TIG HF coupling transformer

Links would help. I'm not sure what torch would be best for light to medium aluminum welding. I haven't done that in decades. I did alright on a welder that sounded like static. I was surprised years later when I heard a TIG welder going Hummmmm instead of TCHCCCTCTCTCH.

ClydeCrashKop said:

Links would help. I'm not sure what torch would be best for light to medium aluminum welding. I haven't done that in decades. I did alright on a welder that sounded like static. I was surprised years later when I heard a TIG welder going Hummmmm instead of TCHCCCTCTCTCH.

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That would be the difference between a solid state inverter based power supply TIG unit and an old fashioned low frequency iron for transformer bad TIG unit.

I used to run both fairly often (20+ years ago) and could lay 'a row of dimes' bead with each one that was indistinguishable from one another. Now my TIG work looks like chicken poop on a hot summer day.

I still rock on MIG, stick and aluminum spool gun welding though. TIG just looks like first day high school shop class work due to lack of practice.

The have a technique now, weaving or walking the cup. I would like to try that.
These are from the Weldporn Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Weldporn/

A clean style of overlapping infinity or figure 8 welding, the next inline weld would be fed under the previous weld before it cools. This would require an high setting of argon flow if argon types would be used.

ClydeCrashKop said:

The have a technique now, weaving or walking the cup. I would like to try that.

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I Used to TIG stuff like that! Never really had a name for it but people thought 'it's sure purdy!'

Now when I try it looks like someone squeezed the poop out of a burning chicken over it.

Some skills sure change in 20+ years.

dr pepper said:

Great to see you sorted it.
If your going to use this a fair bit a pre made kit that has all the bugs sorted out is a good way to do it, it'd have most likely cost you more with all the bad prototypes.
You can get really cheap tigs with hf locally, 200 amp for 125 quid, but they need a bit of sorting out before use, and they wont be anything like as robust as an old arc transformer set.

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Dr Pepper,
I looked at those and I almost bought one. I think they are invertor TIG s, and all of the ones I found had 2 major flaws:
Scratch start and
DC weld only
Therefore they cant weld aluminum. I did find some other off brand TIG s that offered AC welding but they were bare bones without features and had very low duty cycles, I think I found one of these for around 850$. But if I wanted one that had a reasonable duty cycle and HF start from a decent name I was over 3000$, which is well into the ridiculous range........ Hell, thats a small car.
I think that because this is perceived as an industrial item, the manufacturers or retailers think they can get silly with the pricing. I really hope that with the proliferation of information from the internet and the ease of buying specialized kits like the one I bought on ebay that more people will build these and drive the price down

I have one, your right its dc only, but it does have hf start, supposedly you can weld ally with these, but I've only used mine in steel, you need to tighten all the connections internally, they are not built that well.
I also have a 200 amp mig, thats still working 4 years on, the tig and mig are inverter.
There is a ac version, its about 200 quid and has a load of controls, I wouldnt mind pulse and clean cycles.
There is a saying though you gets waht you pays for, yours is gonna take grinding dust & abuse for a long time, I worry every time I put te grinder near mine, the 320v bus is gonna go bang one of these days.

dr pepper said:

There is a saying though you gets waht you pays for, yours is gonna take grinding dust & abuse for a long time, I worry every time I put te grinder near mine, the 320v bus is gonna go bang one of these days.

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There is a simple but very effective solution to the dust and grit issues most every major welder and plasma cutter manufacturer uses. They simply coat everything in a heavy layer of clear coat sealant. I've seen countless control boards and HV DC rail supplied components buried in metallic dust and grip plus whatever else could be spilled into a machine happily running along just fine due to having a solid non conductive conformal barrier between them.

In fact I generally try to keep a few cans of clear coat spray paint on hand just for sealing stuff that has to work in potentially harsh dirty and wet environments. In fact most anything I get that has some control board or whatnot in it that will likely spend more of its life outside or in my dirty shop than anywhere else gets pulled apart and everything sealed to make sure it has half a chance of lasting.