Nice manuals with proper pictures? that's a laugh. Maybe with some welders, not really with the lorch.
There is also the high costs for any approvals, acceptance to standards testing too. As @Richard. said earlier, a quality machine used to its potential will pay for its self over and over again. And that does look a well made piece of electronic jiggery pokery.
Whowa!!! Am I missing a trick here. Where can you buy a new car or motorbike for 3-4K. You cannot compare new to used here because one is making a profit another is trying to recover some of the new cost back.
I don’t know what lorch supply but it’s what we do, in probably a dozen or so languages as opposed to a badly translated pamphlet. It was just an illustration of the sort of stuff that costs money to do that you can’t necessarily see directly in the product.
Cant find prices in the UK but look at this https://www.grainger.com/product/MILLER-ELECTRIC-TIG-Welder-5GWG0 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Suzuki-GSX-R/253168979487?hash=item3af20c0e1f:g:CrMAAOSwy6VZxUFr&vxp=mtr And that is far from a budget motorbike either!
All the R&D costs have to be spread across however many items you produce, now some cars sell into the millions, I very much doubt it's the same for TIG welders, besides R&D ain't cheap, just the software on the kit I fit is tested to run for at least 100hours without a single error/crash before it's ever considered for release.
Also don’t forget that not even close to 100% of price the end customer pays goes to the manufacturer! most welding machines in the UK are primarily sold via distribution and resellers.
I like my handy tig. I’ve used a lot of welders, dynasty, aero wave, Kempii mls, Esab heliarc, caddy, rtech The handy tig is up there with the millers in my opinion. The connectors are fairly heavy duty, cheap copy male connectors are sloppy in them but the lorch parts are snug. The 14 pin connector could be used for automation or a cooler
Nice to find another aerowave user, we had one at the sheet metal shop where I worked 2004-2005, I really liked it but the service guys from our local supplier didn’t. I liked the independent amperage control on each side of the wave.
I can’t remember how much gm spent developing my car (I drive a European version of the Chevrolet Volt) but it was an enormous amount of money. I can see how the development costs can escalate. I don’t think they ever made any money selling the 125 thousand odd cars they sold of the 1st generation. I imagine it would be hard for Lorch to sell close to that number of welders, but they will still have high development costs, approval costs, compliance costs etc etc to factor into the end selling price.
Are you sure Brad ?, the rear 14 pin connector on mine is a TE Connectivity/AMP Connector. There are probably a few compatible type connectors that will fit.
Everyone has to draw a salary st the end of the day. It takes a lot of cogs to get a product from Germany to here and then into a customers hands.
Not being funny if you bought a van for work it would cost you £17000 for a cheap Vauxhall Vivaro or £30000 for a nice VW Transporter. Welders are the same. Vans earn you money, my welder has earnt itself many times over.
It’s a good machine the ht200. I used it and found it nice especially for the cash you can’t go wrong. I prefer the 220T or tweco version of the 220 as the setting changes are not hidden in back menus like the ht. that’s the only bit I don’t like about it really. It would of been better if it was laid out on the front panel like the 220. Saying that there is a world of difference in price and for a meer £1800 you won’t get a better unit.
Plus the welder in the link is a proper 400a industrial jobby - likely to be used in a fab shop knocking out jobs like no tomorrow, not exactly something your going to get for a bit of tinkering at home. So a fairer comparison would perhaps be something like a Ducati paginale or similar. ( I know they’re not comparable in any way but you get the kind of idea , both are top of the range kit...)
