New Tig welder with a WSE-200 / Should I upgrade?

[lr172]

I am a hobby welder and have only used stick and MIG in the past. 5 years ago, I bought a WSE-200 TIG welder and just now starting to learn TIG. I plan to weld steel and Alum, including some thinner sheet stock. I have heard that frequency control can help with Alum welding and my unit doesn't have that or pulse. I am thinking of upgrading to a Primeweld or similar machine, but it is not a cheap upgrade.

I am wondering if the Primeweld will generally perform better than the WSE-200. If that is the case and will give me a better chance at learning, this is probably a good investment. Hoping someone else has gone down this path and could provide some guidance.

[Louie1961]

AC Frequency control only applies to welding aluminum. Lots of aluminum has been welded using welders that didn't have adjustable balance, AC frequency adjustment or pulse. None of those features will make you a better welder or help you learn more quickly. Just start welding with what you have and put off the upgrade until you find there is a feature you really need. Adjustable AC frequency and pulse are most useful when working with really thin base material. Welding 10 gauge sheet shouldn't require these, generally speaking. Get some 1/8th inch plate, and start learning to lay down beads.

[12V71]

This^^^ Learn on a basic machine and when you upgrade you will understand the bells and whistles better. I started with a Lincoln Hi freq box on an old buzzbox and got good at it. then I got a Miller Dialarc HF and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Currently I have a Synchrowave 250 and still don't use many of the added features beyond the balance adjustment.

[Gligor]

More important thing is the Foot control, especially for aluminum. Do you have one? If not, does your machine have foot pedal connector? If you're machine doesn't accept foot pedal, then it will be struggle for you to do consistent weld on aluminum, especially on thinner sheet and smaller parts.
AC Frequency doesn't make that kind of a difference as you may think, especially not on the beginning. Also the different wave forms, and the rest of the bells and whistles aren't so magical as that may sound. I'm welding aluminum for quite some time, and 98% of the time I'm stuck on frequency 110Hz, balance -70, square wave. But that's because I like those settings. My PhD welding professor used 60Hz frequency, and sine weave no matter what.
My suggesting is to start with 2mm thick aluminum (around 0.08 inch, I'm not very good with the imperial system) and use 1amp for every 0,001 inch thickness, or 40amps for 1mm. For aluminum add 20% more amps (for butt joint) so for that thickness you will need around 96amps. Start from there, get a feeling for the machine, increase or decrease some amps, learn how to feed the rod, and get at least 10 pieces of fresh grinded tungsten, because aluminum likes to jump on it, especially when you are learning 🙂 .
After that, you should try to weld different thicknesses and different joint forms, and when you will gain some experience, you will decide by yourself do you really need machine with all the bells and whistles.
On the beginning 99,9% of the bad results are operator's error.
The only thing you need for now on welding aluminum is ballance control and foot pedal. Best regards.

[Gligor]

Also check Jody's explanation on "welding tips and tricks" about the AC frequency and balance to understand them better. He provides a lot of informations, visual presentations, and testing. I can write about that here, but it will be a hell of a lot to read, and way harder to understand.

[lr172]

Thanks for the input. I had done enough research to understood that the addition of many of these features wouldn't really be important in my learning phase, but thought that they may as I did thinner sheet. My thought was more related to the quality and consistency of the arc on the cheap machine, compared to a better one. It seems fine, but I don't know what I don't know. Thought maybe the $1000 class import machines would be better. This machine does have AC balance control and a foot pedal, though it is one of the cheap ones that leaves your foot pointed way high with a very long range. It has been ackward to use, so maybe should upgrade there first. The other challenge is that it has no display, nor graduations on the Current dial, so I am basically feeling in the dark when setting amps. When using the foot control, I have to set the amps with an ungraduated knob on the foot pedal as well, as the pedal overrides the current adjust on the panel.

[Munkul]

Most important thing on an AC welder is a stable arc.

Two other things make alloy welding much nicer - square wave, and balance control.

Everything else is a nice-to-have.

EVERYTHING else.

Frequency control would be way down the list for me, although of course I do like having it!

[lr172]

Most important thing on an AC welder is a stable arc.

