Paton Pulse Mig

[J.F]

Has any bought one of these machines or one of the other 2 models the 160 or 200?

They appear to be the cheapest mig welders with a pulse mig function that's not from an auction site with no warranty.

These are shown as having a 5 year warranty, normally any pulse mig is three times the price.

Paton StandardMIG 250 Pulse MIG Welder - 230V

Key Features 10MM maximum weld thickness on mild steel Perfect on thin material <1MM Pulse MIG, TIG & MMA 5KG maximum wire reel capacity Made in Europe Very easy to use 5 year warranty

www.weldingsuppliesdirect.co.uk

 

[Lewis_RX8]

Yes , I have one and get on very well with it

There is a few other owners and threads on here have a look in this search

Search results for query: Paton

 

[h-dom]

@Lewis_RX8

I'm looking at this too, did you have a different welder before and can you tell a noticeable difference?

How thick steel have you welded with it?

And I read pulse migs are better with spatter how have you found that?

Sorry for all the questions!

 

[hotponyshoes]

@Lewis_RX8

I'm looking at this too, did you have a different welder before and can you tell a noticeable difference?

How thick steel have you welded with it?

And I read pulse migs are better with spatter how have you found that?

Sorry for all the questions!

I've not owned/used a paton but do have some other pulse migs.
The pulse function is a noticeable upgrade when welding thin metal, the synergic lines on the welders I have seem to be spot on.
You just tell it what wire & gas you are using and then simply dial in the thickness of the metal and off you go.
I have done 0.9mm aluminium with no problem. Could possibly do thinner but that's the thinnest stock I had to try!
If you wanted to weld 3mm to 2mm then just set the machine at 2.5mm and off you go..
Regarding maximum thickness, I think about 4mm is the limit of the synergic pulse programs on my machine.
You can turn the pulse off and go up to maybe 6mm?
Maybe more if you swapped to a thicker wire and had enough top end power on the machine.

On something like 3mm stainless there is less splatter with the pulse than regular mig however that's me comparing a modern european pulse mig to an older sip transformer mig. I would expect you could set up any decent mig to weld nicely with the minimum of splatter if you put a bit of effort in. Ie. I'm sure the pulse function reduces splatter to an extent but the well programmed settings of the synergic lines probably help as well.
Aluminium, yes definitely less splatter but then welding <4mm alloy with a traditional mig is always messy.
Some of the lads in the workshop have been using mig brazing in the pulse machine and that's been very tidy but I've never tried it in a traditional mig for comparison.
Not tried mild steel on pulse yet but I do need to replace some sills on my van so I might give it a go soon although I was thinking of brazing them as I already have the wire...

 

[h-dom]

Thanks mate, very helpful.

To be honest most of what I'm welding is top end thickness of what these are quoting. The 250a quotes 10mm max thickness, that is fine with a good V I am welding 16mm square bar to 8mm flat just fine with my old Clarke 151 (only gates etc nothing structural) but I just feel I need something with a bit more power for certain tasks. Just mild at the moment, I don't envisage I'll be welding alloy anytime soon but maybe stainless sheet so that sounds good too.

The spatter thing bothers me because sometimes on a railing or gate it is very tight to get anything in there to clean up after and it would be good to save a bit of time on the cleanup.

I was looking at a big Oxford mig maker and I don't think I'd go far wrong with it but for a similar price the Paton with pulse is available.

 

[Richiew]

If you can find any working parameters for pulse MIG on the Paton please let me know. The manual shows how to set and adjust the pulse settings but I couldn't find any actual parameters that produce a decent weld with mild steel. It's not synergic.

I spent an evening or two googling academic papers to get some insight but I got nowhere. Vaguely remember one paper saying 100hz for 1mm wire due to the frequency of droplet formation or something. I didn't pursue it very far but there's nothing out there demonstrating pulse mig in action for the Paton as far as I know.

 

[hotponyshoes]

For what I have been doing the only benefit to having pulse is for thinner metal.
For your sort of stuff I would think you could get a beefier welder for the same sort of money as a smaller pulse machine.
Maybe something with a 4-roll feeder then you can run a 6m torch which makes things easier when working with big stuff like gates

For splatter on railings maybe make up some folded bits of copper sheet to drop into the gap between the railings before welding to stop the splatter sticking.

 

[h-dom]

For splatter on railings maybe make up some folded bits of copper sheet to drop into the gap between the railings before welding to stop the splatter sticking.

Why haven't I thought of that?!

Brilliant advice, thanks, migmaker it is then just to see which one I can run off my power supply.

 

[Lewis_RX8]

@Lewis_RX8

I'm looking at this too, did you have a different welder before and can you tell a noticeable difference?

How thick steel have you welded with it?

And I read pulse migs are better with spatter how have you found that?

Sorry for all the questions!

I assume you are now satisfied with the mig maker ?

If not I can let you know lol