import welder

Have you ever wanted to weld aluminum, steel, titanium, stainless steel, and magnesium? If you want to weld these metals you are probably going to need a tig welder. Tig welding, or tungsten inert gas welding is a welding process in which heat is transferred from the torch to the workpiece via a tungsten electrode. When I first got the AHP Alphatig 200x I didn’t have any argon so I used the 75/25 gas from my mig welder. The results were uh…..interesting. I guess you could call them hippie welds. When I was using the 75/25 gas the metal would change into an orangey-green color.

The arc, even with a sharpened and clean tungsten was wild. It was jumping all over the place. The foot pedal wasn’t working for me so the welder was kind of a scratch start tig rig. The foot pedal didn’t seem like it was doing anything even though it was connected and I thought I had my welder set to the proper tig settings. After trying, and failing to hold an arc for a mere 10 seconds I stopped and had to call it a night.

The next day was much different. I swapped out my 125 cu. ft. 75/25 cylinder for a brand new 155 cu. ft. cylinder filled with 100% argon. Once I got everything hooked up the welder performed flawlessly. It turned out that I forgot the flip the last switch on the control panel of the welder to foot pedal mode so it was operating as if I was using the torch controller.

The foot pedal was finally working and the arc was not going crazy. However, my welds were still not turning out tool well. I had a nice, relatively uncontaminated tungsten ground to a nice sharp point, as well as, a clean work piece. However, my “welds” were not looking all that great and they had lots of pinholes in them. I decided to get up and take a little break thinking that it might help me to refocus myself later, hopefully resulting in better welds. The trick that I found after watching many tig welding videos online is that you have to be comfortable. That was the one thing that I was not doing.

I was sitting on a stool that was a little too high for the table I was working on. I decided that I was going to either have to cut part of the chair legs or use something else. I decided that the fastest and easiest way to solve my problem would be to just pull in Roberto the Robot and use him as a seat. The results were outstanding! My welds actually looked semi-decent, something that I had not experienced in the past. I guess the biggest tip that helped me improve my tig welding capabilities was just to be relaxed and comfortable, at least to start off. It also helps to have the right kind of gas connected to the welder if you want anything resembling a non-hippie weld. While running the AHP Alphatig 200x on 120 volts I was able to produce some pretty good looking welds after watching many of Chucke2009 and Mr. Tig videos on Youtube. Below is a review of the AHP Alphatig 200x by Mr. Tig if you were looking for a second, more professional review. However, for the average homeowner who just wants to expand his or her welding capabilities, the AHP Alphatig will definitely give them a good start.