Bought this welder today.
It's a Thermal Arc 150te and it came with a 5m earth cable and full tig setup, including regulator and a Parweld wp17 torch with a cool zip-up protective sleeve over the cables. I paid £150, is that a good price?
Unfortunately there was no mma cable so I had to resort to putting a 2.5 rod in the tig collet to test it. It stick welds beautifully as expected. I did a limited tig test as I had no argon but the HF and torch switch are working.
The spare mma lead I have at home is a dinse 35-50 and this welder uses a 10-25 so I'll need to change the connector.
Had it apart tonight to fix the front connector for the gas. The bulkhead fitting in the frame was loose meaning there was no way to remove the gas hose as the whole fitting was turning. There is a lot of dust inside so it has a date tomorrow with an airline and maybe some electrical cleaner.
Welder will mainly be used for mma but I plan to get a bottle of argon & play with tig welding. I used to do a lot of stainless tig welding when I worked in a food factory, but that was 10 years ago so hopefully I can still remember how to do it! It's by far my favourite form of welding & I'm looking forward to getting back to it.
Finally I come to the request for help regarding consumables for the torch. It is a Parweld wp17 but will any wp17 spares fit it such as those sold by shop river and others on ebay? I looked at weldequip's shop & it confused me more as he has 'standard' and 'gas lens' types listed, what's the difference?
What are the best tungstens to get for mild steel & stainless welding? We used the red tipped ones for everything, are they still the best.
Thanks for your help.
It's a Thermal Arc 150te and it came with a 5m earth cable and full tig setup, including regulator and a Parweld wp17 torch with a cool zip-up protective sleeve over the cables. I paid £150, is that a good price?
Unfortunately there was no mma cable so I had to resort to putting a 2.5 rod in the tig collet to test it. It stick welds beautifully as expected. I did a limited tig test as I had no argon but the HF and torch switch are working.
The spare mma lead I have at home is a dinse 35-50 and this welder uses a 10-25 so I'll need to change the connector.
Had it apart tonight to fix the front connector for the gas. The bulkhead fitting in the frame was loose meaning there was no way to remove the gas hose as the whole fitting was turning. There is a lot of dust inside so it has a date tomorrow with an airline and maybe some electrical cleaner.
Welder will mainly be used for mma but I plan to get a bottle of argon & play with tig welding. I used to do a lot of stainless tig welding when I worked in a food factory, but that was 10 years ago so hopefully I can still remember how to do it! It's by far my favourite form of welding & I'm looking forward to getting back to it.
Finally I come to the request for help regarding consumables for the torch. It is a Parweld wp17 but will any wp17 spares fit it such as those sold by shop river and others on ebay? I looked at weldequip's shop & it confused me more as he has 'standard' and 'gas lens' types listed, what's the difference?
What are the best tungstens to get for mild steel & stainless welding? We used the red tipped ones for everything, are they still the best.
Thanks for your help.