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tig welders .


ta63-1uzze

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picked one up a few weeks ago got a second hand weldwell dc150p just a re branded cemont unit . hf start and pulse old guy I got it off was a mega gc he was a fitter welder and selling his tools off gave me a few tungstens , different size collets some other consumables and a 5 kg pack of mainly mild steel filler wire and some 316 stainless ones pretty sweet deal for 210$ i thought. have used it in arc on my trailer but havent got my a into g and sorted gas yet

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i have an xcel arc mig 160 i think it came with 15 amp plug i just made an adapter with some thick lead down to a 10 amp male have had no problems with tripping or anything it goes awsome welds alloy way better than my cousins 180 miller so hes borrowing it. im looking at a tig and think im gona go with the xcel arc on the other page mainly because iv had no probs with mine tradezone sell them so good service and iv seen there older tig welders out doing kempi welders in the amps an duty cycle

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im just gonna run a seperate circuit breaker and line into shed from the truck feed.

we have 4 way plug boards that keep tripping if running a few too many things. only 10 amp boards. can you get 15amp boards i wonder..maybe specific ones from a tool shop.

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it’s not the board/ plugs/ extension cables that you have to worry about its the house wiring in the walls that is not capable of running at 15 amp. If your plug in board is tripping you are already running too much power through it. If you didn’t have a trip it would have caught fire by now.

  • by running power from 2 different power circuits into one power point that has a 15amp socket you now have 20amp available , throw a 15amp socket on it and your away.

  • if you power box is close to your garage,( mine is on the other side of the garage wall) then just get an electrician in to fit some new cable, circuit breaker, throw it in some conduit run it to a flush box with a 15amp socket.

There is few different ways that it can be done, but talk to an electrician about it , they can recommend the best way to do for you house, demands. I was lucky my power box is on the other side of the wall and I already had 2 separate power feeds running side by side, it took 20 mins to fit a junction box with a 15 amp socket on it . cost me some beer and that was it .

you can get away with not doing anything, cutting the plug of and fitting a 10amp plug to your welder, but you won’t be able to run the welder at full power. If you run house fuses instead of circuit breakers then you will be replacing them a lot.

BUT. . .

Cutting power supply by way of fuses or circuit breakers isn’t good for your welder; inverter welders have thermal circuit protection, they basically run a cooling cycle as they turn off to stop from melting circuits. You lose this when circuit breaks trip. And or fuses blow. This will damage your new shinny expensive toy and it wall void the warranty .

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Cheers for that.

Our setup is very very simple. Our house(truck) gets power via a big beefy feed cable from caravan power point. From that it's through one 13amp circuit breaker, an rcd, out via a double plug- one to a power board and one off to the shed via another good cable.

I will split the feed to the circuit breaker, add another circuit breaker, take from that to the shed, mount a 15amp wall socket in the shed and welder can go on that.

On first use I'll be watching and checking cables to see how warm they will get. I doubt very much that I will do much heavy tig welding at home. Probably more likely to do that at work. In fact main use at home will be hours practising and watching my fine alloy welding drop to the floor in a blob.....

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oh duh how silly of me, i forgot you had a bad ass pimping house truck , would think that the supply for that would be more than adequate. but i don’t actually know anything about what circuits you run in a house truck scenario.

i have just gone and bought a gas lens, make sure you get some as they save you gas and create a better gas shield. And depending on what it is you plan on building, they sell clear cups so you can see the tungsten tip easier. I am planning to make extractors and various other alloy bits, but I can imagine that a clear cup will help on those tight welds of an exhaust system apart from that i am yet to strike a ark as i am waiting so i can go in and get a gas bottle and some scrap to have a go on

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FWIW, my MIG and TIG both came from PMT Motorsport. Both chinese (what isn't these days), but superb customer service and both work really well. I had some issues with the MIG so they said send it back. They checked it and thought it was the little spools of wire I was using, recommended I use the bigger rolls but send a new MIG up anyway - absolutely no complaints here and I have no other connection with PMT, just a happy customer. FWIW...

