you've hit the nail on the head with pretty much everything you've said.
Even though almost all my fabrication work is with Duragal, for TIG I've completely avoided it and hunted down whatever plain steel I can find, cleaning it up to a bright finish before attacking it with the machine, just to elminiate that variable while I'm finding my feet.
Even with MIG, Duragal behaves poorly sometimes, with the odd explosion along the way - I've found it's better behaved with CO2 shielding gas (or stick).
I've noticed that dipping or touching the tungsten with filler isn't as much as a game-ender as I'd expected it would be (with steel). And you're right about getting the filler in when holding a short arc - often there isn't enough of a pool in front to get the filler in without risking touching the tungsten - I'll have to watch Jody's technique a little closer in that respect.
The main thing I don't quite get yet is the actual function of the upslope/downslope thing, whether via the machine settings or the pedal. I'm sure it's there for very good reasons, but it's not obvious. Whenever I initiate a weld, I'm waiting for the puddle to develop before I get going, and I can't see why I would delay that process by ramping the amps from a low value? On aluminium, I found myself maxxing the pedal immediately to get thing started, although that'd probably be a bit different with a restart on hot metal.
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