n00b, Clarke pro 90?

[jotto]

Hi all,

Have been lurking for a little while and will soon be buying a welder. To begin with all I really need is something capable of welding car sheet metal work. I realise I need to be able to set the current down low and have seen many good reports on the Clarke Pro 90. What do you guys think?

In the future I will probably upgrade when funds permit ( lol ) but at the moment am looking for a 2nd hand unit.

I will be working on this, www.pamsghia.co.uk

So, for simple car body work, is this a good choice?
TIA
jotto.

 

[Splatfest]

In a word- yes. More expensive welders will be nicer to use but the Clarke will do OK,especially if you fit a panel fan to increase the duty cycle.

 

[jotto]

In a word- yes. More expensive welders will be nicer to use but the Clarke will do OK,especially if you fit a panel fan to increase the duty cycle.

Thanks for that. Is a panel fan easy to come by? Is it something my local supplier would sell? We have a steel merchants and BOC near by.

 

[madkayaker]

Easy to get of the web from maplin and the like. A lot of PC suppliers will have them make sure it a 230V AC before connecting it to the mains!

 

[jotto]

Cool, I have a few 240v fans from an old rack server hanging about..will that do?

Basically is it just adding a fan to aid cooling so prolong the working ( duty ) time? If so even a n00b like me could manage that!

 

[madkayaker]

Yep they will do

 

[madkayaker]

Forgot to add the bigger the CFM the better

 

[jotto]

Ty!

 

[weldequip]

You won't need to fit a fan on a Pro90 Jotto if it's just light duty bodywork
If you're going second hand why not look for one of the larger models...135TE,151TE etc.; fan already fitted + no need to upgrade much in the future. Also consider if you have any amount of work to do you will be better running the machine from a refillable gas cylinder...more expense, but much more economical than the disposable gas canisters in the long run.
weldequip

 

[Nomad]

I bought a Pro90 last year for light car MOT work, it has been fine and I don't think it has cut out yet. Very happy with it.
Went for it as it gets good reviews on here and goes low for thin metal, if I was choosing again I think I'd trade that for a bit more at the top end.

Things to think about - it comes with a regulator for disposable gas bottles which are very expensive for what you get, and the regulator is cheap junk.
Check around, I think some of the bigger welders come with regulators for refillable bottles ( I just bought a full size regulator last week and scrounged a pub-type c02 gas bottle. Now looking forward to day off so I can try it out )

Have done small bits of welding on heavier plate, but no big runs. All worked ok.

Not tried any heavy duty stuff, but I don't think it would have the grunt. I'm happy to pay the local blacksmith if I need anything heavy done.

There are a couple of traders on here with good reputations, suggest you ask them for prices as well as looking in the mainstream shops.

 

[Wedg1e]

I started with a SIP HandyMig/ MigMate 90A running on disposable bottles. Well, ONE disposable bottle actually. A few days later I spotted an ad in the local AdMag for a guy wanting rid of some pub bottles. I got four for a tenner: two empty, one half-full and one full of Argon! Still don't know how he managed that, must have had some iffy contacts. Anyway, I found a fire extinguisher place that would fill them for a fiver a pop and several years later it's still only six quid a fill (side door, lunchtime, no questions, no receipt, know what I mean John).

By bizarre coincidence I had to deliver some stock to a client the day after I got the bottles and on a dusty shelf in their stores was a prehistoric regulator with gauges... so dusty you couldn't read them. I was examining it when the guy came in and said I could have them, they hadn't been used in years! Amazingly it had the right fitting for CO2 bottles and just needed a new rubber washer. Still use it to this day, and that one disposable was the only one I ever used.

Anyway, the point I was about to make before I was distracted by that leggy redhead... the SIP 90A would drop its thermal cutout as soon as look at you. Splattery, stop-start welding (like most of us did at first ) is the worst thing possible for a transformer as it heats the windings up very quickly and the trip cuts in. It used to take absolutely ages to cool down before I could pigeon-s**t again, so I found a couple of buckshee fans and bolted them to the outside of the chassis, sucking through the case vents (there wasn't room to fit the fans inside the case).

No finger-guards, I seem to recall but it worked a treat, you could run for ages on full power (and on a TVR chassis, you need to! ). I flogged it on Ebay to a young lad just starting out, a couple of years ago. It'll be out there somewhere, just look out for a fingerless welder...
Around the time I bought that, SIP's range had two versions of most of the models, the 'standard' and the 'Turbo'. The turbo versions merely had a fan worth about a fiver bolted in, the price went up by £50 or more...

When I got my Oxford MIG, the first thing I did (once I'd got the old heap working of course) was to bolt a fan underneath the transformer... keep meaning to make a plastic duct to constrain the airflow for more efficient cooling but you know how it is: so many women, so little time...