I hope you may find this of interest. There's a lot of cheap Chinese welding gear sold on Ebay and people often worry about the reliability or suitability of the goods. I thought I would share my experience.
I recently decided to treat myself for my birthday. I took the plunge and bought a Rotenbach DC pulse TIG welder off Ebay. The very low price for the features provided made it rather attractive. I decided to take a gamble on it, bearing in mind it was to be shipped from abroad and was inverter based.
I have bought a plasma cutter from abroad before from a different seller and I have had no problems with it. Frankly, I have more confidence when buying from box shifters on the continent than I have in buying from some British based box shifters selling on Ebay. At least they don't have terms such as "All sales treated as trade sales". Whatever is that supposed to mean? The vendor has a 30 day returns policy and I thought that if it turns up not working I can get my money back through Paypal without issue. If it does work but not to my liking I can always return it.
The welder arrived all the way from Germany very promptly and was well boxed up. The welder is of course of Chinese origin and not German. I'm not that naive. I've had a couple of goes with it and today I have managed a few acceptable practice welds. I'm fairly pleased with it. The digital display shows the current but all the controls are analogue so everything has a little bit of guesswork as to the actual parameter that the welder is putting out. The pulse seems to work fine and I have found this very useful when used at high frequency to concentrate the arc. This feature really does seem to help this novice.
The welder has DC pulse up to 200Hz, high and low current settings, pre gas, post gas, pulse width and a current downslope. The welder cost £219.90 delivered which seemed very good value. They have since increased the price by 20 quid. There is a digital display for the current. When the welder is set on pulse mode it appears to show the high and low setting with alternating figures being displayed. This is a bit of a curious feature as if you turn the low current to 20% of the high current it doesn't actually show this. If the peak is set at 200 or 210. The low current will show around 70 when it should be showing 40. The controls are all analogue and so I'm not 100% sure if the display is correct or if the dial is correct. I watched the digital display while the set is arcing and it does display lower figures. The welder just leaves a little doubt in my mind as it is obviously built down to a price so perhaps some corners have been cut and perhaps I'm not getting all the adjustability that the controls suggest.
I have put a gas lens kit on the torch to help with gas coverage. I have welded some outside corner joints to practice on. I have no skill as a Tig welder at all so I was quite pleased with how they turned out. I am sure there is plenty wrong with them, as well as my photography, but I feel like I have made a little progress. I should have cleaned the steel but the edges were freshly cut and very shiny.
The steel is 3mm thick, 1.6mm filler rod, 1.6mm lanthanated tungsten. I had the welder set at about 120/125 peak amps and the base current at around 30%, I dont recall the pulse width.
I think the outside corner joint is the easiest joint to TIG weld. Even if I fail to feed the wire, the edges fuse fairly nicely on their own. I haven't got the hang of lap joints or fillets yet.
Opinion.
I am fairly happy with my purchase. The welder will live in my house as I don't want to leave the delicate electronics in a cold damp garage. The welder could break by Boxing Day of course, I will have to see how reliability goes but I intend to look after it. The TIG torch leads are nice and long at around 10 feet. I don't like the big cumbersome torch handle though. I think I will look to change it if this is possible.
The English manual is absolutely rubbish as I expected. There is a German manual provided with it too and this was much more comprehensive, fine if you can read German. The welder is supposed to be compatible with a foot pedal which the vendor does not appear to sell. There is another German vendor selling a very similar welder painted blue and they sell foot pedals separately however there is no guarantee that they would work with my welder. They retail for £35. I am not sure I want one enough to buy one on the off chance even though I understand the price is very cheap.
So it's the usual story with cheap buys, there is a lot of guess work and self discovery going on. I haven't contacted the vendor about a foot pedal and I don't expect much assistance from them if I do contact them.
The welder is very cheap for the money as there's no support to pay for. It's fine for someone like me who wants to play around in the shed, not very suitable for anyone making a living from welding. It's nice to play around with the different welding parameters and the pulse frequency has greater range than I'd get with an R-Tech. There are a lot of knobs and buttons for the money to play about with (which is what I wanted) and it hasn't cost the earth. One thing it has taught me though is if I get the money for a serious TIG welder I will be getting one that has full digital control of welding parameters so that they can be dialed in accurately and recorded for repeatability. This would, of course, cost me around a minimum of six times as much for an ac/dc machine.
There is a plastic cover for the brass torch connection to the machine. It is missing on the photo but please don't blame the seller or manufacturer for that. I know it is potentially dangerous run the machine without it. A bit of an oversight by me.