Oh and my TIG is their 200A TIG/stick/plasma (I think they have a newer unit they sell now), but it works a treat.

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depends what cable its wired in,

2.5mm will have a 20amp breaker. and yeh its the points that are rated at 10amp. from memory if its fused should be a lower rating than a breaker on same cable.

but you cant bang a 15amp point on a circuit of 10amp points. unless there happens to be only one point on the whole circuit, (not likely) and is wired in 2.5mm cable. then you can straight swap the point to a 15amp one

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  • 1 month later...

Wired up an extra circuit with a 16amp breaker which now feeds the shed.

Finally setup up welder two nights ago. I had taken the first welder back and bought the one with pulse. I had looked more into it and decided that yeah- I bet I would use pulse enough in the future and it's a one off buy so get it now. The package also came with a much nicer torch that is more flexible. Happy.

So my first plays with tig. Not touched one since polytechnic in 94. Wow. It's fucking fun! But gonna take much time.

Things I've learned so far....

-The arc is so much hotter than mig and welding even little bits without gloves starts making my hands smell burnt... Luckily I have some really nice thinner leather gloves to use but they had a holey finger and that finger would get burnt. New gloves the next day (bright white Michael J style- very flash..I might get new tig welding only flash white overalls and complete the look of someone über professional..)

-The thin 1.6 alloy rod I had been given gets used up quick. Thicker 2.4 much easier.

-The control (I hope to get) that these things have is awesome.

-My old 2006 auto helmet is shit! It's delayed slightly and never noticed much with mig but with the brighter tig arc my eyes were getting flashed. I have borrowed a demo helmet from Opel and its sooooo much better. I can see so much better and no more arc eye.It's still a cheap one at 140 but I'm gonna buy one.

-As soon as I stick the electrode or get a bit of rod on it the arc really starts to destabilise and go all over the place. I bought a new bench grinder and will keep one wheel solely for grinding the electrodes.

-Not sure what's the best profile for alloy. They say it will turn into a ball but not seen that. I grind it to a flattened off point.

My second attempt at welding alloy last night. I got annoyed first time round as I was not using the foot control and kept blowing through. With foot controll last night it was so much easier. Will just keep practising but already feeling better about having a crack at making things now.

I played around with the settings and feed my filler rod.

1312201218191.jpg

Any good ideas on practice?

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Yeah I noticed that. When I started on that plate, 3mm tread plate upside down, it took ages to get the 'pool' started. Then it got easier and easier. I found this vid before I started and seems a good idea for practise.

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/aluminum-welding.html

I know as soon as I go near an edge it'll melt away. But yeah.. I'm just gonna keep practising.

The other thing I found was that being comfortable is really important! I was starting off standing and it was tricky to keep my hands steady. I took the stool from the truck out to shed and sat down. Much better! But my knees hit the bench. I have made a dedicated welding trolley bench at work- will post a photo later. But that's at work and the welder is at home where for now I won't to practice. As does hannah as she has gone halves on the welder and wants to learn too. I might my another welding bench for home.

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I know as soon as I go near an edge it'll melt away. But yeah.. I'm just gonna keep practising.

when your joining two pieces start at the smallest, thinnest point. that makes no sense, like when your making a box and you've folded the sides up you will have two sides of the box that need welding together. start at the top where the two pieces are the most thermally isolated from each other. once you have the two pieces thermally connected (via the weld pool) its much easier to control the weld. as you work towards the part of the work where the separate pieces become one piece (the bottom corner of the box) the job will handle much more temperature without turning to liquid.

do this make sense?

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No alloy, and you will end up with a bit of contamination, but it is mean/ same deal that Manu welded up Toms exhaust with at dromageddon

oh ok sweet. way better than chipping off slag and cleaning metal every 5 seconds. takes ages to weld shit not hori

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