I bought a Tec-arc 166i inverter, welds nice, not had it long but seems to be ok.
Not many Sip fans on here, but I am, I bought a P178hf tig/mma invertor for about £280 with mma clamp, tig gun etc Can't fault it, and 2 year guarantee!
Ive heard alot of mixed reviews about sip but never tryed 1 to judge for myself, why do people slate them so much do you know? 2 year guarantee sounds tempting though is that 2 years with unlimited use aswell then? Say if you were using it flat out every day.
What sort of price was that mate? Have you been doing thin or thick stuff with it?
Bought it off Weldequip for £268 then added a new mask and the Tig kit on top of that. Not welded with Arc for 10 plus years but soon got the hang of the welder and found it ok. Been repairing a Motorbike trailer with different sizes from 4mm plate down to 18 gauge tube, all running off a 13 amp fuse. Used 1/3 of a box of Murex 3.2mm rods in one go at 90/100 amps and no signs of overheating. Not looked inside yet but it seems to be well put together. The service from Weldequip was very good and I think so far it was worth the money.
that sounds pretty good going, I've been looking on the weldequip website as it was mentioned by another member on a previous post and I keep hearing there name pop up where are they based? Do they deliver?
The 165 is truly portable. Wear it over your shoulder and climb ladders etc. It only has short welding leads, which is an advantage for that sort of use but a nuisance otherwise.
The 166 is luggable. Move it about the workshop or put it in the van with no problems, but nothing highly mobile.
The 166 has better duty cycles.
Cheers is it really the size of a stella can as shown next to it on weldequip website
I doubt it's been photoshopped and it is a pint can.
Lots of inverters up to 140A are that sort of size and come with a shoulder strap, more in the past I think. That's powerful for a thing of its size, but not that remarkable.
I doubt many use them slung over their shoulders.
Furthermore if you constrain the design with lightness, things have to give elsewhere, lower duty cycles, or more expensive heat sinks, or reliability, or something, so I'd guess that's why things have moved away from the ultra small and light units.