For the house current an inverter is always better but your going to have to pay for that :)
You can have a pulser field installed right onto your Synchrowave 250 face plate. But what are you going to do with that pulser? 99% of pulsers are never used.
I think you might find more competitive pricing if you make your wish list out and give it to several weld supply shops in towns near you. Most likely better pricing than sears. Both Lincoln and Miller have distributer lists on their websites.
I would call it a draw performance wise... they are both awsome.. However, I know of Synchrowave 250s that have been running 3 shifts 7 days since the late 1980s without replacing a circuit board or even High freq. points... Synchrowave 250 is a beast! I don't think anybody builds a machine that lasts longer.
ahh yes.... the inverter. in my search ive totally neglected to price that out.
anyhow the lincoln runs about 35-3800 from the welding shops, 3999 in store at sears, but sears online has it 3099. i know, i was thinking the same thing as you.. i dont wanna buy anything from sears :)
my main areas of interest are the lincolns auto ac balance, and the ever so nifty pulser. i know most people never use there pulser, but typically i only weld thin aluminium tubing, and stainless for manifolds. pulsers are a great gizmo for us not so coordinated people that need to worry more about presentation than penetration ;)
im curious if the auto balance is worth a crap or just a gimmick. i rarely, if ever have the chance to practice on a piece of test material before i weld whatever im about to tackle. welding is something i do as part of the project, not my only job. so a bit of idiot proofing is something i find attractive.
i like that miller uses switches and pots as opposed to lincolns touch mebrane\panel thing. just seems less failure prone. we "upgraded" our boring machine from pots and switches to a digital membrane panel thing.. and its absolutely horrid.
and lastly... didnt miller just discontinue the 250dx.
Um... I dunno about Miller discontinuing the 250.... big mistake in my book
As far as Auto balence... It takes about a 30 minute lecture, and a couple hours on the bench for a semi experienced tig welder to understand the fundimentals of balence control, to the extent that they could read a weld and judge etch and profile.
Auto balence control takes control out of your hands and gives it to a stinkin machine. Unless you can *ALSO* turn off the auto balence and manually control the thing I would give it a vigorous thumbs down. Forget idiot proof... your obviously not an idiot
yeah it seems 2004 brochures arent quite up to date. lincoln dropped the squarewave 175 and made a precision 185, which is essentially the same thing, but with the pulser and a few little upgrades.
i dont know why miller would kill the 250 either. but when we looked it up at the local welding shop the part # was dc'd. and theres even a miller plant here in town!
as for auto balance, theres an auto setting which is simply the balance dial set below min. it still has full manual balance control. i think it might be handy since i dont get a trial run, and the first weld has to be right. also im not that experienced. im up here at hobart welding school trying to learn how to do things the right away, instead of the old crappy habits picked up from around the shop.
They still have synchrowave
http://millerwelds.com/products/tig/syncrowave_250_dx/
Hey, Lincoln is great too... Just make sure you have that control for when you want it.... Also... If you ever think you might work on thicker aluminum castings 185 amps is a little light, really, even a 250 is on the lower level for that kind of stuff.
Hobart is a great school, they will teach you the right way!
Working for one of the largest gas and equipment suppliers, I have the chance to play with all of this equipment. I will try to keep this short and sweet.
In my opinion, the Miller 200DX is the ultimate machine if you are welding on aluminum (under 1/4"). great control of the arc with the ability to tighten it up for filet welds, or wash it for wider welds. the downfall.....price. As for the "backyard" welder, (no disrespect intended here, believe me.) the precision tig 185 is a beautiful machine. The built in pulser is the easiest to set of all the machines on the market. The biggest advantage with this machine is on light gauge steel, stainless, etc. The Microstart feature is awesome. As for the thickness of materials that you can weld, there are ways to cheat. For thicker aluminum sections, this machine is pretty limited using the standard pure argon, but you can make this machine "act" bigger by using a helium blend for aluminum welding. And if you are looking at welding on 300 series stainless, adding a bottle of Argon/Hydrogen (usually 2 to 5% hydrogen) will make any tig machine perform great. The puddle starts quicker, travel speed increases dramatically, and heat affected zone is smaller due to the faster travel speed. As mentioned by the other guys, the 250DX is a workhorse, with great output. If I needed to buy a machine for home, though.....my choice would be the dynasty200dx.
Just my opinion, of course.......
good luck in your search.
good reply! ive never used the dynasty machines, but i will get to in about another week when we do 2" pipe. so they never really fell into my search. i blame this on ignorance. :) typically ill only weld 16 guage stainless 321, assorted aluminium 1/8th inch and down and maybe some steel here and there. but anything thicker is probably just junk that will get mig'd. except for chromoly steel for roll cages, which will be the thickest material ill end up tig welding. ill definately give the dynasty's a look... thanks for your input.
the 250's seem to have a less then ideal starting arc. it wanders all over the place unless you mash the pedal, which kind of sucks on thinner guage material. ive never really been able to tell if it was my fault or the machines, but the more i look it seems to be a drawback of the machine.
** damnit, we have maxstar's not dynasty in that section.. i had only seen the things at a glance, and they look like the same chassis. oh well. see all this time i thought an inverter was a power supply for the machine, not an integral part of the machine itself. silly me, good things these forums are here to help out the ignorant! :D**
FYI......
The fix for the 250 arc starting problem is to replace the high voltage transformer that activates the high frequency. The miller part number is 208045. I don't recall what these are worth, but I had sold a 250DX to one of my customers and we had this same issue. Miller sent me a transformer at no charge and it was about a 10 minute install. works great now.
I use a Miller SW 250 at work, actually all our machines are Millers except for the odd Hobart MIG here and there and one old Lincoln LN-7.
My machine is a bit older but works great. That's one thing I've noticed about Miller, they last. We have some Miller MIG's that are very old and still going.
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