backpurge
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Mmmmm, not completely straightforward to answer. Yes I would advise buying the best kit you can afford so that would be a high quality multi stage regulator fitted with a flowmeter and you should replace the regulator every 5 years, but a DIY user may only use the welder fairly infrequently so can the outlay be justified, maybe their cash might be better spent on a higher quality welding helmet or welding kit etc etc
In my job I am dealing with people who are spending a lot of money on shielding gas, hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in some cases and they have a wide range of opinions on how to manage their gas use, the vast majority will have relatively inexpensive single stage regulators fitted to their cylinders and rely on the welders to control the flow rates, where it has been noted the guys are repeatedly using excessive flow rates we will fit control devises to the wire feed units that control gas flow to a pre set value and eliminate pre weld surge.
Where the application is a bit more critical people will also fit flow meters to the regs but this is usually for TIG applications.
When people have their gas piped around their shop they will either have flow meters or some type of optimiser fitted to the outlet and then it's not unusual to have a flow control device fitted to the welder. To honest there is a huge amount of permutations
In my job I am dealing with people who are spending a lot of money on shielding gas, hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in some cases and they have a wide range of opinions on how to manage their gas use, the vast majority will have relatively inexpensive single stage regulators fitted to their cylinders and rely on the welders to control the flow rates, where it has been noted the guys are repeatedly using excessive flow rates we will fit control devises to the wire feed units that control gas flow to a pre set value and eliminate pre weld surge.
Where the application is a bit more critical people will also fit flow meters to the regs but this is usually for TIG applications.
When people have their gas piped around their shop they will either have flow meters or some type of optimiser fitted to the outlet and then it's not unusual to have a flow control device fitted to the welder. To honest there is a huge amount of permutations