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Hood
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Your choices are wider in that case.
The options are more or less as before although there are a few Chinese pulse Migs available now, how good or bad they are regards longevity I have no idea although Warrior give you 5 years on theirs, you pay a hefty price for that however.
An EWM Pico may work for you seeing as you will just be doing 3mm and although you say you may use it some days for most of the day I suspect it will not really be continuous seeing as it seems to be sections rather than sheet.
Other options are something like @HughF has, a Paton then of course there is the Oxford from TecArc. I have tried out the Cebora Pocket Pulse, it was very nice but let down with the 2 roll wire feed which meant a 3m torch was the limit and even then care was required.
I am not sure about the Paton but most of the lower end pulse migs are fairly basic and do not have things like Hot Start and Crater Fill, these are two things that are of immense benefit for Aluminium welding. To get these features you really need to start looking at the likes of the EWM Phoenix or the various Lorch Pulse Migs but they are in a different price bracket and rightly so.
The options are more or less as before although there are a few Chinese pulse Migs available now, how good or bad they are regards longevity I have no idea although Warrior give you 5 years on theirs, you pay a hefty price for that however.
An EWM Pico may work for you seeing as you will just be doing 3mm and although you say you may use it some days for most of the day I suspect it will not really be continuous seeing as it seems to be sections rather than sheet.
Other options are something like @HughF has, a Paton then of course there is the Oxford from TecArc. I have tried out the Cebora Pocket Pulse, it was very nice but let down with the 2 roll wire feed which meant a 3m torch was the limit and even then care was required.
I am not sure about the Paton but most of the lower end pulse migs are fairly basic and do not have things like Hot Start and Crater Fill, these are two things that are of immense benefit for Aluminium welding. To get these features you really need to start looking at the likes of the EWM Phoenix or the various Lorch Pulse Migs but they are in a different price bracket and rightly so.
Hood
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I have only tried the Pocket Pulse or the EWM Phoenix pulse Migs, well there was another but....
Anyway all of them were much much superior to the standard Mig with a spool gun especially when doing positional welds.
The pocket pulse, as I said, was limited to a short torch due to the 2 roller wire feed and if not careful you would still get birds nests. Sadly it wasn't capable of using a push pull gun and I think that is really the case for all of the lower end ones.
Anyway all of them were much much superior to the standard Mig with a spool gun especially when doing positional welds.
The pocket pulse, as I said, was limited to a short torch due to the 2 roller wire feed and if not careful you would still get birds nests. Sadly it wasn't capable of using a push pull gun and I think that is really the case for all of the lower end ones.
Hood
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That is the way I went and I have often thought about selling the 330 but I just can't bring myself to do it
Hood
I am obsessed.
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BTW @smashweld you are more than welcome to take a trip North and give the Phoenix 330 and 355 a try out to see what you are missing
henry Kadzielski
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Cheers Hood... I'll keep that in mind...the EWM prices scare me tho
£2k-ish is a bit shy for the (used) higher end machines?
EWM, that's not scary, you should try Fronius
. I should know I have two now, though the second one was aquired second hand from some one that was closing up. Still secondhand it was the cost of some new machinery
HughF
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The Paton does not have hot start/crater fill. I'm trying to convince the factory to add a 4t mode to the psi-250p so it would do these two things.
Another thing worth looking at are the pulse machines from various Italian manufacturers. INE, Selco, Helvi, Fimer, the cebora 2205dp or whatever it is called now.
All the Italian manufacturers make something with pulse.
Another thing worth looking at are the pulse machines from various Italian manufacturers. INE, Selco, Helvi, Fimer, the cebora 2205dp or whatever it is called now.
All the Italian manufacturers make something with pulse.
Hood
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I have done 1mm with pulse Mig as a test and it was reasonable for a first (and only so far) test.
https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/mig-like-tig-or-almost-anyway.74184/
Standard Mig for Alu should ideally be spray transfer so 3mm is really a min for it and 4mm is the min I would be happy doing in standard Mig. That is sheet however, doing tube sections was different as you are doing short runs with that and thus heat input isn't the same.
https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/mig-like-tig-or-almost-anyway.74184/
Standard Mig for Alu should ideally be spray transfer so 3mm is really a min for it and 4mm is the min I would be happy doing in standard Mig. That is sheet however, doing tube sections was different as you are doing short runs with that and thus heat input isn't the same.
About £3-4K for a used machine going wi the posts in that thread
But yeah when I had the SGS250 spool gun on our old 250 kemppi It was borderline too fast/hot but doable On 3.2 alu box.....couldn’t really see what was going on when welding tho, had to listen to the sound!
But yeah when I had the SGS250 spool gun on our old 250 kemppi It was borderline too fast/hot but doable On 3.2 alu box.....couldn’t really see what was going on when welding tho, had to listen to the sound!
Hood
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Depends, as said mine was not as much, probably the £3k with the push-pull and VAT but it was however a 10yr old machine even though it had only had 22hrs arc time.
Give Jim a PM and see what he has to offer.
Hood
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I opted for the push-pull because the EWM does not support a spool gun, in fact I don't think any of the pulse migs really support a spool gun.
A lot of pulse migs don't even support push-pull, certainly most of the lower end ones don't. I was at one time contemplating a Jasic 350P, it seemed to tick a lot of boxes but I had noticed there was no socket for a gun and it turned out that it was not capable of using one so that got knocked on the head as a push-pull is a must for the stuff I do.
In fact there is actually a Jasic 350P on eBay at the moment, they look to be decent enough machines from the videos I have seen but.....
A lot of pulse migs don't even support push-pull, certainly most of the lower end ones don't. I was at one time contemplating a Jasic 350P, it seemed to tick a lot of boxes but I had noticed there was no socket for a gun and it turned out that it was not capable of using one so that got knocked on the head as a push-pull is a must for the stuff I do.
In fact there is actually a Jasic 350P on eBay at the moment, they look to be decent enough machines from the videos I have seen but.....
Hood
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Oh and standard length is 8m for a push-pull.
For me even the 8m was a bit limiting so that is why I now also have the Phoenix 355 that I bought new. It has a separate wire feed unit and I got a 10m interconnect so now I can drive up to a boat, leave the base unit in the car and take the wire feed to the edge of the pier or onto the boat and then I have the 8m push-pull reach from there.
Also the big spools is a definite plus point, they are cheaper and obviously I am not having to swap out reels every half hour.
For me even the 8m was a bit limiting so that is why I now also have the Phoenix 355 that I bought new. It has a separate wire feed unit and I got a 10m interconnect so now I can drive up to a boat, leave the base unit in the car and take the wire feed to the edge of the pier or onto the boat and then I have the 8m push-pull reach from there.
Also the big spools is a definite plus point, they are cheaper and obviously I am not having to swap out reels every half hour.
