Choosing a TIG welder.

Well Chuck, I have the 200 Dynasty DX and I bought it because everyone spoke highly of it except for price. Since the money wasn't a big issue with me I decided to go for the best machine period. I know a lot of guys have the TA

185 and they like theirs also. I have no experience with any other machine other than the one I bought. It runs off of the same breaker ( 20amp- 240v ) as my HH175 , and my Spectrum 375. It is unbelievably easy to use. I bought the 2% lanthanated tungsten's and CK gas lenses that Ernie recommended. Its kind of like buying a car. The cheaper model will get you from point A to point B just as well as the deluxe model but its nice to treat yourself to the deluxe model if you can afford it. Good luck in your search.

my esab 161 is a good unit. easy to tote around. i've done small projects along the way thus far, including some stick. some stainless, mild steels, aluminum. it's ok, works for me as a hobby weldor. i wanted the miller

180sd, but the price was higher, and about 200lbs heavier.... esab 161 has variable freq on ac tig, really nice when using foot pedal on AL.

I've stick welded with my DX mostly. Haven't had it long, and haven't welded in 35 years, but it stick welds fine to me. I'm just using

3/32 6013 for now on 120 V. I'm waiting for our corporation to decide if it still wants my labor before I invest the time and effort to run a 240 V circuit to the garage. (If they don't, I get to retire and move home to Texas.) The little bit of tig I've done was just welding up corners of a drawer of 16 ga. That was only a few minutes, but I learned a lot, and the last weld looked really pretty with no filler.

I think it's just going to get better. I cut up the material for a cart for my son's propane forge, and will start welding that up this weekend.

Pete Keillor

esab not really a US owned brand compared to hobart/miller and lincoln. however, the esab 161 had a few nice features the others did not. if miller had all the same specs and weight, i would have paid a few bucks more for the miller (for support reasons).

esab support is slim, local guys always send it out, but it comes back fixed. i did have one issue that was fixed, i got a call from one of the "manager" folks from s. carolina saying he would personally take care of my issue. they sent me a complete new unit via 2day from s. carolina just to make me happy... esab is trying real hard to make weldors happy...

For me, price was a big factor, so I bought the Thermal Arc 185. I've been very happy with it. I'm sure the Dynasty is a good machine.

Chuck........I have only used the stick function a few times but it is real easy to change over. All you do is plug in the electrode holder, disconnect the foot control, and push the button to select stick application. I tried

6010 first but that was a disaster. Switched to 7014 and had much better results. 7014 runs real nice, even for me. Stick is my least favorite process though. I have a mig and use flux-core wire most of the time in it. I still have my original 80cu ft bottle of 75/25 that I purchased at the same time as I bought the mig. Its a HH175.

I have tig'd a few projects with aluminum and 304 stainless. The aluminum was 6061, 3003 and some of unknown analysis. It all welded equally well. I have been using 2% lanthanated sharpened to a truncated point for everything.

The majority of my projects have been mild steel mostly. I made several 16' climbing sticks using a combination of 16ga 1" and 3/4" square tubing. That stuff welds up real nice. I also made a couple of carts and my latest project was a 6' x 12' utility trailer. The frame is 2" x 3" rectangular tubing and I tig welded the top and bottom joints. I then mig welded the fillets with my 175 using .035" flux-core wire. I also welded up my own axle using 2" schedule 80 pipe and spindles that I purchased. I tig'd the spindles to the pipe. It turned out real nice. The whole project went super and the more I use the Dynasty the more I like it. I bought it the first of the year but it was so cold here I did not get to use it a lot for the first

2-3 months that I had it. Am I happy with it? You bet I am! This welding is like a disease though. That's another reason I bought a machine that is far beyond my present capabilities. I have great hopes of growing into it.