New Miller Digital Elite Helmet: A Review

[Coalsmoke]

I've been here since 2003, and I've never seen the board administrator dump a post critical of a Miller (or any ITW family) product. They are straight shooters all the way.

Hank

Yep, I agree.

[Bulldog]

Hey guys,
Great review Coal!!! I'll be going to my lws today to see if they have one of the digital hoods on the shelf, If not I'll be ordering one.
Great job,
Bulldog

[Amos F.]

I will admit that I love the looks of the stars and stripes Elite. But being a Canadian I bought the Maple Leaf Elite. I never look at it as it is through the lens or I put it in the bag it came with, but seeing the picture of yours Coalsmoke brought a big smile to my face and I just went to the shop and took mine out of the bag to make sure it looked as good! I am going to have to look into the new digital as I have an original Elite and was really hoping for one with a grind mode but I can see the Digital has a lot of features on it.

Amos F

[Coalsmoke]

Thanks Guys, Bulldog, like your sig LWS should have them in, I know some do, but I'm not sure how it works whether all LWS get them at the same time or if some have to wait longer than others.

Amos, I agree the stars and stripes is pretty slick too, along with the Inferno design. I've got to say though, the fleck in the red maple leaf hood makes it look awesome, like a nice cherry candy red. I find I grind a lot more than I thought I would with the new Digital Elite, especially if cutting a piece of small pipe with a zip cut where you want to follow around the pipe, with normal safety glasses the face gets loaded up with metal cuttings. Its nice to have a full hood over the face sometimes. IMHO, for the all-around fabricator, it's worth the extra money over some other hoods with less features.

[Coalsmoke]

Hey guys, I wanted to give an update on the Digital Elite hood. It has been performing flawlessly for me. The headgear that is both comfortable and that works like it is supposed to is such a welcome relief over other brands I have used, and I have found I am using the X-Mode now and then especially when tig welding polished stainless. Take today for example, making some little runner strips out of 304 sheet, using a fine point on my tungsten and low amps, in the helmet's normal weld mode, I had to have the sensitivity turned up enough to sense the low amp starts. However, as you know, polished stainless puts off quite a glare especially with shop lights overhead. That glare was causing the lens to prematurely switch to dark whenever I caught the light just right, but if I went to less of a light sensing sensitivity setting so that the glare off the stainless wouldn't trip the light sensors, it wouldn't darken immediately on the low amp starts. Typically with my Speedglass I'd have had to put it away in this situation and use a fixed shade manual hood. However, by using the X-Mode I can have the best of both worlds, no premature flashing from the glare off the polished stainless and absolutely no issues picking up those low amp tig starts. Anyways, just thought I'd post this in case anyone else out there is dealing with the glare off of polished metals when doing low amp tig work.

Edit: I added a couple of photos to try and show the glare, but I guess I messed up taking the pictures, I got no glare off the stainless, but got lots of glare off of the 'not so shiny' welding table. Go figure

[FusionKing]

Thanks...you bring up some interesting advantages.

Btw good to hear from you ole buddy!!

[Coalsmoke]

Thanks Fusion, glad you're still here.

Have a good one

[FusionKing]

thanks Coal.
Awhile back my XLi helmet started acting funny so I gave it to my LWS and it had 11mos use on it. Not only did Miller replace the AD unit they gave me an upgrade that was way better IMO. They are top notch in my book.

I wish they would branch out and make more different products or buy out other American companies because in my opinion they are doing what it takes to support their local and national economy in times of one that appears to be in chaos. Vice Grip comes to mind but there are thousands more.

[JIMI COLTERYAHN]

hello!

I've been using my Digital Elite for a month now and I've been flashed 3 times. It seems to me the time period the hemet has before it shuts off after weld is too short.
The first time the hemet shut off, I had finished a weld and was cleaning the joint for the next weld before welding. Just a few minutes, and yet the helmet was off when I started the arc.
I swore I'd never make that mistake again, so the other two times I got flashed, I had verified the helmet was on, positioned myself for the weld, then found myself blinded when i started the arc. The helmet had shut off after I had checked it, but before i welded.

I bought the best miller helmet to protect my eyes, and I'm dissapointed with that one aspect.

[Coalsmoke]

Jim, there may be something wrong with it. I have never had that issue, and I think my hood takes somewhere around 25 minutes before it will auto off. Call Miller, they'll make it right.

[Broccoli1]

Jim, there may be something wrong with it. I have never had that issue, and I think my hood takes somewhere around 25 minutes before it will auto off. Call Miller, they'll make it right.

Wuz up sucka?

[Muckfoot]

Are there any disadvantages to X mode over normal weld mode?

[Coalsmoke]

None that I've found yet. The helmet is still going strong.