what kind of tig welder?????

[samtucan11]

I am pretty new to welding, so please bear with me. My grandfather has been welding forever and he has been teaching me alot, so I have become pretty efficent at mig welding.
I want to start learning how to tig weld, but I am kind of confused on what tig welder to buy. I will probably be doing alot of welding on automotive body work, exhaust, as well as 1/4" to 1/2" steel brackets for trucks. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good tig welder. How much amperage will I need to weld up to 1/2" steel, as well as occasional aluminum welds? I have got a recomendation for the syncrowave 250dx, but I have read alot of good things on the dynasty 200dx, but will the dynasty 200dx have enough power to weld up to 1/2" steel/aluminum? also what about the syncrowave 350lx? can anyone please help? thanks for your time.

[Paul Seaman]

Samtucan11:
Welcome aboard, and that is quite a requirement, first I own a Dynasty 200DX and love it, but no way for tigging 1/2", way out of spec for this machine. The Dynasty 300 DX is however enough to get it done, but it is expensive for a beginner. The syncrowave will cover alot of ground inbetween the two but it wont have the advanced wave shaping and pulsing of the dynasty. For lots of aluminum the Dynasty is the best. The best source for pricing comparison is www.brwelder.com and you can compare similar equipment packages from many machines.

Good luck,

[dyn88]

what power do you have available? this also will play an important roll in what power source you decide to go with.

[samtucan11]

Thanks for the recomendation PJSEAMAN.

I think the power that I have available would be 240v. Thanks.

[Paul Seaman]

Sam dyn88 is referring to how much amperage do you have access to, the syncrowave is power hungry and will need 50-100 amps to run it, depending on the model. I believe they are good machines in the industrial environment but for a residential or garage use they are large and require too much power for me. The dynasties will run on less than half the power consumtion for a given amperage output.

Peace,

[samtucan11]

Ok, I see how it goes. Lets say I go for the dynasty 200dx, up to what thickness will I be able to weld in both aluminum and steel? how does the amperage work????

[Paul Seaman]

Sam:
Generally speaking .001 of material thickness=1 amp. That said steel uses a little less and Aluminum uses a little more. So a 200 amp machine will perform on material up to .200 thickness. On an infrequent basis you can use it on 1/4"{.250}.
But if 1/4" is what you consider your normal then I would recomend the larger machine. I have welded thicker material then 1/4" with mine but it was a multipass and the material was preheated and I put a series of 1/8"-3/16" beads overlapping {6 passes as I remember for 1/2" bead width} but this was a small amount of welding as a repair.

[ASKANDY]

Sam,
I'd say most of your stuff, even the thicker stuff, would be beveled and multi-pass. I regularly do spindles for our race cars that are over 3/4" thick and use 200 or less amps most of the time. With this in mind, you could get by with the Dynasty 200 uless this is a duty cycle thing where you will be welding at that high amps for long periods. Then I'd go with the Sync 250.

Good luck

Andy

[samtucan11]

I really appreciate the advice PJSEAMAN and Andy.

I was reading a couple of other posts, and I saw someone mention about a possible new dynasty that will soon be realesed called the dynasty 210 is this true? will there be any new tig welders released in the near future?

[Paul Seaman]

Doubt it, but I don't have inside knowledge. This technology is relatively new so if they changed it too quick people would get the wrong idea. I think they will probably come out with a higher amperage model probably between the Aerowave and the D300DX.

The D200Dx is great, I wish my talents were able to take advantage of more of the machine abilities, practice, practice, practice.

[VBI]

Hand GTAW ½” aluminum and or steel plate is labor intensive, time consuming, and not very economical/practical. I have found very few times when it was mandatory to GTAW any material over ¼” in thickness. (i.e. Stainless Steel pipe).

My advice would be, plan to buy a good quality GTAW and GMAW machine. You’ll be able to weld just about anything that you get involved with.

Also if you are serious about welding, try to buy a better machine than you think you need as you will have a machine you can grow into instead out of.

I would employ your favorite Manufacturer’s Technical Department to help clarify machine specifications, power requirements and capabilities.

Good luck.

[ASKANDY]

No new smaller tig stuff right now... Keep in mind that all our machines go through an evolution of sorts so it may be coming down the road but I haven't got any prototypes yet so it's most likely way down the road. It is pretty common knowledge that we do have some new high amperage tig machines coming.

A-

[Teeps]

Dyn 700 no doubt

[INTP]

Have you looked into Spray Transfer (MIG) for the thicker stuff?

[samtucan11]

How does the d200 compare to the syn250 when welding steel? i know the dynasty out performs the syn250 when it comes to aluminum, but if I am primarily welding steel, is the syn250 the better choice for me?