Thanks. Does anyone know of the Primeweld will give me a more stable arc than the WSE200? I also don't know if it is square wave. I am guessing that is not, given that it is 60hz only. I believe it is a Mosfet machine, so maybe it does.

[Gligor]

I think that Primeweld is affordable machine with a lot of functions, and it performs very well (that's what I've heard, I've never used one)
Now back on your machine, you've said that you can't set the amps with high accuracy. When you have a foot pedal, you really don't need very accurate setting on the amps (it's preferable, but not necessary). Just get some aluminum, get rods, and set amps a little bit higher. You can find a lot of material on YouTube about how to start tig welding aluminum. The most important thing is very very very clean base material, properly grinned clean tungsten, and rods wiped down with acetone.
Don't rush on buying new machine when you already have one. Try to weld with it, I bet that on the beginning your biggest concern will be: torch height, contaminating the tungsten, torch angle, feeding the wire, ramping, etc.
And also, start TIG welding on steel. It's way easier, you don't deal with oxide layer, you don't deal with AC arc, and you don't deal with that much heath buildup, and you won't get that much tungsten contaminating as you will get with aluminum. Good luck. Best regards.

[Louie1961]

You seem to be searching for a reason to upgrade. If you want to upgrade, then just do it. Otherwise, start out on DC (steel and stainless only use DC) and don't worry about arc stability. You need to worry about getting some experience and seat time. You are worrying about immaterial stuff really.

[Gligor]

You seem to be searching for a reason to upgrade.

Yes, that might be the case. But my point is that complicated machine won't do any good on the beginning. More options = more things to worry about = more problems. He will try high or low frequency, pulse settings, different weave forms, etc, and will get totally mixed results. Ask me how I know. Simple machine on the beginning is the best choice.

[lr172]

Thanks for all the input. No, I am not looking for a reason to upgrade. However, I have learned in the past that learning on sub-standard equipment can steepen the learning curve. I was just looking for input on whether or not my current machine fit into that category and whether a better machine might accelerate my learning.

[Gligor]

Thanks for all the input. No, I am not looking for a reason to upgrade. However, I have learned in the past that learning on sub-standard equipment can steepen the learning curve. I was just looking for input on whether or not my current machine fit into that category and whether a better machine might accelerate my learning.

Fair point. I'm gonna tell my story. Before I went to university, I knew how to Mig and stick weld (not bad, but not great too). When I was studying, I got the chance to try tig welding. Almost after every welding class, I stayed in the welding lab and tried to weld, usually mild steel or stainless (i wasn't dealing with machine settings, they were pre set, I had passive helmet, gloves, and torch with finger switch). After I became mechanical engineer, I decided to learn tig welding on a higher level. Beside my knowledge from the university, I did my homework very well. Long story short, I bought a welding machine with all the bells and whistles (and very bad foot pedal) , and the first thing I tried was welding aluminum. My first weld was surprisingly nice. But with almost no experience on welding aluminum i started to use and test advanced settings, and I was getting bad results. Welds weren't that bad for a beginner, but they weren't what I was expecting at that time. So I started to think that something is wrong with the machine. After a month of headaches, I returned to the basics, and went from there.

[lr172]

appreciate the input. I have the same issue with my pedal. It is very cumbersome and I find it difficult to use it and I know that I need to use it. It was one of things pushing me to a better machine. I would have to sink another $150 into this machine to get a pedal that I think will work for me and it would be a sunk investment when I do upgrade.

[motolife313]

You could just get a dynasty, you just turn it on and it does the welding for you

[Gligor]

appreciate the input. I have the same issue with my pedal. It is very cumbersome and I find it difficult to use it and I know that I need to use it. It was one of things pushing me to a better machine. I would have to sink another $150 into this machine to get a pedal that I think will work for me and it would be a sunk investment when I do upgrade.

If you don't want to throw money on a new pedal, and if you have some free time, you can build it yourself. I have a topic about it, and at the moment I'm building my new pedal. The pedal contains only microswitch and a potentiometer, nothing special.

[lr172]

Can I have a link to that or at least the thread title? Interested to see it.

[Gligor]

https://weldingweb.com/vbb/showthrea...TIG-foot-pedal
I haven't posted what I have done inside the pedal yet. I'll post more photos when it's all done.