Welding Tips and Tricks

Got my everlast 205 on Tuesday and so far things seem to work okay. Jody reported a problem starting the arc on his 256 while working on aluminum, so I ran out and tried my 205 without a problem. My biggest hurdle right now is I'm a complete noob to TIG welding so I've got a lot of practice ahead of me. So far I've tried the 205 TIGing steel and aluminum and also used the Plasma to cut 1/4" steel and .062" aluminum.
My old Optrex autodarkening helmet crapped out on me, so after looking at some of the reports here about helmets, I bought a Northern Industrial wide viewing area helmet for $119. It works really well and is pretty comfortable.
joe

On my everlast 205 I had a question about how to effectively turn off the pulsing. I didn't get what I thought was a very nice reply from everlast support. I am hoping that Jody has better luck with his arc starting problem.
joe

HI Joe....
I also have a Power Master 205 (same as powerpro I am told). I love my machine and can tell you what I have learned regarding your pulse question. I am new to electric welding and never tig welded till I got my machine a few months ago so I am no expert but this is my understanding of this issue.

Two issues for turning off pulse. If you are not using a foot pedal it is doable by matching the setting of your base amps to the amp setting of the pulse amps.

If you are using a pedal like what we need to do for aluminum there is now good way to tun it off. It is a hit and miss kind of thing as far as I can tell. If you try to match base amps with pulse amps as described above and you nurse the pedal you are not sure what real base amps you are welding with unless it is floored and then you might as well just use the trigger.
In my opinion if this model had a percentage control for pulsing instead of a straight out amp setting on the pulse control you would be able to better use pulsing with the pedal and also come closer to turning it off should you want. This being said I just leave my pulse amp setting close to where I think I want it when I back off on the pedal when welding aluminum and leave it at that.

Hope this helps.....wayne

Hey Wayne,
Sure am glad to hear from someone else who has a 205 especially someone who has had one for a while and likes it.
I think I will like mine once I learn its personality. Your comments on the pulse are helpful. I was out playing with the pulse settings today. I also got around to trying the foot pedal today. This is worse than learning to drive a straight shift! I'm going to master it though. I can see where TIG is much like gas welding only potentially better. So I'm enthusiastic about learning.
I was looking for a good book on TIG but some are very expensive. The DVD's from Norhern Tools might be better since I can see and hear how the welding should look and sound.
joe

waynebergman wrote:In my opinion if this model had a percentage control for pulsing instead of a straight out amp setting on the pulse control you would be able to better use pulsing with the pedal and also come closer to turning it off should you want.

That's very interesting you bring that up... as far as I can tell this is how my Everlast Super200P's "base current" (low pulse current) knob works too. If I taper off the footpedal a lot, the pulsing action quiets down or even becomes completely absent. (Despite the base current knob being labeled in terms of "%"... )