Portamig 215 First Impressions

[Wallace]

I bought a TecArc 206i Tig and 46i Plasma cutter from Weldequip over 3 years ago and have been mulling over a Portamig ever since as I have been very impressed with both machines but unable to justify the outlay replacing my old Mig that still works well. A couple of jobs this year had left me feeling that the wirefeed was in need of repair or replacement so I looked into fitting the same wirefeed unit and Euro torch as fitted to the Portamig and a longer earth lead with a Dinze connector. Then came the dilema, do I invest nigh on £200 into my trusty 23 year old machine or pass it on and buy a Portamig? I found a buyer and ordered a Portamig 215!

In the meantime whilst the order was going through I stripped and serviced the wirefeed unit finding the grease had turned to glue and the machine was back to it's old consistent self so had I wasted my money? Only time can tell but at least I'm not passing on a faulty machine to a mate.

After a 3 week wait from ordering, the machine and accessories arrived within an hour or so of each other from two different couriers last Friday. I took my time (90 mins) assembling everything and laid a few welds on some scrap 3mm plate using Argoshield light and 0.8mm steel wire, everything worked as it should without any fuss feeling very smooth and consistent. Upping the voltage to No12 soon had the 3mm plate glowing and molten, it's quite fierce!

Swaping the wire to 0.6mm was a doddle as the wire feed unit has a quick release roller tensioner that stays set and the sprung loaded top roller arm flips neatly out of the way for access. The feed roller is held on with a thumb screw too so no tools are needed to change the wire size. These are two really nice features as my old Einhell SGA 175 Turbo has a wirefeed unit like the Sealey/Telwin machines that needs a thumbscrew removing to release the top roller and a screwdriver to change the wire size. Once changed you then have to reset the roller tension.

With 0.8mm sheet and the voltage setting down to No1 the beads were again nice and consistent and dropping the wire feed down gave the daintiest little bead you can do a signature on your work with! I decided a direct comparison would be in order with my old machine on the lowest setting laying a few beads next to eachother so with a Y piece on the bottle I set the machines up side by side and ran some beads on 0.8mm sheet.

The Einhell works well and always has from day one, it's like a comfy old pair of shoes, I just pick the torch up and go hence I got a bit carried away playing with it before letting it go. In comparison to the Portamig on 0.8mm sheet you need to work faster with the Einhell, no two ways about it, hang around you blow through the sheet. The Portamig is definitely more controllable on 0.8mm sheet due to the lower voltage and gave me confidence in the machine straight away so it looks like I made the right decision to trade up.


Nice quick release, quick change features on the wirefeed


Added PVC edge trim to protect the paint from the gas bottle and temporary carpet until I can get rubber sheet!


2mm sheet with a mix of beads from both machines


0.8mm sheet with beads mainly from the old Einhell


0.8mm sheet, straight beads on the left from the Portamig and messing about with the spotweld timer on the Einhell.

 

[brewdexta]

I like the edge trim Wallace I copied the idea by using some beer line, 3/16" pipe slit down the outide curve as it comes off the roll.

Nice beads . What gas rate did you use?

Cheers
Andy

 

[Wallace]

Thanks Andy. I don't have a flowmeter on the Mig and I only ever give a cursory glance at the gauges, I turn the regulator up until I can just hear gas flowing from the nozzle and run a few test welds then adjust accordingly. You soon know when the gas is too low as the welds are poor and if working outside the wind has the same effect so I tweak it up a bit. I know it's not very scientific but I will pinch the flowmeter off my Tig later and set the torch by ear to see what the flowrate really is then let you know.

Mike

 

[malcolm]

The peashooter flow meters are handy. I use one for the MIG and TIG and it saved me a load of gas on the TIG (industrial style reg going up to a good hundred l/min for some reason so difficult to set).

 

[arthur]

Been welding for years and I thought Id get a peashooter gauge after all the chat about them, it's interesting to see what the score is and after all not hard to see when your running too little amount of gas but I am actually using the peashooter! A least you can check your flow meters..

 

[Wallace]

I swapped my Tig flowmeter to the Mig and set the flow by ear as I would normally, it reads 10lpm. 6lpm is not audible over the machine fan and 8lpm I can just hear. I think the tip about setting the flow by ear may have come from a welder back in the 80's who was a friend of my Father and I have set it that way ever since. My gas usage has not been excessive over the years up until I bought the Tig, that's a V8 in comparison to the Mig!

 

[brewdexta]

Thanks Mike, very useful to a newbie like me
Top tip, when listening for the gas coming out of the torch unclip the wire feed tension roller or you could get your earwax forcibly removed
I've just got some more scrap sheet to practice on - when I get chance, had to fix my compressor this evening, just a buzzing noise when I turned it on, I think I've found the problem

New starter capacitor on order

Cheers
Andy

 

[Wallace]

I've always pointed the torch up while listening to it! I replaced the capacitor on my compressor recently as it's 13 years old, not much wrong with the old one but it's 4 seconds faster to pressure now!

 

[brewdexta]

Been welding for years and I thought Id get a peashooter gauge after all the chat about them, it's interesting to see what the score is and after all not hard to see when your running too little amount of gas but I am actually using the peashooter! A least you can check your flow meters..

