Probably OK for a hobbyist but I work on cars full time and will not use cheap sockets, wrenches or screwdrivers. Anything on par with craftsman is gonna be decent, don't need to go with snap-on or mac but they do have design differences that make them better. Look at the bitting edges of some cheap sockets, on the top 1/8 or so of the socket you can see it is tapers and has no bite so the socket is more likely to slip. Then look at a high quality socket if you can find one (snap-on or mac) they bite all the way to the end It doesn't sound like much but believe me it is. Also cheap sockets are made with cheap metal and cheap processes and will be much more likely to stretch or have incorrect tolerances. If you use high quality tools you will almost always break a fastener before rounding it off. I'm not telling you to ditch all your cheap stuff, it obviously works for you, I'm just letting everyone know there is a difference. I'm in the rusty ******* of Canada, I've dealt with a lot of stuck fasteners

 

If you buy the shitiest of the **** from HF, then yes, you might have problems.

 

You have 3 options:
1: Save up for the 200A unit
2: Downgrade to a 160A unit. That should cover most steel welding activities you do around the house and limit you to about 3/16ths or 4mm-5mm in aluminium (plenty for most things). If you ever need to boost that you could buy a small bottle of helium and mix that in.
3: I'm running this unit: Its chinesium like the rest of them but so far its going strong. Having a company local to me that warranties it is worth a ton though...so maybe stick to the UK outfit. I think I ended up paying 590€ for it. They auction them off and tend to go a bit cheaper then.

 

Just received an alpha tig 201xd. I'm impressed so far with the unboxing. Parts are quality and hopefully it welds as good as it looks. I took advantage of ebay's 15% off deal last week. Knocked $100 off the total and free shipping.

 

Aaaaannnnndddd.....it doesnt work. Awesome

 

Does it do anything? Gonna mess with it or just return?

 

I set it all up and was just going to run beads on steel to verify it works. I set the gas flow without it being connected to the machine.

Turned it on and first noticed that it didnt run the gas for second or two. Maybe this machine is different? I wanted to verify the gas flow remained the same through the machine. When I press the pedal, no solenoid switching and no post flow after releasing the pedal on 2t.

I tried the hand switch also on 4t and same result. No flow or post flow. I didn't try striking an arc.

 

Just something dumb to check - is it in tig mode, not stick mode?

 

Definitely tig mode. Prob turned it on/off maybe a dozen times. Only one time out of that, it turned the gas on for a second or two at start up. I am guessing there is a loose connection at the gas solenoid.

 

Just in case - flip it to stick, might've miswired the rocker.

 

Doesnt work in stick mode either.

 

Another stupid question. Is the regulator set to high? You could remove the gas line from the back and see if you can hear the solenoid click.

Some of these solenoids have a Max pressure differential. If the pressure is too high it may not open.

 

According to the flow meter, I am at 15cfh with the line removed.

 

No go with no gas as well.

 

Well unless you plan on taking it apart I don't know what else to try. Probably be best to just try and get it replaced or refunded.

 

Trying to decide the best course of action. Bought it through ebay, so I have their money back guarantee if needed. I will only open if they tell me too. It could very well be something simple, but I am also getting no sound from the HF start when depressing the pedal. I sent a message to the seller for further instruction.

 

 

That's just like all the reviews I'm seeing for this new Walmart gaming PC. Only half of them are coming with the GPU actually plugged in.

Lol

 

That connector is kinda important. It's for the switch in the pedal and finger control. No switch = no gas and no hf start.

 

After a lighting strike took out my Thermal Arc TA185, I picked up an HTP Invertig. Sadly, the high freq and low amp output of the TA seems quite a bit better than the HTP. It's still a good machine, that TA just ran like a swiss watch until the boards took a dump.