I'm in the market for a good TIG welder for home use. I have 240V available in the garage. I already weld with a MIG but want to do aluminum and produce good looking/quality beads.
Price range around 2500$. Any recommendations from the resident gurus?

 

If you can find a Miller Dynasty 200 or 250 used that would be the ticket. Or the Miller Syncrowave 250 used. Either machine will do a fine job. The Dynasty is portable weighing in at around 80lbs. The syncrowave is a heavyweight shop machine at over 350lbs!

The Thermo-Arc Pro wave tig machine is another inverter based portable machine that works well on light aluminum rated at around 200amps. They go for under 2k in the used market.

 

If you primarily intend on doing mostly light duty stuff with occasional heavier (thicker) welding I'd probably look at something like a Miller Syncrowave 180... You can get a 180SD "Runner" package which includes EVERYTHING you need to start other than a bottle of argon and consumables including a wheeled cart for the machine. You can usually find that setup in the $2000.00 range. It runs a max of 180 amps which is good to about .250" in A/C (aluminum) before you have to preheat the piece. Another "starter" model that's slightly below the above model is the Miller Econo-Tig; which you can buy for around $1400.00 and it has a 165 amp max on A/C. If you're wanting a badass unit for light to heavy production use the Syncrowave 250 is what I have; it has a water cooler for continuous high-amp welding without overheating the torch and can weld 1/2" aluminum in one pass without preheating. It has a max of 330 amps but it costs about $3800.00 fully loaded. Another new line Miller has that is nothing short of AMAZING is their new line of inverter TIG welders... The Dynasty series is what they call them and they are BADASS!!! I've welded with them a few times at trade and welding shows and can make the statement that if you can't drop and killer bead with this welder you need to give up! It has advanced squarewave arc for longer tungsten life and senses if you contact either the filler rod or the material with the tungsten and pulses the power and dials it back so it won't contaminate the weld. It also has built in pulsing and is very compact. The Dynasty 200 is their starter and it costs about $2800.00 I believe but its good to 250 amps and can be used on standard 115v power (albeit with a lower duty cycle). You've heard of a "smart bomb"? Well, this is a "smart welder!"

I learned on a Lincoln Squarewave 175 (they've since upgraded and renamed it to the Squarewave 180) and it was and excellent and SIMPLE little welder. It was good to 185 amps and was air cooled (though a cooler is available). It was a good piece to learn on and I never had a problem with it. But when I started doing more and more aluminum, particularly cast aluminum, I had to upgrade to a bigger machine. The Lincoln's and excellent welders and I can certainly recommend them as well... The 180 starts at about $1500.00 I believe, and they go up from there with their Squarewave 275 and 375 which are big, more production oriented welders.

After having owned both brands as well as welding with an ESAB (the ORIGINAL Heli-Arc) and a Hobart I've grown very fond of the Millers... IMO they are the best ones. When I decide to upgrade my Syncrowave 250 it will be with another Miller...Maybe I can find one of their badass Aero-Wave; they usually only sell them to aerospace companies and it is a friggin' killer unit!

Anyway, hopes this helps.
-Jeb

 

This is largely a confirmation of what jb and tj have said.

I work in the Weld Engineering Group in a large aerospace manufacturing company, and we do a lot of TIG (GTAW) welding. Over the last 25 years we have used a lot of different power supplies and we have settled on Miller.
If you can afford the buy-in, go with inverter technology such as the Thermo-Arc or the Miller Maxstar. They are incredible machines.
If the budget is not there, you can't go wrong with the Miller Syncrowave series. We have 20 or so Syncrowave 300 units here and they will do anything you ask of them. Their downside is that they are large machines, weighing a lot and taking a great deal of space, plus you'll need a "chiller" (water-cooling unit) to go with them.
My advice is to talk to your local welding supply house, see what they sell/support, and what they recommend for your application.
Good luck.

Larry
code5coupe

 

I've heard a couple of very positive comments around the shop for
HTP's inverter. I don't know too much about it.
Am currently using a lincoln squarewave :o

 

I bought the Thermal Arc 185 Tig machine. It is a great welder. My choices came down to the Miller Syncrowave 180 and the Thermal arc. The Miller is transformer based machine and weighs over 200 lbs, where the Thermal arc is a little more powerful Inverter machine and weighs about 40~50 lbs.

 

Thanks for all the great info!

 

I have a Lincoln Square Wave 175 Pro that I use for my garage. $2000 brand new with tank and cart. Works well. I weld aluminum all the time, you just can't weld for over a length of time at higher amps because of the duty cycle. Hope this helps.