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Welding SteelChoosing the WelderChoosing the welder is all about what and where you will be welding. We are building a 70 foot 1/4 inch steel plate boat with a 1/4" aluminum pilot house. We currently have a Hobart 210 with a Spoolmate 185 gun for aluminum. It will be pressing the limits to weld 1/4 aluminum so if we can get a system that will do aluminum too then all the better. We could get a better spool gun but another solution is a wire feeder with a push-pull gun. Push-pull guns have drive motors and feed wheels in the gun, just like a spool gun, but instead of a 1 pound spool of wire on the gun they help pull wire that is being pushed from the wire feeder. On a Boat and In the WaterFor us the welder will go on the boat as part of the shop, so we want something that is not extremely heavy, power efficient and will run of a single phase 220 volt AC generator. The more expensive Inverter type welders fit the bill for light weight and power efficient and they also DC which is nice because underwater welding in in our future too. Inverters also output constant voltage or CV so they can power most any wire feeder. Getting a welder with circuit board that is potted or can be potted to protect it from salt water damage is a must. If the board is not potted, it is often no difficult to add heat sinks and a coating of RTV silicone to kept it healthy. Duty CycleDuty cycle correlates to how long you can weld in a 10 minute interval before the welder or gun get too hot. A 60% duty cycle at 200 amps, means you can weld for 6 minutes at 200 amps and then you need to let it cool down for the next 4 minutes. To weld 1/4 steel requires 140 amps, DC, running .045 flux core wire. And we want to do that at 100% duty cycle. Not that we will actually run at 100% duty cycle but because the engineers exaggerate, the marketing department exaggerates more, and neither work outside in the summer in Oklahoma. PortabilityPutting the hull plate together requires a lot of moving around and while stick is a bit slower welding and more difficult than wire, it is very portable around the building site. The plate stitch welds are also relatively short and most will be done with the plates laying flat or almost flat with makes stick welding easier. Once the hull plates are stitched together then finish welding can be done with a faster and easier to use wire feed welder, but mobility around a 70 foot boat is still necessary so the wire welder will be a wire feeder or suitcase wire welder that is powered off the stick welder box. We will set the Inverter power supply out of the way and carry around the 80 pound wire feeder on the end of a 100 foot long power cord that runs back to the Inverter. From the wire feeder box to the gun is another 15 to 50 foot set of cables including; power, the welding wire, control wires for telling the wire feeder when to start pushing and how fast, a hose for shielding gas if required, and possibly a couple of water hoses if the gun is water cooled. There are a number of portable suitcase type wire feeders: Advanced Process Welders
We almost purchased Miller 350MP inverter power supply with
"pulse" ability along with an XR wire feeder. The pulse option is
like a Pulse Width Modulator for a welder. Instead of a
constant supply of power to the arc, the power is chopped up into
very fast on/off pulses. The welder has different programs
that will control the speed and length of the pulses according to
what you are welding and the feed speed you have selected for the
wire. The advantages are less splatter and more wire into the
weld with less heat so you get less distortion. The
disadvantages are there are more control wires between the boxes and
there are a lot more very expensive electronics to fail. This used
system sold for $2700 (2008) which is a good price. The other
detractor for us was this unit has the 15 foot cables between the XR
wire feeder and the gun. The system we ended up buying was
less power, no pulse, but has a 25 ft of cable to the gun. What We PurchasedOur power source for arc welding and powering the wire feeder is
a Lincoln Invertec V300-Pro, inverter type welder for $1500 with a 30
day warranty. Not a great price, but fair, and I was paying
for good advice too. The wire feeder is a Cobramatic with a
water cooled push-pull Python gun that has 25 feet of cable for
$1300. Then add four, 50 foot, 2/0 welding cables with
connectors, a ground clamp and electrode holder for $800.
Having 4 separate 50 foot cables will give us the ability to add
cable where it is needed, and while 2/0 is overkill for the amperage
we will be using, it will be right considering that the summer heat
will degrade it's load ability. All together the package was
$3778.60 with shipping. What We Got DeliveredUnfortunately was not what we paid for. This is one of those, I should have bought it on eBay and trusted the guy in California. Instead I trusted a local guy name Denny Reeves who sells on CraigsList. When you first talk to Denny he is full of promises about making sure your equipment is checked out and comes with a 30 day warrantee. We agreed on the above equipment, paid Denny in full, and then waited 2 months for Denny to finally get all of the equipment together. He didn't hang around after dropping off the equipment and I can understand why. What he actually delivered was 1/0 cable, not 2/0, a Cobramatic feeder that was not water cooled and had two broken toggle switches soldered onto the control board and tape on the Python gun that hid damage. The welder had a crushed case and another broken toggle switch. Almost predictably he would not refund our money, and he would not compensate us for the damage or wrong parts. He did offer to take the equipment back and give us a credit! What a guy! So if you live in the Tulsa, or SandSprings Oklahoma area, do not buy from Denny Reeves! Denny's address is 8003 W Parkway Blvd,Tulsa, OK 74127, phone number is (918) 245-7780 and email is dennyreeves@cox.net. Denny will rip you off! Beware!
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