[TheForge] TIG welding

[Howell Steve]

Hi Rich- welcome to the show.
I'm surprised how quiet the list is lately so I will step out on a limb and give people ammunition with which to shoot me down (smirk)~!
I know some folks are tig welding alum. with DC but for most applications you will need an AC machine with HF (high freq.) An AC capable machine is not cheap. The AC package for the little Miller Maxstar machine I have ups the price from $1600 to 2800$ That's alot to pay for the occasional aluminum session.  Air-cooled torches are cheaper but give less duty cycle. Heavy duty TIG units ( > ~200A) should have a water cooled torch and for that and the cooler you can add about $400. Get's spendy in a hurry. 
Although it will cost $$, I can't say enough about the new inverter welders that are being made out there. My last stick/tig box weighed 650lbs and the new equivalent is near ~37lbs. The site work you can do with one of these will pay for itself. best of all they can run on anything from 110 1 phase to 480 3 phase without doing a thing. 
Oh yeah- the three best selling 'economy' models of TIG boxes:

linclon square wave 175
Miller econo-tig
Miller syncrowave 180SD

Would any owners of the above care to speak up about features, etc? I'm not sure if they are all DC machines.
hope that helps
Steve
Seattle
*********


Hi all,

Just to briefly introduce myself - I'm a UK teacher, who does a bit of metalwork manufacturing and design in my spare time.

I have a 250 amp MIG welder that uses Argoshield as a shield gas at the moment, and access to a gas welding setup as well. However, I can't help feeling that TIG welding might produce neater results and make for less grinding afterwards, as well as offering the option to weld aluminium as well.

I don't really know much about it, though, and would appreciate some basic info on the subject. I've had a look around at some machines in catalogues, and one difference between the cheaper models is 'scratch starting' and 'HF starting'. Would this make a huge difference; is it worth the extra cash? Could I weld aluminium with the cheaper scratch start models?

Any info would be appreciated,

Rich.


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