Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Have tried searching but not finding what I'm looking for... maybe I'm not using it properly... but...

Just looking at buying a tig welder for the shed at home. Wanting to know what brands are good/not so good... best place to buy.... and are those ones off ebay any good or not???

What I'm intending on using it for is to fab up some bar work on the truck... prob want to weld up to about 4mm thick steel at the most, but generally around the 2.5mm thickness.

Any thoughts or advice much appreciated.

Cheers.

Wouldn't a mig be better for barwork etc?
Unless you're going to be welding stainless or alu.

we use the essetti at work doing pipes. it will run all day long at 130 amps. havent tried higher, had no use that high. its dualpurpose, stick/tig. seen them advertised for $1300 with the stick and tig kits. they will get my vote.

sudso wrote:Wouldn't a mig be better for barwork etc?
Unless you're going to be welding stainless or alu.

you can set up tigs to just be a stick welder as well.

Here's mine 230 amps of AC/DC welding perfection from Finland, not cheap though.
Regards Andrew.

mate the more i use my unitig the more i love it. I think I have "Had" to show who ever is around every weld I have done lately it truly is amazing. At $1698 with everything, how can you go wrong. I have welded 8mm alloy plate, 1.6 316 s/s, 1.4mm alloy sheet, and heaps of little scraps. works a charm.

cheers bru

awill4x4 wrote:Here's mine 230 amps of AC/DC welding perfection from Finland, not cheap though.
Regards Andrew.

show off couldn't afford a kempi when i needed an inverter with pulse ended up with a WIA for much less $$$

Have been looking at the ones on e-bay myself, I am a fitter/welder and we run cig & esseti machines at work, but it is a cost justification, just depends on how much work you do, Have been looking at the Tig/stick/plasma, ones t, probably not real good as far as pulse curves and the like but for the dollars and just for general home type fab they don't look to bad!

yeah has anyone every used one of the ebay ones?
i want one just a a general purpose welder etc and to toy with a lil.
my budget wont allow me to buy a $1500 tig but that said if the ebay ones are absolute crap i just wont bother and will keep borrowing dads mig.

awill4x4, my mates got the same welder but its out of my price range, have you seen the unitig 200 like bru21 bought and have any opinion of them for general home fabbin?

henry wrote:we use the essetti at work doing pipes. it will run all day long at 130 amps. havent tried higher, had no use that high. its dualpurpose, stick/tig. seen them advertised for $1300 with the stick and tig kits. they will get my vote.

was considering getting something like this down the track... worth the time of day or should I just get a dedicated tig machine??

Simon

shakes wrote:

henry wrote:we use the essetti at work doing pipes. it will run all day long at 130 amps. havent tried higher, had no use that high. its dualpurpose, stick/tig. seen them advertised for $1300 with the stick and tig kits. they will get my vote.

was considering getting something like this down the track... worth the time of day or should I just get a dedicated tig machine??

Simon

most tig welders can do stick welding aswell. Its just the way they work. Tig uses an electrode and you use some filler rod

With stick the electrode is also the filler rod.


With a mig however, you have all the feed etc which pretty much makes them a dedicated mig welder. Having said that, i would not be surprised if there are mig/stick welders, i cant see any reason you cant have some extra taps for a stick electrode.

my brother and i got a tig off ebay 2 weeks ago for $1180 its a wsme 200 amp ac/dc im a fitter and turner and my bro's a boilie and we are both very happy with it it's identical to the uni mig one's the the bearing mobs are selling. Time wil tell i gues but for the amount of alloy and stainless we do im sure it will do the job got a fair range of adjustments on it for the price i think they are good value

PS.has any one tigged aluminium road signs if so what filler rods did they use

shakes wrote:

henry wrote:we use the essetti at work doing pipes. it will run all day long at 130 amps. havent tried higher, had no use that high. its dualpurpose, stick/tig. seen them advertised for $1300 with the stick and tig kits. they will get my vote.

was considering getting something like this down the track... worth the time of day or should I just get a dedicated tig machine??

