You guys know I've been looking for an inexpensive TIG solution for a while, so here's a story. I picked up a small 110V inverter-based constant current DC 85 amp 15% duty cycle power supply designed for stick, and a 90 amp TIG torch with a gas thumb screw on it (and borrowed a regulator from a friend). All this was less than half the price of any of the TIG units I've looked at (Miller Econotig, Lincoln 175, Miller 180 SD, ESAB Heliarch 161 AC/DC). Straight DC, no AC/squarewave so no aluminum capabilities, but I wanted to see how well it would work for scratch start TIG.

I was pleasantly surprised that it worked really well. It made some really nice welds when fusing 1/8" angle stock pieces together, and actually did pretty well fusing some 1/8" and 3/16" angle together. I tried fusing some 3/16" pieces together, and it would do it (butt weld and lap weld), but would exceed the duty cycle frequently and shut down to cool. I tried lap welding a 3/16" piece to a 1/4" piece, and it simply wouldn't even do it, it would almost immediately exceed the duty cycle and shut off.

Anyway, this rig made a pretty nice looking weld on the thinner stuff, enough so that I was pleasantly surprised. There's two limitations that I can see though that I think will make it a little too light-duty for my needs. 1) it's output and duty cycle is just too low to do thicker material without taking forever and a day. For 1/8" thick or below, it worked really well, but I believe that's about it's realistic limits. 2) The scratch start isn't that easy. I usually had to try several times to get an arc going. I'm sure that's simply a matter of my developing the skill, but I'm short on time these days, and (for me) easier (like in HF start) is better.

The good news is that I bought these items from a supplier who will allow me to return them for a full refund (and the supplier fully understand my intentions). It was certainly worth the experimentation to see the value in a unit that has the convenience of HF start and a built-in gas solenoid (and a pedal that activates a contactor).

There's one other thing that I discovered during this exercise. I'm building a light-duty grapple attachment for a small tractor/loader, and I decided, what the heck, why don't I try out it's stick capabilities. (I've never tried stick before.) I was very pleasantly surprised! In fact, I think I can now say that I like stick better than MIG/FCAW. Comparing stick to the gasless FCAW wire-feed welder I currently have (a so-called "EasyMIG"), I like the stick process much better. I can see what I'm welding much better, and it seems to get much better penetration and do much better looking welds than the similarly powered FCAW welder. I'm using stick only (w/ 3/32 6013 electrodes) to build this whole grapple attachment (except for the small section that I TIG welded).

Anyway, the moral of this story is this: this rig would work really well if I was just making 1/8" frames for furniture and didn't need to TIG anything thicker and didn't want the capability to TIG aluminum, but I think I need a little more. I'm very pleased to find that I like stick moreso than wire-feed (and seem to be able to do it reasonably well). This makes me much more confident that spending the money on a good TIG unit (which can also do SMAW) will satisfy about 90+% of my needs with one machine.

For me, it's all about learning!

Dave