Engloid

Yes, if all you want is a cheap welder, you can't get a Miller or other top brand name with that kind of money. However, some hobby guys are never satisfied with their welding, and want to be as good as any professional would be...and that will be hard to achieve without the right equipment.

Sure, these machines obviously fill a niche market...otherwise they'd not be selling.
Primarily I wanted to tell the "other side" of the story, the downfalls of buying a cheaper machine. Providing those things don't turn a person off, these cheaper machines may be what they should buy.

I have made some stuff like that, but most of what I have welded is industrial stuff. Making manifolds is too much like hard work for me...I try to stick to the "light duty" work. If anybody thinks making manifolds is easy, they should try my job. I can't complain about much...except for the money, and it should be getting better soon.

Tom-Guy

We need a sticky topic on n00b welder selection, and the above text (plus some details) need to be in it.

As well as the opposing viewpoint, espousing the git-r-done mentality.

hotrex

engloid, i agree with you 100 percent. i do want to be the best possible tig welder i can be, and yes i do realize i will need a better machine. the smiley tools did allow me to get started on a smaller budget, that what it is good for.

im about to start frquenting the hobart weld talk forum and ask some questions.

Engloid

I looked up some pics of your work, and saw where you mentioned that you were going to be upgrading. I would suggest that you start looking for machines as you save money. WHen the good deals come up, you have to find them fast and be ready to buy. If it's you saying "give me 3 weeks to buy it" vs a guy that will give the same money today, you'll lose out on the deal to a guy that was just more ready for the deal. That philosiphy works well for me. I got an 86Ranger 4wd, 5sp v6 for $600, and my KDX200 for $600. I've had both for a few years and could still profit if I sold them.



I SUSPECT that the time you worked on the PT186 (I think it was), you were much less experienced than you are now. You may be able to do much more with it now.

I remember the first time I did tig welding. It was in high school, on aluminum. I only welded about 3 minutes, since I wasn't supposed to be doing it anyway. It looked terrible, dipping tungsten and such. About 3-4 years later, I was on the job and they had asked if I could weld aluminum. I said yes, picked up the torch and ran a pretty nice bead. At my first try years ago though, I didn't have enough knowedge to even know what to do, but years later, I did. Oh, and after I welded a few parts on that job, the boss asked if I had the certification and I said I didn't know. I checked with the welding engineer who looked at the parts and gave me the certification

In this thread, I'm not intending to bash these machines, as they definitely have filled a spot in the market. I only intend to be another voice that says they're not nearly as good as the big name brands (not near price either) Would I buy one? No...but although I'm not rich, I can afford a good used machine. After so many years of welding on the job, one of those cheap ones only frustrate me if I had to use it much. A place I work now bought a few cheap tig machines. Everybody refused to use them, saying they didn't do what we needed to do....so the company just now bought 4 new Syncrowave 250's

hotrex

engloid your probably right. i think half of the problem with me not liking the precision tig was the fact that it was setup incorrectly.

also most likely the fact i had much less experience.

MikeJ-2009

I've managed to stay on topic. wOO WOoooooo

Dr.Boost

^^^Classic.
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SpankedYA!

lol, I think Josh meant HE couldn't lay a better bead with a better welder. I in fact couldn't either as I have tried.

hotrex

i ws referring to my weld ability.

the beads i lay withthe smiley are as good as any ive layed withthe syncrowave

MikeJ-2009

Oh, than I must have been mistaken. That response was taken from the post were sikcivic (whatever) started a post saying in order to have a quality weld, you must have a quality welder. Who would have known you'd call him dumb because you were referring to your own ability to not be able to weld.