Trying to buy my 1st welder. Which one would be better, AC arc welder vs. DC IGBT arc welder?
Power capacity for home DIY use? Any advice, and advantage and disadvantages between the two types of welders would be much appreciated.
Shop Adjustable Electric Welder, 4000W ARC MMA‑200Amp DC IGBT Inverter Welder 20‑200Amp Portable LCD Electric Welding Machine Quick Arcing Less Welding Splash UK Plug 220V. Free delivery on eligible orders of £20 or more.
Thanks for your info and recommendation. I did reading on the pages, and feel learnt a lot.
I think the MMA-200 DC IGBT welder looks great for value for money and good welding performance for newbies and DIY home uses.
But then, I also have soft spot for the traditional simple construction and long lasting AC welders too. Maybe I will go for both type welders going for the lowest prices.
IGBT Inverters seems have definite edges.
AC Buzzbox has one reason to go for - the price. About £30 - £40 including delivery for brand new AC Box seems the going price recently.
So ordered a new 100 amp AC welder, and MMA-250 Inverter welder. The inverter welder arrived today. Looks ok, powered on checked the output voltage and it was 67V DC.
There was no fuse in the plug, but some metal stick in the fuse holder. Took it out, and put a 13A fuse in it. Still have no rods, so cannot test yet.
The Earth wire is not connected to the chassis of the Inverter DC welder, when checked out with my multi meter. The plug is a plastic moulded one, so cannot open it up and try to connect the earth wire to the chassis at all.
Not sure if this would be safe electrically using it with no earth connection to the chassis of the Inverter DC welder. It powers on OK, and the AMP control knob sets the LED amp reading between 24A to 250A.
Still waiting for 6013 rods arriving from the Amazon seller.
Probably not legal for them to sell it without an earth, so might be a missing connection somewhere. Have you opened the welder to see if there's an earth core at that end? For what it's worth the supplier of my cheap inverter (Static Arc) was quite happy for me to open it up and check all connections before firing it up.
I will open it up, and see if there is missing connection somewhere in the unit. Yeah, my MMA-250 inverter was £47 including delivery with all the accessories. I feel that it was a bargain.
My the other order of the AC welder has arrived today too. It was brand new in the box with all the accessories too. The quality of the face mask was a lot better than the inverter's.
And it has the earth properly connected to the chassis, and had a proper UK plug with a 13A fuse in place. Everything was spot-on for the UK market and UK users. At £41 including next day delivery, I felt this is the bargain of the century.
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Opened up the Inverter and no, there is no earth wire in the mains lead. The mains lead has only two wires - Brown and Blue.
So, the earth connector in the mains plug is a dummy.
I think I can still connect earth wire to the chassis, and add another mains plug (connecting only earth wire, nothing else) for earth connector only in the 2nd plug, and plug it into the mains when operating.
A bit of hassle, but if it works well and is safe, that's fine.
With a plastic case? Then it's probably 'double insulated' class, so no earth is required.
You will have a good comparison now between old AC and new DC:
DC nicer to strike and use.
AC transformer will outlast it but with a rubbish duty cycle.
It is not 100% plastic case. Only the front and back cover are plastic. But the both sides and top is one piece pressed steel. From outside of the casing all the screws in the pressed steel case are electrically connected (zero ohms).
Yeah, I have both DC and AC welder, so feel quite good. It was only possible to have both type, because they were so cheap.