Hi guys
I've got myself a Clarke 151TE and have been practicing with it on reasonably thin steel (1.6mm). I was using a normal helmet with a 10 shade lens, but today decided to go and get an auto-darkening helmet.
I got a SIP 02868 for £53 from Halfords. I've set it up as per the instructions and initially tried it on shade setting 11. This seemed to work fine at first, although it did seem to still be brighter than the traditional 10 shade when welding, I thought this was probably a normal effect with auto-darkening helmets. After about 20 minutes of use (so probably no more than a couple of minutes of arc time) the arc suddenly seemed painfully bright to me, for a few minutes I had the kind of purple burn effect as if I had caught the arc without a mask on.
Once this had gone away, I perhaps stupidly, set it to 13 and tried welding again. It was still painfully bright. Now (45 minutes or so after) the purple effect has long gone but my eyes still feel uncomfortable. I definitely haven't struck up without my helmet on today and I'm pretty certain the bright light was coming through the lens, rather than a reflection.
I'm not too sure what happened, I don't think it completely failed to darken and the instructions say it is meant to fail safe to a shade 9 lens. I'm not sure how bright a shade 9 lens is? Can you get proper arc eye from using too low a shade or is it just annoyingly bright?
Have other people had experience with this helmet? I think it is probably a very cheap one (despite not being cheap from Halfords!). I think I'll probably try it again in the morning and take it back if I still don't like it.
Has anybody got any experiences with this Clarke helmet from Machine Mart? Ideally I'd like to get something tomorrow as I've got the day off work.
I've got myself a Clarke 151TE and have been practicing with it on reasonably thin steel (1.6mm). I was using a normal helmet with a 10 shade lens, but today decided to go and get an auto-darkening helmet.
I got a SIP 02868 for £53 from Halfords. I've set it up as per the instructions and initially tried it on shade setting 11. This seemed to work fine at first, although it did seem to still be brighter than the traditional 10 shade when welding, I thought this was probably a normal effect with auto-darkening helmets. After about 20 minutes of use (so probably no more than a couple of minutes of arc time) the arc suddenly seemed painfully bright to me, for a few minutes I had the kind of purple burn effect as if I had caught the arc without a mask on.
Once this had gone away, I perhaps stupidly, set it to 13 and tried welding again. It was still painfully bright. Now (45 minutes or so after) the purple effect has long gone but my eyes still feel uncomfortable. I definitely haven't struck up without my helmet on today and I'm pretty certain the bright light was coming through the lens, rather than a reflection.
I'm not too sure what happened, I don't think it completely failed to darken and the instructions say it is meant to fail safe to a shade 9 lens. I'm not sure how bright a shade 9 lens is? Can you get proper arc eye from using too low a shade or is it just annoyingly bright?
Have other people had experience with this helmet? I think it is probably a very cheap one (despite not being cheap from Halfords!). I think I'll probably try it again in the morning and take it back if I still don't like it.
Has anybody got any experiences with this Clarke helmet from Machine Mart? Ideally I'd like to get something tomorrow as I've got the day off work.