WELL DONE ? Anyone ??

[lovejoy]

Bought one of these

 

recently, weighs 4Kg, bought it back as "hand-luggage" having seen a mate use one in the Czech republic, cost about 150.00 pounds, he was using a monster Lincoln MIG welder,

mounted on a trailer, 3 -phase (380volt) but could not reach the site where we were building a tennis court, and the cost of a 3-phase cable

extension would have been considerably more that one of these ! He was knocked out by its performance.

 

Apart from the fact I nearly went blind helping him ( ) despite looking away all the time, I have not yet tried it out, as I need to buy a decent helmet.....

How much are they in UK, and what should I look for ( i'd rather not have an old, can't see thru the dark glass type, without keep flipping it up and down, he used one with instant tinting sensor with volume control ( sensitivity ) above his ear

 

Anyone had any experience of these "invertor-welders" on here ?

[Des]

I take it that's a stick welder, looks nice, I wonder if adding gas, electric valve and torch would be a cheap way of adding Tig functionality.

I have one of the auto masks, has adjustable reaction and tint, does the job, I think it was about £30 or £40, I've fiddled with the knobs to allow Tig, Mig or plasma cutting without getting blinded or arc-eyed so far, just the usual peeling skin off my arms for a day or so afterwards.

[meggersdog]

I used a similar one (160 amp) when I worked on narrow boats.It was used mainly for 6mm thick steel and worked very well.The one I used had the facility to turn it into a tig welder aswell.Inverters are (in my opinion) much easier to use than a normal arc welder as adjusting the power to "just right" is simple enough to achieve.

As Des said a quality welding helmet is £30-40.00.

[Vin]

Does that have a fan on it to keep it cool then??

 

My stick welder doesn't have a fan (granted it's nearly 20 years old) and when you have a good session with it tends to get hot and cut out. Once it cools down, you can start again, but then it gets hot and.....so on.

 

On the rare occasions I do use it, I get the leaf blower out. Set to 'blow' and pointed at the welder, it sorts the cooling problem out.

[HBR]

I've got an inverter stick welder & it's a great little thing, easier to use than the old transformer type. If you're used to the old fashioned stick welders then have a good play about on stuff that doesnt matter till you get used to it, you'll think it's not doing much, far too quiet & smooth so you turn the power up & blow a hole in the job! My auto-darkening mask is a £40 Seigen one & it's been fine, I expect other brands will be similar as much of this stuff is just the same rebranded.

Mine was over £400 but it's a Lincoln & has the TIG kit but I've not used it for that yet. Yours is likely a cheaper made chinese job but for the money it will probably be ok & if it does go wrong there is the posibility of repairing it as there are folk out there who know their way round this gear now, it's closer to electrical goods like computers, TVs etc than industrial tools.

It'll probably have a fan in it, dont switch it straight off after you've been using it, let it cool for a minute or two first, it might be like mine where even if you do unplug it the fan keeps running for a while so it always cools properly.

 

Vin, if you wanted to cure the over heating in your old one I've heard of folk wiring a decent size computer cooling fan into an old welder to help them, but I like the leaf blower!

[lovejoy]

Thanks for your input, HBR , it's actually made in Czech Republic, by "KUHTREIBER", who do a whole range of welders,

little known about here in UK though. It is extremely well put together, as a retired electronics engineer in design /production,

it impressed the socks of me too, so I intend to learn the art of "giant soldering" now, hence the questions about a good helmet.

 

Everything I looked at was around the 90 quid mark, and I'm not paying that ! Obviously i was looking in the wrong Catalogues (Machine Mart etc)

 

I too chuckled at Vin's "leaf blower" technology !!

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Weld one. Or possibly more.

 

I'll get my coat.

[lovejoy]

Luxo, are you also good at Spoonerisms ?

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I'm actually rather bad at them as a result of being "cosmopolitan" (euphemism for "mentally disturbed/can't fit in anywhere") and thus unable to adapt to local cultures/accents and so on. But I am working on it.

[mouseflakes]

Luxo, are you also good at Spoonerisms ?

 

I used to be a member of The Spoonerism Society. They told me I was a shining wit.