Bought a tig welder!

[Farmer888]

So I've been looking and saving for a tig welder for at least a year or so. I knew I wanted a inverter for being small and light weight/less power draw and all the features. Looked into just about every bigger reliable brand. I was really thinking of going with the lincoln square wave 200, but decided to really push the budget and I decided on the lincoln aspect 230 ac/dc. Went with the air cooled package for now, couldnt afford the watercooled setup. I have an old miller watercooler I might rig up later.
Before this I hadn't put more than maybe an hour or so tig welding. But pretty proficient at stick and mig, big learning curve with tig abd a long long ways to go before im confident, but got so i can run a bead on alumnum at least. Heres a few pics, one of the welder, and a bead on 3/16 and one on 1/16

 

[Farmer888]

Hope these show up. These welds are after 5 arc hours, first ones were quite rough looking lol

 

[jhn9840]

Like you I’ve done a lot of mig & stick welding in my time. Very little tig. Your beads look pretty good for just getting started. The Aspect 230 looks like a real nice machine.

jhn9840
John

 

[quadrcr87]

Congratulations! The welds are already looking nice and they are bound to get even better with time. Count me as jealous. I really want to get one and start practicing eventually. The control and precision of TIG is a worthy skill to master. Much like you I have only ran one for about an hour and I am convinced I need one.

My current mig is a Lincoln so I have been looking at similar machines. What features of the 230 ac/dc made the decision for you?

 

[American Locomotive]

I too recently got a TIG machine (Squarewave 200), and I gotta say I really love it. It's also one of the best stick-welding machines I've used, too!

You should definitely go to your local welding store and get yourself some Silicon-Bronze filler rod. You can do TIG-brazing with it. It's a lot lower heat and it's super awesome because you can stick dissimilar metals together with it - just like normal brazing. Came in super handy when I had to attach a copper water ****** to a steel oil cooler on my Land Cruiser!

 

[Farmer888]

I Liked all the settings for aluminum, different wave forms, It has Amplitude settings on ac too, can change the EP and EN amps. To be honest, it has more than what I need and way beyond my skill. I was torn between that and the squarewave 200, both machines seem like great units.
If I bought the 200 I would have a lot more $$ for consumables while learning. Definitely takes a different skill set/ more skill than stick or mig. Having a hard time with feeding filler, I end up dabbing it until my hand is getting right close then I have to reposition, I'd like to just feed it between my fingers.

 

[sberry]

Yes, it's highly disciplined to be able to feed it on auto pilot. I don't do enough to get really fluent. I really don't like it all that well, I can, just don't unless I really need it. But the farmer looks like he could get himself out of a pinch with it.

 

[JP Fabrication]

I need to learn how to to tig