Re: Micro TIG welders
I may be an idiot, but I pulled the trigger on an Andeli 250PL last night. I know it's way more than the other options I was looking at. But, if I'm right, it'll allow me to replace my full-sized DC only Eastwood TIG with an AC/DC unit that's even a little bigger. My DC is only good for 140A. When I got the Eastwood I didn't think I'd wanna weld aluminum, guess I wanna.
Plus, the Andeli is capable of "Cold" welding - which should really be called "Welding with a LOT less heat". I watched a couple of videos of a probably Chinese guy butt welding 0.4mm and 0.6mm stainless steel coupons. (Andeli is a Chinese company after all.) Couldn't understand a word he said, but I COULD read the closed captions and pretend it was a silent movie. He had set up the welder to give it a 100A pulse for I believe 0.2 seconds, but it could have been less. It didn't penetrate the 0.4mm coupon and the weld itself was not discolored by the heat.
In the "Cold" welding mode you can either set it for Spot welding or Auto welding. The Spot mode fires the welder once every time you pull the trigger, and the Auto mode really isn't what you'd consider Auto. It's more like a modified scratch start. You touch the torch to the surface, and it fires when the electrode is lifted from the surface. It almost looked like he was walking the cup when he demonstrated the Auto mode. Kind of a dip-weld-slide, dip-weld-slide type of motion.
And the Andeli uses a WP-26 torch. Welding City just happens to sell a kit to adapt 1mm & 1.6mm electrodes to a WP-26 torch for less than 15 bucks, with electrodes. If I look around, I can probably find a couple of those nifty gas lenses that the welder in my last link used.
I don't have any model projects in mind where I could use this yet, TOO many Bruder conversions lined up already. But this CAN replace my Eastwood DC TIG right now. And give me the capability to try welding aluminum too. I don't doubt that with a little experimentation TIG welding automotive sheet metal won't be so daunting either.
Don
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