EBay gas lens any good?

[Richard.]

My welders 23 years old, still going strong... Says it was serviced in 2011, not sure what they did, if anything. I think it might soon need replacing of electrolytic capacitors but otherwise there doesn't seem to be much that's liable to fail in it.

I'm up for been corrected here but a welder service iirc is more along the lines of whipping off the covers, blow out and inspection. They might get a poke about with a meter to check supplies are what they are meant to be. Old ones will probably have points gap check but generally if it's working as it should the service is pretty minimal. Small insignificant bits might be changed if they are on there way out like connectors or gas pipe. @Jim Davey does a lot of this sort of thing and can give more accurate detail. I keep mine clean, blow em out twice a year and a quick look for anything obvious. (Not that I know what I'm looking for mind) but it's the thought that counts

 

[Daniel1986]

My welders 23 years old, still going strong... Says it was serviced in 2011it.

Wow We're on a really different subject now form gas lenses, not much can go wrong with thoes old sets takes me back to my college days, I never even knew what juice I was on, The technique was to wind the thing till it seemed to run ok. And if you said HF to me I would have thought you has some kind of venereal disease - Weldings come along way in last 20 years. However All the new ones have all kinds of control boards which can go down and it's not easy to identify the faults a lot of the time. The biggest improvement with the new sets is the portability which so important, anyone seen that new ESAB Rebel? Mig tig and stick and can run of single or three phase supply, That's on my Christmas list this year, Well back to gas lenses, My supplier was around today dropping off some bits so I looked though his van and found a great looking gas lense with a number 15 cup. Great bit of kit if the job has lots of room. I'm only working on 2" at the moment so not really practical, So I'm back to my trusty number 8 cup and stubby for now.

 

[DennisCA]

Mine's an old 300A Kemppi (3ph) pretty advanced for it's age. It has HF, lift-arc, upslope, down slope, pre- and post flow functions, a tack function and this weird function called minilog. If it had AC and pulse functions then it'd be on par with a modern inverter.

And as for gas lens talk, I think the part number for the ones I need for my CK torch is CK-4GHS

 

[Richard.]

That lens kit cannot be faulted. 6lpm even through that numb cup had no problems producing contaminate free weld. Not my neatest work but hey we ain't judging the weld we are judging the cheapenese lens. 0.9 304 tube. I'm gonna keep the lens and back cap as I personally cannot fault it. It might last long who knows. I'm yet to push its limits on ac.

 

[Xup]

Same seller as in the first post is now listing just the Pyrex cups for £1.50 with free post!.
How they can do that is beyond me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1Pcs-Pyre...p-Kit-For-Tig-WP-17-18-26-Torch-/142321917803

 

[Richard.]

Same seller as in the first post is now listing just the Pyrex cups for £1.50 with free post!.
How they can do that is beyond me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1Pcs-Pyre...p-Kit-For-Tig-WP-17-18-26-Torch-/142321917803

The cups are not great. They fit well and are clear but the thickness of them and the fact they are a big bore size makes them useless to me

 

[Brad93]

How do you cope your stainless tubes @Richard.

I've been coping by hand with a grinder and finishing with a hand file

 

[HughF]

Cuts the sides off at the correct angle with the bandsaw iirc...

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/bandsaw-notching.66966/#post-874194

 

[Richard.]

Cuts the sides off at the correct angle with the bandsaw iirc...

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/bandsaw-notching.66966/#post-874194

Bang on.

 

[Richard.]

Taken her a step up from sub 1mm and given it a taste of 3mm 304 lap and fillet joint.
Just broke into triple figures on the current with a 316 1.6 filler.
Again contamination free joint, sufficent shielding and that covers anything I'd do on dc happily.
Some pretty colours for the tarts that think you need a drain pipe to achieve it.

 

[Paul.]

Some pretty colours for the tarts that think you need a drain pipe to achieve it.

Open corner on 16swg stainless, probably the worst joint for getting decent coverage, 1.6mm tungsten, no. 8 ceramic, about 7lpm gas, no lens I rarely use one on stainless, managed to produce these pretty colours without trying too hard, it all got ground off and polished out after welding.

 

[Richard.]

