Yes, I've looked at the Everlast boxes. I'm not sure that they are being truthful about the amperage duty cycles. I'd like to see someone do a real back to back test on 1/4" aluminum and see how long it goes before the duty cycle kicks out (against a 200DX). I don't care if it's half the cost o...

Never seen it by the stick - I always buy a deck at a time.

I'm having the same issue. I've got a 180SD and I just don't have enough power for the occasional little bit of 1/4" aluminum that I have to weld. Even with my 180 I will trip my 60A breaker! I'd like to go up to the 200DX but I'm not sure that this would actually do the job. I'd have to spend ...

I've got an SD180 as well and find that it is perfectly suited to what I do. I don't need to TIG 3/8 plate ever, so it works fine. For thicker material, I just pre-heat and go. Don't forget to turn it up and vary the amps on the peddle. When I first started this was one of my problems, I didn't feel...

I do all of my TIG work with Lanth - no issues. They will split, but only if I try to break them off without grinding a V in them first. I've had no other issues and think they are far superior to pure tungsten. When I was using Thoriated, they use to look like that some times, I suspect they are co...

I occasionally have simmilar contamination issues. I've only been at this for a short while (welding for 25 years - new to TIG) - anyway this morning when working on some aluminum tube, I hit a little spot of contamination. I had to grind the weld completely away and start over. Starts as a little c...

Your looking at the bottom of the ball. I've always replaced them with dial types as the Chinese ones are not very accurate. I'd rather spend $100 on a good regulator and have to refill my gas at the correct time. I once used an entire medium tank MIGing stainless - used it all in about 4 hours! Tha...

Here are my thoughts...I've got a Miller 252 and it is an awesome machine. I've tended towards Miller for MIG and for decades had a Lincoln for stick...so I'm not biased, buy what you like, there isn't much difference. For me it has always come down to service and I like my Miller supplier better th...

admin wrote:Canuck, you have a right to be proud. thats genuine improvement. looks good to me.

jody

Thanks Jody - couldn't have done it without your no nonsense teaching approach.

Things are definately looking up. I set the welder on max amps and max cleaning and changed to Lanth. Here's the result! Pretty pleased with myself.

gexas wrote:so you have good conduction through the table and into the work piece and it is good enough to tig with right?

just want to make sure i understood your answer.

thanks,

E

MIG is more of an issue than TIG...but with the heavy braid on the table, I have no conduction problems.

Hi Guys, Here are a few of my latest welds. I'm starting to question if my welder (Miller Synchowave 180SD) is having issues. This weld is for a chair I'm making and is 3/8" plate welded to 1.5 .120 wall square tube. I pre-heated the 3/8" plate first and did clean the joint with a stainles...

Hey E,

I have a welding table and TIG and MIG with the clamp attached to the table via a braided copper wire. Works like a charm.

We use to use and old smaller size fridge - quipped with a 100 watt bulb that stayed on and was thermostatically controlled. Worked fine.

Hi Scott, It totally depends on the application. I was welding up a frame and when the engineers did the calculations the strength of the part was 2.5 times more than any calculated stresses even at 6061-0, at T6 it was 11 times stronger than required. This part had welds in stressed positions - so ...

I'm having the same issue - would like to buy, but in my case I'm in Canada and no sale is possible outside of the US...where is the love?

Most agree that welding T6 will reduce it to just 6061-0 no heat treatment or at the very least an unknown degree of the strength would remain (some suggest it gets some strength over time). I've done a bunch of work on this lately as a part that I'm making for a project would have required post wel...