secretsmoker
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Some of you may have seen my other threads relating to this welder. Cut a long story short the one I received had been bashed around quite a lot. After swapping out the PCB for a different one sent from Manchester by UK distributor Wilkinson Star everything now works perfectly.
The conclusion I came to after some quick preliminary welds just to check everything is now working is that this machine will be perfect for car bodywork in my garage at home.
Quick test beads 0.8 wire/Argoshield light on scrap 1.5mm MX5 panel -
Once I get used to this thing I reckon some really nice tiny neat consistent welds will be possible in bodywork. I haven't tried it with the 0.6mm wire yet as I just wanted to test the thing quickly today before actually losing toes to the cold! With the 0.6mm wire loaded I reckon bodywork gauge steel will be a breeze judging by how easily I managed using the 0.8 today. Minimum ampage is 30A according to the book. Duty cycle is 100% at 45A, 60% at 55A and only 15% at 115A. For what I will be using it for I reckon this will suffice with minimal breaks.
Front panel has 4 voltage settings but no soft tweaking ability. Wirespeed control goes from very slow indeed to so fast it could be lethal for soft meaty appendages if pointed in the wrong direction. Voltage contol also doubles as an off switch in the 0 position and also has a 'gas test' position which disables the wire feed.
No adaptor needed to switch between 5Kg and the smaller wire reels, just turn the sprocket thingy round. Tensioner screw and feeder assembly seems to be quite well put together and has a nice feel to it. One tiny gripe is that the sprung collar on the tensioner screw is a little bit awkward to pop back in when loading new wire. I will try to illustrate with pictures to show what I mean. From a glance inside the other side of the housing the wire feed motor does look a little on the small side but feels fairly powerful for it's size.
Better than average external hardware compared to the Clarke etc I was also looking at was my main reason for choosing this machine. Let us not forget that this is priced very much at the lower end of the MIG scale at around 300 squid. Whether or not this machine lives up to the claims of 'professional build quality etc etc' in the sales bumf remains to be seen. The earth clamp which comes as standard is much better than the ones on many entry level machines. Decent gauge wire and a nice big clamp with a copper plated stud on both sides. Mine came with a proper 2 dial regulator with pressure/flow rate and the usual brass connectors.Torch is a reasonable quality Euro style which takes standard sized tips/hoods and which feels as solid as any of the more expensive ones I have used. The only gripe I have is that there is no socket/connector for interchangeable torches but when the time comes for a replacement this would be quite an easy mod if the hole in the casing was made slightly bigger. I will try to remember to take some more pics when the garage warms up and edit them in.
Build quality seems to be reasonably good all in all or so I would have assumed had I not had cause to go inside...I am a bit of a stickler for PCB design and for me hanging a relatively heavy surface mounted transformer upside-down from the PCB using only 1 nylon motherboard-style pillar and the wire-speed potentiometer as a secondary mount is NOT what I would have done and was the cause of the fault I originally had with this unit. If the thing hadn't have been dropped in transit however I probably would have been none the wiser.
Board-
Next project for tomorrow's day off is a custom mounting for a little flatscreen TV using 2mm corner section, then it's back to trying to get my drift car ready for Buxton. Super excited now that I have a predictable, tunable machine that I can get to know. So far I would definitely recommend this as an entry level bodywork/garage project MIG machine.
The conclusion I came to after some quick preliminary welds just to check everything is now working is that this machine will be perfect for car bodywork in my garage at home.
Quick test beads 0.8 wire/Argoshield light on scrap 1.5mm MX5 panel -
Once I get used to this thing I reckon some really nice tiny neat consistent welds will be possible in bodywork. I haven't tried it with the 0.6mm wire yet as I just wanted to test the thing quickly today before actually losing toes to the cold! With the 0.6mm wire loaded I reckon bodywork gauge steel will be a breeze judging by how easily I managed using the 0.8 today. Minimum ampage is 30A according to the book. Duty cycle is 100% at 45A, 60% at 55A and only 15% at 115A. For what I will be using it for I reckon this will suffice with minimal breaks.
Front panel has 4 voltage settings but no soft tweaking ability. Wirespeed control goes from very slow indeed to so fast it could be lethal for soft meaty appendages if pointed in the wrong direction. Voltage contol also doubles as an off switch in the 0 position and also has a 'gas test' position which disables the wire feed.
No adaptor needed to switch between 5Kg and the smaller wire reels, just turn the sprocket thingy round. Tensioner screw and feeder assembly seems to be quite well put together and has a nice feel to it. One tiny gripe is that the sprung collar on the tensioner screw is a little bit awkward to pop back in when loading new wire. I will try to illustrate with pictures to show what I mean. From a glance inside the other side of the housing the wire feed motor does look a little on the small side but feels fairly powerful for it's size.
Better than average external hardware compared to the Clarke etc I was also looking at was my main reason for choosing this machine. Let us not forget that this is priced very much at the lower end of the MIG scale at around 300 squid. Whether or not this machine lives up to the claims of 'professional build quality etc etc' in the sales bumf remains to be seen. The earth clamp which comes as standard is much better than the ones on many entry level machines. Decent gauge wire and a nice big clamp with a copper plated stud on both sides. Mine came with a proper 2 dial regulator with pressure/flow rate and the usual brass connectors.Torch is a reasonable quality Euro style which takes standard sized tips/hoods and which feels as solid as any of the more expensive ones I have used. The only gripe I have is that there is no socket/connector for interchangeable torches but when the time comes for a replacement this would be quite an easy mod if the hole in the casing was made slightly bigger. I will try to remember to take some more pics when the garage warms up and edit them in.
Build quality seems to be reasonably good all in all or so I would have assumed had I not had cause to go inside...I am a bit of a stickler for PCB design and for me hanging a relatively heavy surface mounted transformer upside-down from the PCB using only 1 nylon motherboard-style pillar and the wire-speed potentiometer as a secondary mount is NOT what I would have done and was the cause of the fault I originally had with this unit. If the thing hadn't have been dropped in transit however I probably would have been none the wiser.
Board-
Next project for tomorrow's day off is a custom mounting for a little flatscreen TV using 2mm corner section, then it's back to trying to get my drift car ready for Buxton. Super excited now that I have a predictable, tunable machine that I can get to know. So far I would definitely recommend this as an entry level bodywork/garage project MIG machine.