Alphatig Review: Building a Welding Cart #5

Hhere we are with a full on test fit. Everything seems to fit like I planned it.









Still to do: make a hanger for the torch, a nub for the ground clamp, and a box for the pedal. Build the drawer. Figure out where the welding rod holder will go. Build a little leg on the front at the right height- NO front wheels. Clean it all up. Paint it. Put the dang thing together.

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Alphatig Review: Building a Welding Cart #4

Movin right a long!

Made this bracket to hang cords from.



Hooks for cords and such.









Telescoping handle fer movin' it around, and a tie down loop for the welder.



Axle welded on. Did this with the stick welder, and was really worried about burning through the thin tubing but it came out pretty good.

Alphatig Review: Buidling a Welding Cart #3

Argon tank rings. Made 'em big enough that if I want I can replace my 125 cf tank with the big boy- 300 cf.



Installed.







Yeah. #isuckatwelding.

Alphatig Review: Building a Welder Cart #2

Welder rests so's it'll sit in the right spot.



Capped the tubing. Really not all that pretty...



Made some aluminum side panels to cover where the drawer will be.





Quick test fit- looking good so far.

Alphatig Review: Building a welding cart #1

A little late, since the cart is almost done, but not too late to change some things so if you see anything that needs to be reworked, I'd love to hear it!!!

I bought my Alphatig a while ago, and am tired of it getting tripped over in the welding booth. I've had a plan in the back of my mind for a while, but now its time to execute it. Plus, I suck at welding so this'll be a good chance for me to get a little practice in.

Choppy choppy.







Got angles and measurements all figured out, time to goober it all together. Gotta make sure you're in the appropriate welding attire though...









Thats the main frame. Obviously, the welder will sit on the angled bars. Argon tank will go between the uprights, and I'll have a drawer underneath the welder.

Alphatig 200x TIG welder: More from vintagespeed, with some updated parts.

Latest from vintagespeed on his TIG welder.


got the cups & lenses, HOW AWESOME! makes it much easier to see, better gas coverage, makes the torch lighter, all the stuff they say on the internet! i got these from HTP.

full size setup:


stubby cup/lens & medium cap:



gas lens made a big difference in color on SS. i'm still under-cutting pretty bad but getting the hang of it, really enjoy welding SS.

Alphatig 200x TIG welder #6: More from vintagespeed.

 Another update from vintagespeed from ADV Rider on his Alphatig.

 so here's some pics of my boogers after a 120cu/ft bottle of argon; ~ 1.5 tungstens and about 6hrs run-time.

i know it's not good, but it's my experience after 20+ yrs MIG and stick welding and never picking up a TIG machine before. i think at the end of the next bottle i'll be much happier with the results. and i'm going to pick up some stainless too, that's where the pretty welds reside.

here's a 3/32 - 1/8" gap i filled in some mild steel of different thickness, 1/8 on top of some 3/16". you can see where i undercut the hell out of the 1/8":



definitely NOT stacking dimes, but i'd put it in service:



next up i really layed into it and cranked 'er up to 200amps and setup some 1/4" plate on 1/4" angle. i was probably mostly 1/2 to 2/3 pedal though so wasn't using the full monte and the torch got H O T for sure, smoking a little bit even ,here & there:



you can see where i dip'd a few times, and i didn't prep the 1/4" AT ALL, full mill-scale. i was also welding with the garage wide open and not caring much about shielding gas dispursement, hence the pock marks in spots:



so there you have my review after about 6hrs on the machine. so far so good. my AC is actually MUCH better than the ugly DC results above, but what good is a welder if he can't do both? i'll keep practicing. so far, i like this machine alot, it'll never replace my MIG for DC but it's a great machine all around.

Alphatig 200x TIG welder #5: vintagespeed's playing around.

Vintagespeed has been using his welder quite a bit.  Here's what he's been up to lately:

another update. i know my welds aren't great but you can show-off yours & challenge your buddies on IG with #tigcubechallenge

i need to purge better on my SS, learning, learning...





i ordered up some stubby cups & gas lenses from HTP, when they get here i'm hoping to be able to lay down some better welds on thin. and better gas coverage for stainless too.

a buddy of mine challenged me (and the Alphatig) to weld two beer cans together....but i only drink beer from bottles.



it's ugly, but it's getting better. right about when i'd get a nice tight bead going it'd blow out. a couple more tries and i think i'll have a nice one.

the machine does fine on thin. you have to move really quickly and if the puddle starts to spread out, get off the pedal. and keep a VERY close position with the tungsten, what you see in my fail above is too much arc length and not enough speed.

i'm building a girder front fork and using this dyna hub for it, it's going to be a big ass spool hub and i needed to fill some left-over rotor bolt holes after turning it.



dirty, dirty cast aluminum hole filling:


there's extra for re-turning the hub after i drill through the hole pattern from the other side so both sides match:


obviously i dipped a few times filling those holes, hard to get into the bottom and fill solid all the way to the top and i was nervous about packing too much heat into it and blowing a hole. but i think it turned out just fine for a non-critical, non-space shuttle-type of weld. without the Alphatig, i'd just be staring at it sitting on my bench instead of actually getting it handled.

