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Any real life experience of inverter welders?

My son wants me to buy him one for his birthday, which I will be happy to do if they're not a dud.

Reply to
Mike Halmarack
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Based on my limited experience, certainly not a dud.

Very smooth arc, less spatter, better duty cycle, more controllable. Smaller and lighter as added bonus.

I got a IGBT based R-Tech Mig 180 because I wanted a decent mig setup, but have also been pleasantly surprised just how much better it is when doing stick / MMA compared to my old transformer based Arc welder as well. (not tried doing TiG with it yet)

Having said that, "inverter welders" covers a pretty large range of machines and types.

Reply to
John Rumm

Yes, exactly my experience, I bought one (pretty cheap from eBay) and it makes things *much* easier than using my old basic transformer stick welder. I can now produce reasonably decent looking welds fairly quickly whereas with the old welder I spent more time with the angle grinder afterwards than I did welding!

Reply to
Chris Green

And make a bloody good radio jammer when in use as well. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff (Sofa

There is always a bonus :)

Reply to
alan_m

I have the cheapest of the cheap Lidl ones. Not quite as powerful as they claim (in common with all the cheap Chinese clones) but I can make strong (if ugly) welds with it, which is more than I ever managed with a buzz-box. I also have MIG which I usually use gasless, and can just about do something with that too. IME the inverter is more useful for "constructional" stuff. But *DO* get him a self darkening visor too.

Reply to
newshound

I bought the same welder (R-Tech MIG180) and have been very pleased with it, although it hasn't been used a huge amount. Previously I had a large transformer MIG for many years and the new one is soooo much better. I did a 3-day welding refresher course a short time ago (sadly, I'm still not very good) and was introduced to TIG - since then I slightly regret not splashing-out more of the kid's inheritance on a TIG welder.

To the OP: R-TECH sometimes sell off ex-demo machines for a discount; might be worth giving them a ring.

Reply to
nothanks

Very encouraging response. I'm sold on the idea. Much reading of relevant websites didn't do much in my decision making process but these replies are so positive. I'm going for it without further ado. Thanks.

Reply to
Mike Halmarack

I have been doing some welding recently, and second the idea above of buying an an auto-darkening welding helmet. I purchased a Tacklife PAH03D (4 sensor, reasonable field of view) for £40, which is excellent. It does make a big difference.

Reply to
Chris Bacon

Youtube is also a good source of information.

Reply to
alan_m

I bought a stick (MMA) inverter with a tig torch but DC only and scratch start, I would strongly suggest TIG needs HF start ramp up and down and AC for aluminium.

My friend's son has an inverter mig with a spool gun and has done some decent looking aluminium welding.

Those parweld MMA, MIG and TIG sets look nice but 1900 quid.

Reply to
AJH

Yes, auto-darkening helmets are so much better and fairly cheap - it doesn't make sense to use anything else. My old one didn't have a battery and I found that, unless I stored it in the light, I got slightly flashed when I first used it after a lay-off. I bought a newer battery-powered one (from R-TECH) and find it's much better.

Reply to
nothanks

Have a look at the channel Doubleboost on youtube, John does some very good "real world" reviews of quite a bit of the R-Tech stuff.

Reply to
John Rumm

Thanks, I'm in Canada just now and R-Tech stuff doesn't show up in searches for this locality. There are probably equivalents which I'll try to match with the R-Tech spec.

Reply to
Mike Halmarack

Ah, ok, there is likely to be something similar available since the R-Tech stuff is generally built from COTS components with the inverters and control electronics form German and American suppliers, and the chassis and cases from the far east.

You can obviously go for the more readily recognized stuff like Lincoln, Miller, Cebora etc you will get very decent machines, but will pay more...

Reply to
John Rumm

Thanks John. The welders you suggested are good quality and the ideal choice. This time, as a beginner, we went for a less expensive option.

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will soon tell if this was a useful decision.

Reply to
Mike Halmarack

Yup that looks promising... I suspect that the TIG is scratch start rather than lift (and something you get in effect "free" with any DC inverter) - but its nice it comes with the torch.

Keep us posted, or slap a review on the wiki when you have had a chance to play - it will be interesting to see what you think.

Reply to
John Rumm

+1

I'm also very interested, the only issue for me is the missing AC option for aluminium.

Reply to
Fredxx

It seems like AC TiG machines are quite a big step up in price from the DC only machines - probably because you get quite a large bunch extra features and controls like controllable ramp up, ramp down, frequency control, asymmetric pulse width control (or "balance") to allow different amounts of time spent on the positive and negative "halves" of the cycle, as well as things like HF start.

If you need to do general fabrication in Ali, you will probably be fine with a basic inverter DC machine and a spool gun.

Perhaps I ought to try scratch start Tig with what I have before worrying about if I need all the bells!

Reply to
John Rumm

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