Hi Arthur. I guess this is the type you mean http://www.weldmet.co.uk/shop/productinfo/1063/hwindex.htm?lc=en&cc=global

I'm guessing I need one if even if I have a flowmeter on the regulator as below, everything is turned off so no flow even though its showing 12 lpm. So this is a pressure gauge not a flow meter, well confusing!

Just bought one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150958161897?var=450144588172

Cheers
Andy

 

[zx9]

The gauge does indeed measure pressure, pressure of the gas available to flow through a given orifice in the gauge. Excluding temperature the only variable is pressure allowing the pressure gauge to be graduated as a flow meter.
However a 'pea shooter' will give a better idea of flow at the shroud, as you are measuring flow after all restrictions and losses due to gas valve or hose.

 

[arthur]

Yes from me and what he said..

 

[brewdexta]

Thanks guys
Got it!
Cheers
Andy

 

[Wallace]

I just had another look at my flowmeter setup as something was bugging me that didn't seem right with the flow at the shroud. The flowmeter is quite an old unit with a spinning top as opposed to a ball and is calibrated in cfh and lpm, when I read the settings last night I was looking at the cfh scale! Here are a couple of slightly out of focus photos showing the flow readings in comparison to the pressure gauge, all readings are done with the flowmeter resrictor open and the flow set by the regulator:


Set by ear this is 10cfh that I read as 10lpm so is around 4.5lpm


At 10lpm on the flowmeter the regulator gauge reads about 3lpm. (Excuse the parallax error on the photo!)


Regulator pressure gauge set to 5lpm and the flowmeter reads around 12lpm

I used to have access to calibrated flowmeters and pressure gauges so I could have checked the accuracy of my flowmeter and the regulator gauge then calibrated them. I know my old flowmeter has no leaks as I checked it recently, no guarantee of accuracy as it has not been tested but we are talking home use here!

Mike

 

[zx9]

Mike, do you not read from the point at the bottom? If you were to take readings from the top it looks like it would never read less than 1 LPM.

 

[Wallace]

Mike, do you not read from the point at the bottom? If you were to take readings from the top it looks like it would never read less than 1 LPM.

The bobbin will drop below the 1lpm mark when shut off and can be adjusted up to 1lpm, bobbins are read from the top and a ball is read on it's centreline. I just can't read the correct scale, I've done it again in the post above!

Mike

 

[zx9]

Ok Mike, that might account for some of my gas use , my old gauge on the MIG was a ball, the new one on the TIG is similar to your one above. I don't even remember if it came with instructions, never mind if I read them.

 

[arthur]

I only use my gauges as a guide, the peashooter gives a good reading of real world gas flow, the welds tell the rest of the story, I read flow so I know if I'm wasteing gas as most know what figure is good to go as it were..and they make for a quick setup to start welding rather than using your nose to guess flow rates at the shroud.. well that's just me... Inside its surprising how little shielding gas is needed to maintain good clean welds, outside in the wind on mig well that's another matter!

 

[Wallace]

I did my first job with the new machine yesterday, nothing exciting just a run of the mill patch on a KA sill for an Mot tester who has just started up on his own. I hate doing patches, I would rather rip it all out and do it properly but as is the norm, the customer said she wanted the bare minimum for an Mot. The lower settings made the job a lot easier than using my old machine and I deliberately tried to make it look better than the patch at the other end of the sill from the previous year, it wasn't difficult to make it neat with the Portamig! His comment when he collected the car was that he had never seen such neat repair welding and would I be able to do more? I'm sure I will be seeing this car next year to join up the gap in between the patches!

 

[Wallace]

A little update now I've had the Portamig 215 a while.

All is well and I am slowly getting used to the machine settings as after 24 years with the previous mig I could select the voltage and a very close wire setting to suit the job. I really like the ease at which the wire can be swapped between 0.6 & 0.8mm without tools as this was quite a chore with my old machine. Some of the thicker materials I have welded so far have been nice to do due to the extra power over my old mig and the low setting on thin sheet is still a novelty that will not wear off for a while.

Two little niggles I have are the axle for the rear wheels and the side cover. I shortened the axle and re-drilled the split pin holes as the tube was a little too long and stuck out more than necessary past the wheels. As my workshop is quite well packed I have caught the split pins a few times so I might skim the wheel hubs down to get the split pins within the tyre sidewall to reduce the overall width. The side cover I can see me damaging as I keep missing the two top hooks when refitting and it wants to fall off! I also miss the space on top of my old mig with its rubber mat as my Plasma cutter sat nicely on there.

Both the axle and side cover are niggles I can learn to live with and certainly would not put me off buying another, with hindsight I am wishing I had ordered a 235 with spot weld timer....

 

[marlinspike]

These Portamigs sound really impressive and look to produce a top class weld. I have been reading the forum as we have bought an old Saab 900 which may require a bit of welding. We have an old gasless mig that we welded our Escort up with 15 years ago, but would be looking to buy something better. We did a gas welding course at nightschool years ago which was great fun and hopefully I would pick it up quickly again.

I was looking to spend c£250, but keep coming back to these threads on the Portamig....

I have been looking for a second hand one but I guess people hang on to them because they are so good they don't need to upgrade.