Alphatig 200x Tig Welder #4: vintagespeeds welder and review!

So I started a thread over and ADV Rider (found here: http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/alphatig-200x-review.1041922/page-3 ) about my Alphatig, and another fellow there ended up buying one as well.  He gave me permission to share his thoughts and pics of his welder here, so here you go!


Without any further ado, here's what vintagespeed has to say.

So i've had my AlphaTig 200 for a few weeks. the shipping from Amazon was super impressive, i ordered it on a Wed mid day and it arrived at my door for free on Friday. how's that for service? it was well packed and arrived unscathed.

the machine is good looking, has lots of bells & whistles and weighs about 40lbs, much lighter than my MIG. i bought a 120cu/ft bottle of Argon and some 2% Lath sacrificial tungstens and some filler; 4043 1/16 and ER70S-6.



if you're considering this machine, dont even power it up until you have a 240v circuit for it. it's seriously not worth the time to try to use it on a 120v service line, it works but it's not happy. when i finally pulled my 240v and ran it for the first time on 240v it was literally night & day difference, the pedal was more responsive, the arc was cleaner and the machine hummed along quietly even at high amperage. just beautiful compared to the noisy and raspy way it ran on 120v.

when i first got it i did some DC to get familiar with it and was fairly successful so i switched over to AC and spent many agonizing days questioning my sanity for trying to learn something new....but then i did something that opened my eyes. i switched it back to DC and tried to run a bead with it and hated every minute of it! i jumped back to AC and never looked back, welding aluminum is awesome! it's clean, quiet, and enjoyable. this machine really does weld nicely on aluminum, every review i read said the same and they were right.

i've used all the features of the machine and i most like just running off the pedal, but pulse is really great if you turn it up insanely high speed and just feed it filler. it's almost like cheating. i need to spend more time on pulse and try to really tune it in, if i was doing some kind of repetitive task it would be wonderful for that.

i'll post some pics after i make a new batch of coupons to stick together. last night i was just running some beads at 175amps on 3/16 aluminum plate and the machine was quietly humming along at 170hz laying nice pretty, shiny beads.

i'm stoked on it and will report back with some pics and any issues that arise. i'm almost ran out of argon so i'll pick up a fresh bottle next week and keep buzzing away. so far so good!

Alphatig 200x TIG Welder #3- Welding Steel Sheet!

Haven't had much time to play lately.

Decided it was time to practice a little. Tried something different this time though- switched it over to DC to weld on some steel. With my old welder, this was NOT an easy process. It involved unplugging the high frequency box and taking leads out of it and then re-routing the leads to the correct lugs on the main welder. Might not sound like a big deal but trust me, it was a royal pain.

The Alphatig- Click two switches. Wow, that was easy...



I changed the AC to DC, and the pulse to direct / flat / whatever it's called.


This thing welds steel BEAUTIFULLY. I'm a sucky welder as you can tell, but I was astounded by how easy it was to kludge pieces together. I didn't burn ONE SINGLE HOLE through the 18g sheet I'm using here. Compare that to using my little 110 wire feed where I couldn't run a bead longer than 1/4" without having to stop and let the metal cool, this TIG welder is AWESOME!

First nasty welds, getting it figured out.



Once I understood I could actually put some heat to it and not blow holes the size of Texas, I made some progress. Top is a lap joint, middle is a butt joint, and the bottom is just a bead ran on top of the metal.



The lap joint turned out really nice. Was giving a little forward-back motion as I went and it seems to have worked great.



Time for a little project! This would have been impossible to make on my wire feed welder. Cut a bunch of 2" squares out and tacked them all together. I should also mention tacking things like this together was a breeze. LOVE having the foot pedal.



Not real pretty, but all welded up.





Wish I could spend some time practicing, 'cause I really need it. Got a couple of bigger projects in mind if I can ever get caught up on everything else!