Big, lumpy WP26 torch and handle, not a great feature.
I recently decided to treat myself for my birthday. I took the plunge and bought a Rotenbach DC pulse TIG welder off Ebay. The very low price for the features provided made it rather attractive. I decided to take a gamble on it, bearing in mind it was to be shipped from abroad and was inverter based.
I have bought a plasma cutter from abroad before from a different seller and I have had no problems with it. Frankly, I have more confidence when buying from box shifters on the continent than I have in buying from some British based box shifters selling on Ebay. At least they don't have terms such as "All sales treated as trade sales". Whatever is that supposed to mean? The vendor has a 30 day returns policy and I thought that if it turns up not working I can get my money back through Paypal without issue. If it does work but not to my liking I can always return it.
The welder arrived all the way from Germany very promptly and was well boxed up. The welder is of course of Chinese origin and not German. I'm not that naive. I've had a couple of goes with it and today I have managed a few acceptable practice welds. I'm fairly pleased with it. The digital display shows the current but all the controls are analogue so everything has a little bit of guesswork as to the actual parameter that the welder is putting out. The pulse seems to work fine and I have found this very useful when used at high frequency to concentrate the arc. This feature really does seem to help this novice.
The welder has DC pulse up to 200Hz, high and low current settings, pre gas, post gas, pulse width and a current downslope. The welder cost £219.90 delivered which seemed very good value. They have since increased the price by 20 quid. There is a digital display for the current. When the welder is set on pulse mode it appears to show the high and low setting with alternating figures being displayed. This is a bit of a curious feature as if you turn the low current to 20% of the high current it doesn't actually show this. If the peak is set at 200 or 210. The low current will show around 70 when it should be showing 40. The controls are all analogue and so I'm not 100% sure if the display is correct or if the dial is correct. I watched the digital display while the set is arcing and it does display lower figures. The welder just leaves a little doubt in my mind as it is obviously built down to a price so perhaps some corners have been cut and perhaps I'm not getting all the adjustability that the controls suggest.
I have put a gas lens kit on the torch to help with gas coverage. I have welded some outside corner joints to practice on. I have no skill as a Tig welder at all so I was quite pleased with how they turned out. I am sure there is plenty wrong with them, as well as my photography, but I feel like I have made a little progress. I should have cleaned the steel but the edges were freshly cut and very shiny.
The steel is 3mm thick, 1.6mm filler rod, 1.6mm lanthanated tungsten. I had the welder set at about 120/125 peak amps and the base current at around 30%, I dont recall the pulse width.
I think the outside corner joint is the easiest joint to TIG weld. Even if I fail to feed the wire, the edges fuse fairly nicely on their own. I haven't got the hang of lap joints or fillets yet.
Opinion.
I am fairly happy with my purchase. The welder will live in my house as I don't want to leave the delicate electronics in a cold damp garage. The welder could break by Boxing Day of course, I will have to see how reliability goes but I intend to look after it. The TIG torch leads are nice and long at around 10 feet. I don't like the big cumbersome torch handle though. I think I will look to change it if this is possible.
The English manual is absolutely rubbish as I expected. There is a German manual provided with it too and this was much more comprehensive, fine if you can read German. The welder is supposed to be compatible with a foot pedal which the vendor does not appear to sell. There is another German vendor selling a very similar welder painted blue and they sell foot pedals separately however there is no guarantee that they would work with my welder. They retail for £35. I am not sure I want one enough to buy one on the off chance even though I understand the price is very cheap.
So it's the usual story with cheap buys, there is a lot of guess work and self discovery going on. I haven't contacted the vendor about a foot pedal and I don't expect much assistance from them if I do contact them.
The welder is very cheap for the money as there's no support to pay for. It's fine for someone like me who wants to play around in the shed, not very suitable for anyone making a living from welding. It's nice to play around with the different welding parameters and the pulse frequency has greater range than I'd get with an R-Tech. There are a lot of knobs and buttons for the money to play about with (which is what I wanted) and it hasn't cost the earth. One thing it has taught me though is if I get the money for a serious TIG welder I will be getting one that has full digital control of welding parameters so that they can be dialed in accurately and recorded for repeatability. This would, of course, cost me around a minimum of six times as much for an ac/dc machine.
There is a plastic cover for the brass torch connection to the machine. It is missing on the photo but please don't blame the seller or manufacturer for that. I know it is potentially dangerous run the machine without it. A bit of an oversight by me.
Big, lumpy WP26 torch and handle, not a great feature.
.