Buying a welder

[Zeus]

I've got a little bit of money these days, so I'm looking at treating myself to a nice welder. I've got some experience with arc, and I'd prefer to stick with it (pardon the pun).

This little welder at H&F caught my eye, I've heard good things about inverter welders, and I much prefer a light welder if I need to repair a shed again. Strapping a 25kg welder over my shoulder wasn't fun at all. It says it'll work as a DC TIG which caught my interest too, but I've no idea how good it would be.

I don't mind spending money on quality tools, but my generator is quite limited, and I'm not on the grid, which means I can't really get a welder over 140A.

Also, as of late I've noticed a lot of people buying "artwork" made from all different odds and sods of scrap metal. I figured I should get on to this cash cow, and weld together all the shit I've got laying around, make it look vaguely like something, and flog it off. I can even buy scrap at twice the market price, and make a killing from it. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[evilvet]

Hey mate, that little puppy is going to pull 6.2KvA according to the data sheet, plus whatever surge load is pulls when you first strike an arc.

Will your genset handle that sort of repeated load while keeping the beer fridge and spud cave alive ?

[Zeus]

It's a pretty soild genny, 5.5KVA continuous, and I doubt I'll run much more than 100A, won't be welding much more than 2mm mild to start off with. And if need be, I can just go out to a mates joint and give him a 6 pack to cover the power bill.

[yodabeast14]

As long as you have a good duty cycle you should be good. Its quite annoying when your welding and duty cycle kicks in and you got to wait.

[jsefcik]

Yea pay attention to hf there duty cycles suck ,

[Zeus]

Nah, this isn't Harbor Freight, it's Hare and Forbes in Australia Jesse.

And the duty cycle is pretty decent, 100% at 85 amps, 25% at full power.

[jsefcik]

Nah, this isn't Harbor Freight, it's Hare and Forbes in Australia Jesse.

And the duty cycle is pretty decent, 100% at 85 amps, 25% at full power.

I'm sorry , but correct me if I'm wrong but dont u want less percentsge of a duty cycle?

[Zeus]

It's the other way around, if it's got a 50% duty cycle, you can run it for 1 minute on, 1 minute off. If it's 75%, 1 1/2 minutes on, 30 seconds off.

[ramses]

I think welder duty cycles are usually spec'ed per 10 minutes.

So a 50% duty cycle means weld for 5 minutes, then cool for 5.

[jrrdw]

Hay man don't fret to much over 'dookie cycle' because if you overheat your welder it will shut it's self off and you WILL wait until it cools off enough to run again L0L!

Info straight from The School Of Waiting On Welder, or known as J.R.R.D.W: Junky Ricken Racken Douche bag Welder!