Need feedback on a welding outfit

Hopefullly someone here has bought this outfit, knows someone who has, or even a Northern Tools employee who might have knowledge of returns and customer complaints.

I'm looking at the two listed items for light welding projects around the house. Item numbers are 25494 and 20462 at the northern tools website.

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...isSearch=25494

I believe the stick welder will be fine, but my question is regarding the tig attachment. The description states, "steel and stainless".

I question if I can I use this torch attachment for aluminum. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

FWIW, I know its a cheap setup, but for the amount of welding I'll do, I can't see the higher priced wire feed jobs.

TIA

LF

 

I order to use it for aluminum you have to reverse the polarities, use an inert gas rig and buy the right stinger

 

Ya... The Tig option is nice. Generally, a 20-90a stick unit isn't worth a crap.
I've got a Clark 95e and I haven't touched it since I got my wirefeed.

For 120v units, fluxcore wirefeed is the only thing hot enough to work... and no stainless or aluminum with that.


But... I've never done Tig, so beyond the polarity issue, and the fact that you must have the proper shielding gas, I have no idea about the amperage needed for general Tig work... but I do know that aluminum takes a LOT more heat than steel because it is such a good thermal conductor.

 

You need more amps (About double) to do aluminum and I believe high frequency. That is a Tig for steel not aluminum. There is more to aluminum than reversing the polarity. It's also a DC machine you weld aluminum with AC.

This would be the lowest end machine that would do aluminum. From what I have heard from people that tig aluminum this is at the lower end of amperage on the machines top end. It only has a 20% duty cycle at 180 amps. You will want to use straight argon for aluminum.

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200520339_200520339