My favorite autodark welding hood was my first one. An el cheapo Harbor
Freight a buddy gave me as a gift for fixing his boat trailer for him many
years ago. I loved it. Seemed I could dial it in for anything. Even
welding indoors under artifficial light. I also liked it for welding thin
stuff like pickup beds. It went from dark to light fast enough I could see
the glow diminish on the weld puddle and I could quickly stack welds without
over heating the metal. To me it looked a lot like that stack of dimes I
hear TIG guys talk about. When the HF hood died I was of course in the
middle of a job. Imagine my consternation when I found out the batteries
were not replaceable. I bought another HF hood. The more expensive of the
two they sold at the time and I hated it. Oh, it worked ok if I was
wallowing away at a couple pieces of metal, but for welding sheet it was
carp. The weld would almost cold by the time it went clear making it a slow
and tedious job to weld thin stuff. YUCK! When it died I didn't bother to
replace the batteries in it. I threw it away, and bought a Lincoln. The
Lincoln wasn't as bad as HF #2 or as good as HF #1, but it was ok until I
dropped it. The shade adjustment knob broke off. It seems to be stuck on
or near the darkest shade. Well, that sucks. I can see the arc, but not
much of anything else when I'm welding. I can make do if I can drag the
assembly out into the sun, but just barely. If I have to weld indoors all I
can see is the arc. YUCK! I had to weld some casters and caster mounts
onto a machine stand yesterday so I could easily move out of my machine
room. You can't get much more indoors than that. It would have been a dead
easy job with my autodark. Just hold the mount in place and tack it.
Unfortunately I could not see shit with it. I wound up having to clamp up
on all four mounts one a a time and use my regular shield since its not as
dark as the auto dark. Yes I tried sticking a screw driver in the hole left
by the missing knob. It feels like you can adjust it, but nothing changes.
So. I am in the search for a new auto dark. I don't weld all the time and I am absolutely not a fan boy of any brand so I am not going to just throw money at it. I want one with a knob that won't break if it gets bumped or dropped. That can go clear fast after the arc stops, and has a good adjustment range for indoor and outdoor welding. I asked about this once before and somebody suggested one of the guys like HTP or something like that , but I don't recall for sure.
So. I am in the search for a new auto dark. I don't weld all the time and I am absolutely not a fan boy of any brand so I am not going to just throw money at it. I want one with a knob that won't break if it gets bumped or dropped. That can go clear fast after the arc stops, and has a good adjustment range for indoor and outdoor welding. I asked about this once before and somebody suggested one of the guys like HTP or something like that , but I don't recall for sure.