Welding Tips and Tricks

Well it arrived Friday. Caveat - I am not a pro TIG guy, just a salesman at a LWS. Waiting for SuperiorWelding to get in our demo room to give it a test run... Then you all can have a real pro give you the skinny

First impressions-
The front panel looks and is extremely easy to use. Nice compact size. Welded 11ga aluminum. Frequency adjustment and pulse per second adjustment is easy to get to and change on the display. No peak or background adjustment, but how far in the woods should a hobby welder get??? Anyway it seems to be the perfect balance between having some advanced features, but not too complicated for the average garage guy. Also, hooked up the 115v plug and ran 160 amps without flipping the breaker (awesome).

I would say my initial thought is that Lincoln hit a home run with this machine. Output, features, price... All right on target.

johnnyg wrote:Well it arrived Friday. Caveat - I am not a pro TIG guy, just a salesman at a LWS. Waiting for SuperiorWelding to get in our demo room to give it a test run... Then you all can have a real pro give you the skinny

First impressions-
The front panel looks and is extremely easy to use. Nice compact size. Welded 11ga aluminum. Frequency adjustment and pulse per second adjustment is easy to get to and change on the display. No peak or background adjustment, but how far in the woods should a hobby welder get??? Anyway it seems to be the perfect balance between having some advanced features, but not too complicated for the average garage guy. Also, hooked up the 115v plug and ran 160 amps without flipping the breaker (awesome).

I would say my initial thought is that Lincoln hit a home run with this machine. Output, features, price... All right on target.

I read on another forum that it's .5 Pre flow and about 16 sec post flow. Peak time and background current are both 50% you could verify this with your rep I would guess. What is the PPS range on AC and DC?

16 SECONDS post flow? Did lincoln just buy stock in argon production? LOL

Oscar wrote:16 SECONDS post flow? Did lincoln just buy stock in argon production? LOL

My thought was they are using it to keep torch cool so it can achieve stated duty cycle

In Australia, that equates to about $5 worth of post flow!


Kym

Frequency adjustment to 150
PPS up to 20

I don't recall the postflow setting, but it didn't strike me as excessive. 16 seconds sounds like a lot! I'll double check this morning and report back.

Postflow seems to be about 7-8 seconds. Excessive for most applications, but I would say since it's a non-adjustable parameter Lincoln wants to make sure it would cover anything someone would need postflow for. From the hobbyist prospective, it probably doesn't matter to most.

We had a small class this morning working on SMAW... The machine ran 7018 great as you would expect!

johnnyg wrote:Postflow seems to be about 7-8 seconds. Excessive for most applications, but I would say since it's a non-adjustable parameter Lincoln wants to make sure it would cover anything someone would need postflow for. From the hobbyist prospective, it probably doesn't matter to most.

We had a small class this morning working on SMAW... The machine ran 7018 great as you would expect!

Is it possible that the post flow varies depending on the amperage setting? This seems like a nice machine for the cost.

Richard

I attached the post flow settings provided by Lincoln's product manager for the SW 200. Richard is right on target...

johnnyg wrote:I attached the post flow settings provided by Lincoln's product manager for the SW 200. Richard is right on target...

Thanks, that's useful.

johnnyg wrote:I attached the post flow settings provided by Lincoln's product manager for the SW 200. Richard is right on target...

What a waste.
They should leave that up to the man welding.

I recon so too. Cup size and electrode dia are variables too. 9sec does my rig for most variables.

This may be the answer to my problem. I have a Lincoln Square Wave 175 and was looking for a generator to power it since there is no 230v outlet near the shed. A friend is letting me use his shed since I live in the barracks on base. I don't use the 175 to its full potential so given the 200 is rated at 125A/25% plugged into a 120V outlet, I can use this instead. It saves on space and it is way lighter than the 175. I can just give my little brother my 175 to use at his house. So far the only complaints I have read is the issue with the post flow. I'll give it a couple weeks or so until people start posting here or on YouTube about their experience with it.

Well, I ordered my Lincoln SW 200 after Christmas of 2015. It was back ordered and I received it late January 2016. Things were going pretty good. I live in the barracks so I could not use it to it's potential. I have a 125V hook up that I plug it into. Used it for a few months and had to take it to the local shop after the July 4th weekend. I had problems establishing an arc. I tried and checked everything. Distance to weld surface, cleaned the tungsten, decreased the gas flow, changed out torches and leads, etc. In order to get an arc, I would have to act like it was set up for scratch start. Press the pedal, scratch, and maintain distance. That would not work all the time though. So like I said, I brought it to the local authorized repair shop. I went on travel for work for a month, returned, and picked it up. The shop informed me that they called Lincoln and they said it was now a common problem. All the internals were replaced and so I basically have a new machine.

My machine came from a batch that was assembled just before or after Christmas of 2015. Just incase anyone else out there has the same symptoms, the repair is covered under warranty.