A young fella at work thinks he wants a TIG welder to work with thin aluminum piping. He is big on hot rod modifications, turbos, etc.
He wants to spend the money once. so the question is what brand/model would put him in business with quality but not something for welding big stuff. He has seen a Miller squarewave work, I don't know which model, that got him very interested in acquiring something in the small end of TIG.
I told him I would ask.
Aluminum != 'small'. Aluminum conducts heat really well so you need lots of amps to weld it.
Your friend needs to define the thickest aluminum that he wants to weld and then work down to a welder with that info, not the other way round. :)
I *really* like my Miller Maxstar 150. There is no way I could use it for anything except the thinnest aluminum foil though.
If Miller's big welders perform anything like the Maxstar does within it's specifications, I would buy 'Blue' for aluminum.
--Winston
Now Steve , every mfr puts out an occasional lemon . I've been happy with my Lincoln products , and if I had the cash would consider them for a TIG unit ,along with the rest .
I like my Miller Syncrowave 200 and it's happy with a 60A breaker in my home shop. Many people also like the Syncrowave 250's. Both are transformer type power supplies. The syncrowaves do both TIG and stick.
RWL
Best machine on the market for thin aluminum is the Miller Dynasty
200DX.You get variable AC wave frequency, which is spectacular on aluminum.
You would also need a water cooler and a small flex-head TIG torch like the CK200 Flex-head with superflex cables.
I am a Blue guy to the bone.
To the OP, I have a great Dialarc HF that does AC and DC.
i
I have a Dialarc HF bought new over 30 years ago, and it still works like new and has never needed repair, but there is no way I would consider it if buying a welding machine today, especially for aluminum where fully adjustable square wave output is beneficial. Today I would buy an inverter machine like the Miller Dynasty. A used Dialarc HF would be a lot cheaper, and is adequate for most thin aluminum TIG welding, but this is not the "buy once" strategy requested by the OP.
In the transformer based welding machine era, the Miller Gold Star was the TIG king, but they require 3-phase power. A modern inverter machine provides the advantages of a 3-phase transformer machine (mainly smooth DC output without a big inductor) on single phase power, with the additional benefits of full programmability, and the disadvantage of being more complex and harder/more expensive to repair.
They pretty much cannot have any issues.
i"Gunner Asch" wrote
chuckle......... Murphy strikes again ........
I bought a used Sears arc welder off a roadie and found that he had "fixed" the broken tap insulator plate by making a new one from painted sheet metal. The winding connected to the plate was a much darker shade of brown than the other one.
The winding checked out OK after I removed the short and I used it for years.
Some people can break a hammer.
jsw
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