Syncrowave 180 for 1/4" stock?

Date 12-05-2001 12:41

The answer is relative to what duty cycle you will be welding at. The 180 is rated at 150 amps at 40% duty cycle. Will you be welding at this amperage or above for more than 4 minutes out of 10? If the answer is yes the machine is not big enough and you will need to step up to a bigger machine. If you are only going to do DC Tig the next machie up would be the Maxstar 200. It is rated at 175 amps at 60% duty cycle.

By djm9977 Date 12-05-2001 14:14

I would be using it at a 40% duty cycle, but my question is, will the 150 amps be enough for 1/4" material single pass at 40% duty cycle? If not, what is the maximum single pass thickness of mild steel that it would weld at that amperage and duty cycle? I appreciate your response, and thanks for the information.

David

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 12-05-2001 20:22

Dave,

Assuming your talking about SMAW with a 1/8 inch electrode the 180 synchrowave will do just fine. It takes less than 4 minutes to finish up even a 5/32 electrode at 150 amps, which would appear to be overkill anyhow on 1/4 inch boilerplate. GTAW? Well, it would take a pretty big pipe to necessitate walking the cup at 150 amps for over 4 minutes.

However if you're investing in a professional shop machine for the long term, the synchrowave 250 is the proven champ. It will provide much more flexibility; furthermore in my experience the things are virtually indestructible. We have over 20 of them, some over 14 years of age, which have never blown a circuit board or even needed the HF points replaced. In my opinion anything less than the synchrowave 250 is a garage machine, which is fine if you're in a home shop situation.

By djm9977 Date 12-06-2001 12:42

Thanks for the replies. I think I have it narrowed down to the two machines then. I'll get the Syncrowave 250 if I can afford it, and the 180 if I run into money problems. It seems like everybody believes both of them to be great performers, and industry leaders, so I feel confident with either. It just would be nice to have a little more power :)