Open corner on 16swg stainless, probably the worst joint for getting decent coverage, 1.6mm tungsten, no. 8 ceramic, about 7lpm gas, no lens I rarely use one on stainless, managed to produce these pretty colours without trying too hard, it all got ground off and polished out after welding.
View attachment 106034

I saw that in your other post. Despite the welding looking spot on, I find the total lack of any distortion pretty amazing there Paul.

 

[Daniel1986]

I saw that in your other post. Despite the welding looking spot on, I find the total lack of any distortion pretty amazing there Paul.

I agree that's very good and with very little distortion, We should start a new post about distortion limiting techniques for stainless steel.

 

[Richard.]

I agree that's very good and with very little distortion, We should start a new post about distortion limiting techniques for stainless steel.

There is lots of threads and posts on distortion reduction.

 

[Brad93]

I agree that's very good and with very little distortion, We should start a new post about distortion limiting techniques for stainless steel.

I would be interested in this. I assume you used an aluminium or copper backing bar/piece of angle behind the outside corner?
At work I use a lot of aluminium jigs and then clap the jig with deep throat clamps and a copper bar on the outside to suck the heat out. Should really experiment with pulse settings but my boss is a bit old school.

 

[Mart63]

Back on the original topic for a min. Well mine arrived today. 10 days from china 3.99 free shipping. If nothing else I give him full credit for the service alone.
Any how. I haven't welded with it yet and that cup is way too big for anything I do but the parts actually work. They fit very snug and they look decent. No burs on the lens threads fit nice collet I won't use but again it's a working item. Point been so far this seller seems to sell usable cheap kit. I bought the smallest kit because I won't actually use most of it I stick with what I know but I'm gonna test it and give honest feedback and you guys can make your own minds up.

Just received my stubby gas lens kit from this seller today. Went for a 1.6mm kit to get a spare gas lens and hopefully the correct insulator this time. Glad to say that this kit is spot on and everything fits as it should. Just got to he some argon now to try it out.

 

[Liquid Metal]

I would be interested in this. I assume you used an aluminium or copper backing bar/piece of angle behind the outside corner?
At work I use a lot of aluminium jigs and then clap the jig with deep throat clamps and a copper bar on the outside to suck the heat out. Should really experiment with pulse settings but my boss is a bit old school.

One way ive fpund that helps with outside corner joints, is a thick bit of ally flat bar, 50x10 for example, clamped to either piece, 1/2" or so back from the joint helps a lot, stops the gas rolling away too readily and helps pull the heat out helping distortion and overheating problems causing oxide formations ie nice shiny silver welds. Copper would probably work even better, but whos got 50x10 copper flat bar laying around in any sort of length lol.
As far as was mentioned earlier in the thread re CK vs Chinese made gas lenses, i only ever use the chinese ones, about 15 quid if i remember rightly for 1.6 and 2.4 lenses stubby type ones for getting in tight spaces, 2 or each size brass wedge collets and size 4,6 and 8 ceramics. Still going strong a few years down the line, and give good enough coverage for welds to pass xray testing time and time again.
Dont need to pay 3-4 times as much for CK kits in my opinion at all

 

[Richard.]

Dont need to pay 3-4 times as much for CK kits in my opinion at all

Depends.
My Chinese lens is making funny noises now. Like a slight whistle when the gas is coming out. I gave her a rough half hour on 3/4mm aluminium and I think I've started the process of recking the defuser under the mesh.
My torch is water cooled to the neck only so the poor lens got a taste of real current and I don't think it was up to it.
So with regard to the above statement it reallydo depend.
Lower amp dc applications they seem to do fine but mans current on ac they will fail as mine is starting to sound like it's feeling a bit sorry for itself. Ck and weldcraft lenses don't suffer at all on this set up at those currents some of mine are years old.

 

[Liquid Metal]

Ah yes didnt consider that as it goes, but ive never been in the habit of using lenses when welding ally, have always found a standard collet and ceramic to be fine so cant comment on how they stand up to an AC current.

I use them on steel and stainless usually at currents around 80-150 amps for general fabrication and pipework, and welding stainless sheet at around 30-40amps.

 

[Richard.]

One thing is definitely for sure and that is the seller that provides these lens kits does sell usable good stuff and does get it out pretty rapid.
I expected cheap rubbish and it's far from it.
Your right liquid you don't need a lens for Alu at all. I just use them because I can drop flow rates slightly but they don't bring that many advantages to Alu.