the sales rep for Cemont came through last week and i went to see their new TXH250AC/DC (see post further down the thread)
great machine, though it looks to have been designed by the AppleMacintosh people.
two questions:
- The TXH (at ~00) is watercooled but has no AC pulsing. when i put this to the tech/sales guy he told me that it was an unnecessary option other companies have been building into machines to bump up the 'gadget count' ... he then proceeded to make BEAUTIFUL tig welds in some aluminum scrap i brought along
- i have only used TIG for SS and, at that, i still have little experience. most of what i do is stick/gas. at any rate, i got a chance to try the machine.. none of the settings were changed, and i was trying to buttweld two aluminum scraps (clean), while i was sitting down.. ideal setup no? to my surprise i couldnt even get the puddle to start! the two pieces started melting and flowing AWAY from eachother. split open like a melon. i wasn't melting through, mind you.. but the surface would melt and then "flow apart"... adding filler made the whole event that much more traumatic. :)
the tech picked the torch up and proceeded to weld the same seem with no filler.
as near as i could tell he wasn't doing anything different than i was. no special torch action.. same angles, same settings.
any thoughts on what i was doing wrong?
-tony
ps.. price tag was still too high. they had an inverter AC/DC (160A) for ~$2400 including torch. other than amp/frequency/DC pulse control, it had no other adjustments (ramp up/ ramp down/ post and pre gas, etc)
i think i'll get the Lincoln INVERTEC205.. costs about $2800 here, but it just looks more respectable.