Simon

This esseti we have is great. The pressure welders love it for field work and i use it for tacking up jobs for them. it really holds the current well and has a nice fine dial for adjusting the amps. i like it. i will look at it tomorrow and see if it has a model no on it.

I use a essetti tig - stick 200amp jobby. works great.

nastytroll wrote:awill4x4, my mates got the same welder but its out of my price range, have you seen the unitig 200 like bru21 bought and have any opinion of them for general home fabbin?

Nastytroll, I haven't seen any links to show the machine so I don't know what features it has. I briefly looked at the chinese machines but I didn't test them and in the end because my job is high end tig welding I decided to bite the bullet and get the best machine available at the time.
The machine cost a packet and I've bought a whole heap of consumables to go with it and I've just ordered a variable amperage amptrol unit for it so I can adjust the amperage with a torch mounted control unit while welding.
You'd think Tigging all day then at night for 3 evenings welding for a friend on radiators and intercoolers I'd be sick of it, but no, I just love Tig welding.

mate, the one I bought rocks. I Have 3 mates who weld everyday, and one of them has bought one as he feels its better than his big one, two other mate have got one two for his 4x4 fab shop. They all think it is a great machine. I don't buy crap, and would NOT have bought any other machine other than the Kempi. I have wanted a tig like this for 5 years but could not justify the $$ for the kempi - and a day after I first saw this machine i was messing around with my own one at home. I am building my jimny gt4 trophy truck with this thing and will be trusting my life on the welds as every component will be done with this machine and 4130!

hope that persuades you to get one!

Cheers bru

If you are new to TIG download Miller's TIG HAndbook. It really helped me understand what to look for in a good TIG as well as what all the controls do. Sometimes the manual with the machine isn't that great.

Shadow wrote:most tig welders can do stick welding aswell. Its just the way they work. Tig uses an electrode and you use some filler rod

With stick the electrode is also the filler rod.


With a mig however, you have all the feed etc which pretty much makes them a dedicated mig welder. Having said that, i would not be surprised if there are mig/stick welders, i cant see any reason you cant have some extra taps for a stick electrode.

The power unit for tig and stick control the amperage, so it is easy to use both.

The power unit for mig, controls the voltage. So it is not easy to make a dual mig/stick welder.

With pressure pipework, tig rules. But for heavy wall carbon steel pipe it is common to use tig for the root run and stick to finish (quicker). So it is very useful to have a combined tig/stick welder.

BTW, I have a Fronius tig, which are comparable with similar Kempe units.

this is one of the ebay ones ive been thinking of
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/AC-DC-TIG-ARC-PL ... dZViewItem
i know it will never be as good as the 2k setups but for basic home n car fab work would it be ok or would i be better to forget it (i borrow dads good mig id i have any serious welding to do)

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/PLASMA-CUTTER-AR ... dZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/200A-AC-DC-TIG-W ... dZViewItem

badger wrote:this is one of the ebay ones ive been thinking of
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/AC-DC-TIG-ARC-PL ... dZViewItem
i know it will never be as good as the 2k setups but for basic home n car fab work would it be ok or would i be better to forget it (i borrow dads good mig id i have any serious welding to do)

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/PLASMA-CUTTER-AR ... dZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/200A-AC-DC-TIG-W ... dZViewItem

my mate just bought that one in the first link, he is just a backyard mechanic type guy, hes more than happy with it. and the plasma cutter is tops.

awesome.

just a bit worried because a mate bought a ebay mig and another mates supercheap mig sh1t's on it for less coin.

thats the sort of reply i was wanthing cheers.

also correct me if im wrong but a mig would be dearer to make because it needs all the wire feed crap and the sleaved lead etc.
thus meaning a 1k tig should be of higher quality than a 1k mig?