Tig into an arc

[fuff66uk]

A mate of mine claims that he knew someone that converted his old sip arc welder into a tig by just hooking up a tig lead and supplying the gas seperately,is he full of ****e,surely that would'nt work,if it did everybody would do that instead of buying a tig,right?

 

[Wozzaaah]

Nope, I'm afraid he's not :full, a lot of MMA machines can be converted to scratch start tig just by hooking up a valved tig torch
It really is basic controls though, amperage only but that's what a lot of small tigs have anyway, no fancy controls like slope, pre/post gas etc.

 

[Drains]

It's ****e if it's an old AC arc welder. Without the HF to keep the arc going over the cycle, it won't work. If its a DC welder (eg an inverter) then it's a doddle, and true.

 

[fuff66uk]

It's an old wizarc the same as mine that's why i was curious,the thing that made me think he was bulling me is that as you pointed out to me in a previous post wozzaaah the wizarc the same as mine is only 100a with just high and low settings,50A or 100A

 

[Wozzaaah]

Although it will work fine it's not really worth doing on your wizarc, you're so limited with only the two settings.

 

[fuff66uk]

Yes that's what i thought,looks like i might have to look for a better buzz box then

 

[weldequip]

The transfomer based MMA sets (Wizarc etc.) are AC...you need DC for TIG. You can set up any DC machine, Inverters etc., to run basic TIG but not the cheap AC machines.
weldequip

 

[fuff66uk]

Thanks for that weldequip,back to the drawing board then lol

 

[Wozzaaah]

The transfomer based MMA sets (Wizarc etc.) are AC...you need DC for TIG. You can set up any DC machine, Inverters etc., to run basic TIG but not the cheap AC machines.
weldequip

So your mate was sort of half-right Fuff, although he probably made it strike an arc he probvably wouldn't have gotten good reaults with it.
I didn't realise buzz boxes were all AC so I was only half right too .

 

[weldequip]

You can get "buzz-boxes" that provide TIG from AC machines Wozz, but no use on el cheapo machines...you need something like an oil cooled Oxford ideally.
weldequip