antonio costa
Member
- Messages
- 328
- Location
- Portugal
Hi.
My TA arrived yesterday from United Welding, the delivery was actually quite quick and the guys were very helpful at every step of the order and got me a great deal.
I took a few pictures of some of the machine details, and I will write about the good and bad details of the machine noticed until now, welded a bit with it last night and since I had a few things today in the morning at work to do it went with me to try it in pipe after finishing that.
I hope that his review is helpful to anyone looking buy one like I was in the previous weeks
-The machine itself looks quite solidly built, the plastic seems to be of quality and the panel feels quite good to the touch, pressing buttons and such. The rotary knob is also very precise. It came without a plug. Another great detail is the gas connection on the back of machine beeing suitable for a quick connector.
-The acessories:
The electrode holder is high quality tweco, to be honest I was expecting worse, the same for the ground cable and clamp, the clamp is quite nice actually (in my opinion the clamp of superior quality to the ones that came with all my previous welders).
The torch isn't all that bad although I only used it to try the machine and won't be using it any more but the remote control sucks and you can only adjust the max current on the welder removing it from the torch or unplugging the 8 pin plug... (in the pictures you can notice what I mean by removing the remote dial from the handle to adjust current on the welder)
The foot pedal is extremelly well built, top notch quality but (and this "but" is big but I already knew about that) I've to unplug it every time I need to adjust the maximum current on the welder. That problem will be sorted with a mod as seen on the weldingweb forum (fitting a switch to the side of the pedal, to interrupt the pot circuit and make possible to adjust on the welder without having to unplug it from the 8 pin socket). I also took pictures of the inside of the pedal, since I had to confirm it it was similar to the 186 one and possible to do the modification.
-The gas connector hose is quite good, quality cimps on the fittings,and the quick connect also works quite nice.
Going to the most important, the welding itself.
I only tried it on DC and really liked it, the arc is stable and crisp comparable to higher end machines, the pulse also works quite good, about the duty cycle I did test piece at work, half of a 150mm pipe beveled at 30 degrees open root, 3.2mm gap and 1mm landing, 3 passes, first pass at 90 amps, fill at 120 amps and cap at 120 also, 2.4 rod and 2.4 red thoriated tungsten. Only stopped a little between passes to adjust and it behaved flawless. It was tough on the welder since I walked the cup and did it slowly on purpose on the fill to see if would cut out.
Next picture taken with my cellphone.
My TA arrived yesterday from United Welding, the delivery was actually quite quick and the guys were very helpful at every step of the order and got me a great deal.
I took a few pictures of some of the machine details, and I will write about the good and bad details of the machine noticed until now, welded a bit with it last night and since I had a few things today in the morning at work to do it went with me to try it in pipe after finishing that.
I hope that his review is helpful to anyone looking buy one like I was in the previous weeks
-The machine itself looks quite solidly built, the plastic seems to be of quality and the panel feels quite good to the touch, pressing buttons and such. The rotary knob is also very precise. It came without a plug. Another great detail is the gas connection on the back of machine beeing suitable for a quick connector.
-The acessories:
The electrode holder is high quality tweco, to be honest I was expecting worse, the same for the ground cable and clamp, the clamp is quite nice actually (in my opinion the clamp of superior quality to the ones that came with all my previous welders).
The torch isn't all that bad although I only used it to try the machine and won't be using it any more but the remote control sucks and you can only adjust the max current on the welder removing it from the torch or unplugging the 8 pin plug... (in the pictures you can notice what I mean by removing the remote dial from the handle to adjust current on the welder)
The foot pedal is extremelly well built, top notch quality but (and this "but" is big but I already knew about that) I've to unplug it every time I need to adjust the maximum current on the welder. That problem will be sorted with a mod as seen on the weldingweb forum (fitting a switch to the side of the pedal, to interrupt the pot circuit and make possible to adjust on the welder without having to unplug it from the 8 pin socket). I also took pictures of the inside of the pedal, since I had to confirm it it was similar to the 186 one and possible to do the modification.
-The gas connector hose is quite good, quality cimps on the fittings,and the quick connect also works quite nice.
Going to the most important, the welding itself.
I only tried it on DC and really liked it, the arc is stable and crisp comparable to higher end machines, the pulse also works quite good, about the duty cycle I did test piece at work, half of a 150mm pipe beveled at 30 degrees open root, 3.2mm gap and 1mm landing, 3 passes, first pass at 90 amps, fill at 120 amps and cap at 120 also, 2.4 rod and 2.4 red thoriated tungsten. Only stopped a little between passes to adjust and it behaved flawless. It was tough on the welder since I walked the cup and did it slowly on purpose on the fill to see if would cut out.
Next picture taken with my cellphone.