Added a water cooler and water cooled torch...

SidecarFlip

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Location
SE Michigan
Welder
Hobart Handler 210, Lincoln Square Wave TIG, Vulcan 205 stand alone TIG, Hyper Therm CIC Plasma cutter, Titanium 45 amp Plasma Cutter, Lincoln Ranger gas driven ac/dc welder, Harris oxy-acetelyne cutting torch and welding torch, varuous owned shielding gas bottles and a bunch of other stuff....
Bought a new CK Worldwide 250 Amp flex head TIG torch from Weldfablulous and a TIG cooler from Everlast. Have a big aluminum plasma table job coming up that has to be cut and welded and the torch that came with my Pro-Tig 205 isn't capable of delivering the required amperage for big aluminum welding, it's only rated at 150 amps and I need some buffer, besides, no point in heating my right hand up... Bought the torch with 25 foot leads, that way I can keep the machine away from the welding table and reduce the turbulence of the machine fan exit from blowing away my shielding gas and keep the CFM down a bit which in turn uses less gas from the bottle and I also use a gas diffuser with the ceramic or Pyrex cups.

Torch was 208 bucks, adapters were $120 and the cooler was 400 or so but totally necessary for heavy aluminum welding. Besides, a water cooled torch can TIG anything not just aluminum.

I'm using 3/32" pure Tungsten on aluminum and Thorated 2% on ferrous metals. I get all my tung from Midwest Tungsten.

Be apprised that if you buy a replacement water cooled TIG torch, you will need additional fittings, like the adapters that adapt the coolant lines to the cooler and in my case an additional gas through DINSE connector for the torch unless you remove the existing DINSE connector from your existing torch, I didn't because I want to keep my gas cooled torch intact as a spare.

I also bought TIG cooler fluid from them. Not about to run distilled water and you cannot use automotive antifreeze in them so TIG fluid it is. One time buy as 2 gallons fills the system and barring leaks should never have to be replaced.

On welders, my Pro-Tig is a +10 machine. In fact, I sold my Lincoln Square Wave Weld Pack machine, the Pro-Tig is light years easier to set up and use. and is way more user friendly and being an solid state machine, is much more efficient on electricity usage as well plus compared to the Lincoln is a really cheap date. Paid 5 grand for the Lincoln and under a grand for the Pro-Tig, kind of a no brainer and the Pro-Tig is much smoother in arc start and it also stick welds low hydrogen.

Sold my Hyper Therm as well and bought 2 Titanium plasma cutters, a 65 amp for the plasma table and a 45 for hand cutting around the shop. The 65 comes complete with a CNC plasma table interface, very nice and both are of course IGBT machines as well. All of them are lightweight compared to conventional transformer machines and all have a 3 year warranty on them from HF. First year is free you pay (reasonable) for the 2nd and 3rd year.

Only machines I have left are the 2 Hobart 210 MIGS that I will never sell. Great machines. I have and my employees have run miles of INE .030 solid wire through them with zero issues plus I can spray arc with them at 210 amps. They are both heavy (transformer machines) but 100% reliable and of course require 75-25 shielding gas.
 

SidecarFlip

Active member
Messages
36
Good Post Points
5
Location
SE Michigan
Welder
Hobart Handler 210, Lincoln Square Wave TIG, Vulcan 205 stand alone TIG, Hyper Therm CIC Plasma cutter, Titanium 45 amp Plasma Cutter, Lincoln Ranger gas driven ac/dc welder, Harris oxy-acetelyne cutting torch and welding torch, varuous owned shielding gas bottles and a bunch of other stuff....
I should probably add that the Everlast cooler didn't arrive unscathed. It was well packed in the box with foam and bubble wrap around it but the box looked like Fed-Ex used it for basketball practice. The output QD was bent down and the cabinet had a large dent in it, all fixable which I attended to right away. Only problem with it is, it's puke green like all the Everlast stuff is...lol

Like I stated earlier, if you purchase a water cooled TIG torch to replace an air cooled one, don't forget to purchase the correct fittings to hook it up as the threads on the torch cable ends are all left hand threaded. Weldfabulous has the required fittings but they don't come with the torch, have to be bought seperately. Took just over 2 gallons of coolant to fill all the lines and have the coolant level at the correct spot in the cooler tank. Lots of colors in the shop now. The Hobarts are cream colored, the Vulcan 205 is orange, the Titanium plasma's are light green and my Lincoln engine drive is of course red. The torch ships with 2 back caps but no ceramic nozzles or diffusers but I have all that anyway and the torch is a flex head with super flex cables.

All set up and ready to rock, soon as I get the aluminum sheet delivered.
 

SidecarFlip

Active member
Messages
36
Good Post Points
5
Location
SE Michigan
Welder
Hobart Handler 210, Lincoln Square Wave TIG, Vulcan 205 stand alone TIG, Hyper Therm CIC Plasma cutter, Titanium 45 amp Plasma Cutter, Lincoln Ranger gas driven ac/dc welder, Harris oxy-acetelyne cutting torch and welding torch, varuous owned shielding gas bottles and a bunch of other stuff....
Found out the hard way that the CK water cooled torch requires 'special' consumables as in the ones I have for my gas cooled torch won't fit so I had to order consumables that would and they aren't cheap. Oh well, should be in this week sometime. I also ordered 25 feet of stranded copper welding cable to extend my ground clamp to the same length as my CK Superflex torch leads are, 25 feet. Spartan Cable has it and much less than TSC sells it by the foot.\

Gotta pay to play I guess.
 
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