tig welders
 

hi chaps
can you get decent tig welder for under £300 i,ve been looking at them on ebay and various web sites.clarke seem a poor buy as you have to buy the tig torch on top of the tig unit.
regards si

what we talking big / small? dc (not aloys) or ac/dc (everyhing)?

you may find a reasonable make s/h (240v) dc unit (avoid scratch start units) but your going to be pushed to find anything half decent s/h ac/dc for sub £500

also you want to x2 your amps in ac so dont even think of anything sub 200amp (min 16amp supply on 240v)

hi
second hand i was bidding on a used kempii and the seller has pulled it thats p+++ed me off bloody localish derby.
thwang

i bought a Rtech 161 ac/dc tig a while back. perfect for everything the hobbyist will ever do really, cost me £700 quid. bit over the £300 budget above!!

you would get a dc hf start chinese one off Ebay for around 300 i guess, but its kinda hit or miss sometimes on them, plus no customer support. i only bought my tig for aluminium and stainless steel jobs really. although i can do everything with the mig anyway!

hi stew
just been looking at the r-tech might get the 160 tig i wont begoing any bigger than 3mm.i could always use my works ones we have about 15 of them but i need one at home for a project i,ve been wanting to do for some time.
cheers si

I bought one of these year before last and its been very good on the whole, the pedal control seems to have developed a fault in that when its selected the power just goes flat out but I've not had a chance to look at it. Machine itself still works well with inboard power control.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AC-DC-TIG-...#ht_2587wt_698

D.

I've got one of these and although it's ok for what it does when you take it out of the box, I don't know any one that has one that all the features still work after 2-3 weeks. The AC has gone pop on mine after an hours worth of work. I agree though that for a budget of £300 you will be very lucky to get a second hand AC tig that is not an old BOC block.

I got one of these too and it has been grafting since August last year,
I can tell you what is wrong with the foot pedal and it is a right bugger to dismantle......I discovered my problem early on when the pedal was doing the opposite to what I was telling it which sounds the same as what you are describing.
Inside you will find two potentiometers or "pots" the one that gave me probs was the sliding one that attaches to the pedal....when I put a test meter on
it was registering 100K then down to 0 at the middle and back up to 100k. This made me think straight away that the manufacturers had used a simple pot from a right/left speaker control. As it happened I had a 100k linear pot lying around from a volume control which measured 0-100k on my meter, so it was a simple replacement and when all put back together it worked 10 times better with a much greater range of control.

Cheers for that Kev, I did strip the pedal and as you say its a bugger but didn't getthat far with testing it. I've got a quiet day tomorrow so may just have another crack at it.

D.

hi chaps
cheers for the replys i was going to buy second hand but i keep looking at these 2 tig sets
http://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/weldi...Tech_Tig160PDC

SIP 05266 i,ve had sip mig and arc welders in the past and theyve been good
http://www.welduk.com/Details.asp?ProductID=295
cheers si