Hi people, I'm looking for a tig welder on a budget for alloy welding. What should I look for please. Also it's for alloy boost pipes and alloy fabrication for racing. But also if possible stainless steel to.
You want a Ac/Dc tig and a bottle of pure argon.
If you are planning to do alloy thicker than 3mm or so or weld for long periods you might want to add a water cooler and water cooled torch into the budget as well.
Foot pedal is a nice option to have for alloy.
Any machine that will do alloy can also be set up to weld stainless at little/no cost.
If you are looking for advice on which machine to buy then the following questions will help people to help you:
What's the budget?
Personal/hobby use or commercial?
New or are you happy with used?
Single phase or do you have 3 phase power?
Does it need to be portable?
What materials will you be welding and the min/max thickness of each?
Thank you.
Used or new would be fine
Hobby use only
Budget I guess for now the cheapest one to get started
Portable isn't really necessary
Thickness will be around 3mm on alloy and stainless
Not sure about phases so I'm open to recommendations.
There's a good reason why all of the reputable welding machine distributors only carry AC/DC machines around £800+ (and that's for a very low end machine!).
Since you don't know, then I think we can assume it's single phase household supply only, which means you'll be looking at a single phase AC/DC inverter machine 160-200 amps. 160 amps is on the weak side for aluminium - realistically should be looking for a 200 amp machine.
200a machine will be fine for 3mm alloy.
Next thing to do might be check out the power supply to your shed/garage/workshop and see what sort of amp rating the main trip is. Ideally you would want a 32a socket so the cost of installing that might eat into the budget.
As above, new machines start about £800, up to £1k if you need gas and a mask etc.
Used portable ones or take your chance from china around £500.
If you have the power capacity then an older transformer machine about half those prices.
As above, any ACDC tig welder under 200 amps is not worth looking at, aluminium takes some energy to melt and low powered machines barely can muster 1.5-2mm...Steel/stainless is similar, anything thicker will require pre-heating which is no fun... As mentioned above, a torch cooler is a godsend or doing alloy for any length o time, i have many scars on my arms from touching burning/red hot torch tips so wear gloves as much as you can.
I would look at Thermal Arc, Parweld (if you like the naff color scheme) and some of the budget offerings from R-tech, etc...
Budget for gas bottle, regulator and quality filler rods, invest in acetone and de-grease/clean parts to be welded or better results ! Scotchbrite also help on corroded parts...