Fresh welder... What to get?

[muttley9050]

Measure the width of the cable 

It's on mm2 not diameter. You can measure the width but then half it, times or by itself and then times by 3.14.
Best you can do is either remove one of your 13 amp sockets and fit a 16 or 32 amp socket or put a spur of one of you 13 amp sockets and fit a 16 or 32 amp socket.
I've got a Parker invertor arc welder. Very cheap but pretty good off a 16 amp socket. To be fair I usually use my mates mig which is in the same workshop.

[tcfengineering]

My recommendation is Technical Arc welders. All of our Tig and Mig welders and plasma cutters are from Tec Arc. They are made in the UK with excellent service and spares backup, if you have a problem, you can speak to the bloke who actually made your welder. Get a simple transformer based model and it will last years. Just give Tec Arc a phone or email and they will advise you which model to go for

[swinny]

To put all out of their misery and anticipation lol

 

I bought myself the r tech 250amp inverter mig the other week. They had a 10% off on aswel so happy days  Not used it yet as going to get electrician to stick me a specific 32amp feed in

[Will C]

You won’t be disappointed, cracking welders.
 

It will also do as well as a smaller machine if you need to run it on a 13amp supply at any point just don’t crank it right up!

[doobin]

Whilst I applaud your purchase of the RTech, I must say that since buying the RTech 180, the 250 is rarely wheeled out. I have .8mm in the 180 and 1.0mm in the 250. For 90% of my work, the smaller torch they supply with the 180 is far more handy to use, and there's plenty of power for most repair jobs too.

 

Luckily, the Euro torch fitting on the 250 means that this welder will happily accept a 180 torch. I'd highly recommend using the 180 torch for .8mm wire, as it's hardly any more effort to swap the torch over when you go up to 1mm wire and it's a much more pleasant experience.

 

As Will says, they will happily work on 13 amp supplies for lower draws, so give it a go.

[lux]

Another for R tech here. I was set on the 250 after seeing Doobins welder. Spoke to R tech who discussed my power supply over the phone and they said I’d not ever use the full potential of the 250 as my supply wouldn’t support it. They down sold me to the cheaper 180 as I could fully utilise the machine.
Chucked in £50 worth of wire free.
It’s a super welder , not much you can’t weld with it on a couple of passes too.
Super family run business who actually care and they have a fantastic product. I’ll be brand loyal for welding kit from here on.

[Dbikeguy]

Ditto on R-tech, got down sold to a 180 as it will do what i need without paying for the higher power option.
Fast delivery and a nice machine.
Gonna add a spool gun for when my new hilux arrives and i convert it to Aussie style alloy back

[openspaceman]

On 05/07/2021 at 09:55, Dbikeguy said:

Ditto on R-tech, got down sold to a 180 as it will do what i need without paying for the higher power option.
Fast delivery and a nice machine.
Gonna add a spool gun for when my new hilux arrives and i convert it to Aussie style alloy back

I presume it does AC and DC then? What powers the spool gun? I've been wondering if my inverter stick welder would work for mig with steel wire in a spool gun even though I realise they are meant for aluminium wire.

[Moose McAlpine]

On 18/07/2021 at 20:06, openspaceman said:

I presume it does AC and DC then? What powers the spool gun? I've been wondering if my inverter stick welder would work for mig with steel wire in a spool gun even though I realise they are meant for aluminium wire.

 

The MIGs are only DC. AC is for TIG/arc welders (largely the same in their internal workings) and MIGs don't need AC to weld ally. (I won't bore you with the technical reasons behind that.)

 

Your inverter arc welder likely won't run a spool gun as arc and TIG are constant amperage machines, whereas MIGs are constant voltage machines.

 

R-Tech are great machines and their service is second to none. I used to have a 200A AC/DC TIG machine from them, was a nice piece of kit. Guy on another forum runs their 250A MIG and keeps count of how much wire he's put through it, last i saw it was something like 3 tons, without issue.

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Moose McAlpine said:

 

The MIGs are only DC. AC is for TIG/arc welders (largely the same in their internal workings) and MIGs don't need AC to weld ally. (I won't bore you with the technical reasons behind that.)

Oh go on, I'm sitting comfortably.

Quote

 

Your inverter arc welder likely won't run a spool gun as arc and TIG are constant amperage machines, whereas MIGs are constant voltage machines.

Yes I knew there was a difference but not sure what it was the old Oxford transformers had a further coil to cause a droop as the arc struck.

 

I manage nearly everything with the stick welder, it will do TIG for stainless but while manually turning on the gas and scratch start is doable  having to break the arc by withdrawing the gun is no good as the hot weld pool becomes exposed.

 

I like the little TIG I have done because it is similar to the Oxy-Acetylene which I first used. Not a fan of cheap MIG as the wire feed always gives trouble.

 

A friend has used a stick welder to deal with some electrolytically corroded aluminium welds in a thick hull and I was surprised at that. I think he now has an all singing and dancing MIG and TIG inverter with HF start and ramp up and down for TIG but AFAIK bno foot pedal.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by openspaceman
added "aluminium" that I had missed out