Dropped into Lidl today for breakfast cereal and couldn't resist the little 70 pound inverter welder.
Looks very similar to this one from last year
Doesn't come with any rods, so not been able to try it yet, but found this video of one which looks quite similar, which seems to work rather nicely.
Of course that could be down to the skill of the user! Will report when I have tried mine.
Welding rods arrived today, just had a quick play. Can confirm it is easy to strike and hold an arc, not much problem with sticking after playing with current settings. I'm not going to post any photos yet, but able to form a strong butt weld between two bits of dexion without blowing holes in it.
Cables and fittings all seem good quality and long enough for convenience of use. Only tried 1.6 and 2 mm rods, will have to hunt around for some heavier scrap to try the 3 mm.
If it continues to go well I will be tempted to invest in small TIG kit (I already have "disposable" gas for the MIG).
Pretty impressed, really.
And a portable generator just in case the lights go out
Already got one. They havn't had the wet suits from Japan yet
That's interesting. Is this like a standard arc welder but using an inverter rather than a socking great transformer (so much smaller and lighter)?
Yes. It's not much bigger than a toaster, weighs I suppose about 3 kg. I think it goes up to 90 amps, claims to do 3 mm rod. Runs off 13A socket.
I inherited a traditional transformer one some years ago, still ran off
13A but weighed at least 20 kg. I think it came with 4 mm rods but I could never sustain an arc, and I gave it away.
Could it be that being an inverter that the output frequency is a lot higher than 50Hz? I remember seeing a TV program some time back where to weld certain materials more reliably they required 'specialised' equipment and then went on to state that the equipment welded at a higher frequency.
They had those in tesco the other day. Rather cheap, too.
Inverter welders, whether stick or TIG, provide DC to the arc. I guess that inside them they have a meaty switched mode power supply, i.e. with an oscillator running at higher than mains frequency which means that you need less iron and copper in the transformer, and hence less weight.
Professional TIG welders have an additional high frequency supply which helps to initiate the arc, without this you have to "scratch" to start.
Plenty on the web about AC and DC welding.
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