[PSUBS-MAILIST] Touch start Tig

["James Frankland" <james@guernseysubmarine.com>]

Hi All.

Does anyone have any ideas on this....

I need to tig weld at home.  The tig machines i use at work are all high frequency start, so no problems there.  But the machine i have at home does not have the HF start option or gas solenoid.

It is a stick welder, lincoln V205s and does have a voltage drop "tig" switch.  According to Lincoln, it will do "touch start" tig, which is preferable to the ghastly scratch start business that you can bodge on to a normal DC arc welder.  They tell me its fine, but they are bound to say that.

Ive never used "touch start" before and i am suspicious of tungsten contamination and it generally mucking up the arc.  Also i will have to have a constant flow gas regulator, but thats not such a big deal.

Question:  Does anyone have any experience with this "touch start" business?  Is it ok or am i wasting my money?

If this is no good, i am tempted to get a HF converter like these.  (Scroll down this page to about the middle.  Its the little yellow box the MTA tig start 180i  HF)

http://www.migtigarc.co.uk/TIG_Welder/tig_welder.html

Does anyone have any experience with these sort of "add on" HF boxes?

Any suggestions?  I have 3 options.

1.  Touch start tig.
2.  HF convertor.
3.  Just buy a proper HF tig machine and starve for the next 6 months.


Many thanks as always,
James