looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

I am looking to buy a tig and wanted yall's opinion on which i should get. its gotta be portable or at least light enough to put on a rack and push it around, i am a little guy. gotta have enough balls to do 1/4 inch and can be a dry rig. would like a spark switch and dosnt need ac. needs to last and not have any probs with it... thats a given. and i only have $800 for one.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

the only thing your going to get for 800 bucks is a smiley tig with misc odds and ends.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

yeaa smiley for life.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

Smiley just made this:

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/we...ZkMzF5NTQx.jpg

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

where are yu located buy my miller.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

Ya, that's light.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

I really like my thermal arc. It has all the bells and whistles you could want. Does both ac and dc and only wieghs about 75 pounds.

Later
Randy

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

its on running gear with extended cables and a tank rack.. doesnt get more portabel than that you stupid ----

when i need to wheel a tig onto the shop floor i always wheel the miller out. moving the thermal arc is a hassle.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

I thought you were going to keep it and have 2 guys welding manifolds.. I really want it, but I'm not local enough to pick it up, plus from all my research I want a TA mostly.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

i have a ta and want to dump the miller for another ta :P

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

Ah that's why your getting rid of it. Like the TA that much? I heard Corey ranting a bit on H-T about it and said there is no comparison to the miller and ta!

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

go to a welding shop. They'll tell you all about the TA. Its a bad ass machine!!

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

38lbs TA plus a cart = 4 times lighter than a 180SD


See numbnutz, a CAAARRRRTTTTT. Works wonders.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

i have to ask...wtf is a smiley i hear that repeatedly... i thought it was some make it yourself type welder. haha oops. what are the specs on yoru miller hotrex?

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

http://cgi.ebay.ca/30Amp-Plasma-Cutt...QQcmdZViewItem

Smiley TIG, or a variation of it. Plenty of people are carrying them on ebay now. You can buy mine when I get my new TIG!!!

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

You're right. The TA is an inverter and the 180SD is a transformer. Miller makes some nice inverter machines, but they're not as cheap as the TA's.

I got a chance to use the Dynast 700 the other day. It's got triangular wave ability. It's amazing!! I heard a rumor that they're coming out with that in a smaller machine..but it will probably still be in the $4-5k range. Oh, the 700 Dynasty runs about $11k.

The Maxstar 150 now comes with a pulser and foot pedal...and it's the size of a shoebox. I think it's 7lbs.

I know a lot of guys here have the Smiley machines, but look around at how many are selling them and buying other machines...and look at the money they're losing doing it. I'd go ahead and buy something better and not lose that money. Buy a machine that you will keep for 10-15 years...and will keep you welding for that long.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

Valid points but my little smiley paid for itself multiple times over already.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

i have a maxstar 150stl. Its a lift start but its a pretty good machine for the size. It is truly the size of a shoebox. Lift start is simple, just touch the material and pull up and it starts the arc. But it is def out of your price range. It doesnt have the pulser as thats only avail on the sth model.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

id be up for a used tig from anyone on this board as i know its like alot of things that if they survive for a while it should last me. let me know jk also. thats a ------- cheap ass welder! id be afraid to use that thing and break somthing. but so many use it its almost troublefree

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

I bought the 150 STL about 4 months ago for $500 and it's great. It weighs next to nothing. 100% duty cycle up to 100amps and still has %40 at 150 amps. Inverters are really nice. It seams like the inverter machines need less amperage compared to the transformer power supplies.

I would just like to have the 200DX. Oh that would be nice, but the TA is a lot cheaper with comparable features. Miller needs to step in with something that could challenge the TA. They have nothing so far.

They will keep coming out with new waveforms. They are easy to make, but it's more difficult to produce them with a lot of current and efficiency. If they can do a triangular output they are not far away from a sawtooth one either. Would be nice to have a ramp up pluse.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

kinda off topic but what is the squarewave triangluarwave? everyone i work with says arc stability but i dont think they know much ::)

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

i made almost 30 grand with my smiley tig and then sold it for 100 less than i bought it for new.

so go ---- yourself ass ------s

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

If you had bought a miller or another good brand, you'd not have lost that $100, and would still be using the machine now. Instead, you lost $100 and then bought a better machine.

In other words, if you had bought a good machine to start with, you could have still made that same $30k, but wouldn't have lost the $100 that you did to replace the machine. Not only that, but with a foot pedal, the products you made with the machine would have probably been higher quality. No offense intended, but I just look at things differently.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

I bought my smiley having never tigged before and sort of inquiring whether I wanted to invest in a tig. Now I want a TA 185. Why? I like Tigging. Yes I wish I would have gotten the TA the first time, but I don't see the smiley as a waste of money. I was going to keep it as a Plasma, but we got a Hypertherm basicaaly for free so I don't need it anymore.

Hotrex did you buy the TA locally or Ebay it?

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...ype=osi_widget

does it run off of 220 or 110? the portable i had before was 110. (thermal arc)

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

nvm i see it now. its a 208-240 volt power source :(, guess i need to get an electrician over here to put in a new outlet... gaay

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

Buy a MIG. I bought a TIG and I wish for 95% of the projects I had a MIG. Alot of the time you just want to lay down a quick bead or tack and with TIG thats not nearly as easy as MIG.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

95 percent fo the time id rather tig things. i think mig welding is harder.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

I'm with Josh here. I would rather TIG. I only use my MIG for traction bars and I don't even make them anymore.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

i hate migs. you loose the precision and cleaness of a tig and your constantly fideling with your wire speed and amps. tig ftw. only thing i would ever use a mig for would be for tacking up an exhaust or putting a muffler on someones car.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

They each have there own uses. I like tiggin most things up because it's cleaner and stronger. However, having Mike's HF flux core around the past couple weeks has made somethings way easier to construct, like jigs and simple little projects (HM valve spring compressor) that don't need the super clean look and the presicion of tig.

It helps tremendously for exhausts. Little tack here and there and then finish it with the tig.


After tig welding I got the hang of a cheap ass flux core in about 10 mins. Setting the amps/volts is the easy part. I just varied the WFS all the way down, then all the way up to get a feel for what each was like. Then later on you'll know if the speed is too fast or too slow.


I agree with engloid. I bought a MAXSTAR and am glad I did. I got in on ebay brand new and could probably sell it for way more than I bought it for.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

buy my miller, truck fright is cheap

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

It's free if you buy off ebay. ;D

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

a mig has its place just as much as a tig, in our production environment if everything was tigged our production would fall 3x, and with all parts being mild and powdercoated, threee guys running tigs 40 hours a week just wouldnt put out the kind of production we put out running migs.

Re: looking to buy a tig for home finally
 

so what is this square wave tri wave ---- aboot eh?