This is The American Craftsmen. I do a little bit of everything on this channel whether it be flying drones, driving classic cars, camera and gear reviews, welding, storm chasing, making rings and knives, and learning new skills.
So far no issues! Just a couple small complaints. I kinda want to make another video with it where I really put it to the test and try to get it to shut down or see what it takes to break.
got the arc captain , impressed with it for $120 delivered. works well, good quality cables and electrode holder, and decent gun. runs on 120v, will be used for simple fixes, remote areas. still will use the big welders for more involved work.
Just picked one up for $100 during Amazon's prime days. I've been looking for a new MIG welder since my harbor freight welder fell off at 10 ft ladder and was destroyed. Thanks for the review and I'm stoked to try mine out soon and make some money with it. I also want to try lift Tig but wll have to purchase the kit.
How do you store yours? I cannot find anything in the manual about turning it off. My first vulcan helmet ran the battery down if I did not set it to grind mode and this new style has a blinking green light in grind mode. Just trying to find out how to turn it off to save battery life. Thanks.
I think it automatically powers off after a set time. I don't do anything to mine other than leave it in the hood bag where random lights won't turn it on
It's honestly really hard to pick one that is better than the other. In my opinion the arccaptain welds better than the titanium but you only have 1 knob to adjust settings. Vs the titanium has the 2 knobs for fine tuning.
Is there much difference in clarity between the two Vulcan hoods when welding? I have a Jackson Nexgen and my boss had the 10.1 Vulcan. It was actually better when welding than mine. Just wondering if there was a difference in clarity when welding between the two Vulcan helmets.
@@TheAmericanCraftsmen I'm brand new to welding. I just bought this machine. Do you have to move the ground clamp to the negative (-) terminal to do stick welding?
Might not have ran stick as well because you left your ground lead on +. instructions for wire feed are + ground. instructions for stick is to switch the ground lead to - and put the stinger on +
What are the dimensions of the lens because no where can I find that information! If I buy I want to buy some cheater lens but don't know the dimensions!
@@TheAmericanCraftsmen both the Yeswelder flux 135 and Arccaptain mig 130 are around $100 usd at the moment. Still debating if I should pick up one of the two or just pick up a Titanium Easy Flux 125 for long term reliability. Titanium 125 is on sale right now for $130.
Do you ever have a problem striking an arc? I just got one and on stick 240, set like yours, i have to keep striking and striking and after like 5 trys it'll arc. Never had that on the Lincolns or Millers I trianed on. Tried Blue Demon 6010 and Harbor Freight 6013 both the same, even grounded directly to my piece and no difference.
It's definitely a harder machine to strike an arc on. Yea I had a few issues relighting the arc i think what helped was cleaning the slag off the tip of the rod
It's a green shade under the hood, but once you strike up it goes to true color, white arc with a slight blue glow around the edges, crispiest glass for the price, can't recommend it enough. Used it for over a year under heavy industrial applications, no issues
No shit, not gonna pay 600 for outdated tech. unless it's a god tier 3m or euro tech hood you shouldn't EVER pay more than 250 , glass quality reaches diminishing returns after that, and you're paying for reliability and warranty at that point
It can weld aluminum great. So far Its been a great machine. 220v is best. Most people I hear complain are on 110v. That welder can do way better welds. I ran a miller for years, an older transformer welder. The 205 is very good if you set it up correctly and use 220v. It can do some very nice dime welds on both steel and aluminum.
I have definitely got it to run way better on the steel side. I think the aluminum side might be a dud because I've looked up settings tried them with little to no improvement
@niceguydmm sputtering so start the arc sometimes. When it does that it shocks the crap out of me. Other times I have the amps cranked up and I can't get a puddle to form. Tried messing around with frequency with no improvement.
@@TheAmericanCraftsmenim running 75- 25+ at 180 amps.. haven't figured out the perfect hrz .. using lanthanated for aluminum.. and 100% argon First aluminum project working just fine. On old patchwork like radar mounts for oxidized fishing vessels it's necessary to add filler rod to help blend in to get the good dimes. But I'm new to aluminum so there's that.... But people love my work
@shanehester4852 • 1h ago (edited) Listen do not buy this welder. I bought one because of the reviews. I got my Tig 205 set it up and no matter what I did it will not arc on ac. It will only arc on de. The only thing I need it to do is aluminum thats what I bought it for.So I started researching on the forums and lo and behold lots of people have same issue. I took it back next day and told them I'm not even gonna risk another one and had to pay a 200$ restock fee and ordered a Lincoln for 600$ more well less the 200$ restock fee.
Nobody's gonna mention the vtx antenna missing during power up? LEDs look very nice! Please put the antenna on the vtx. You can easily damage it. Hopefully it has a low power mode. If you are flying later and are having range issues this might be the reason.
That is good. Not sure if low power mode can cause damage. I’m sure you must have some experience throughout your fpv journey. I just have to have an antenna connected on anything that transmits. Luckily the few times I missed that it was off don’t seem to have damaged anything. Those leds look ridiculous lol. Now I need them on my quad. I would pair them up with tinys realpit and put them on an aux channel. I would likely cause an accident if I flew it around my house.
I've flown it multiple times after I put the LEDs on with no range issues at all. I've flown it around my house at dark and it was so bright theat the neighbors came out to check it out🤣 they are even clearly visible in broad daylight which is insane
Lookin good. Anyone who is doing this on a frame where the props are in view should make sure to not have lights in the front cause it will reflect off the props. Flying at night or dusk is of course when the lights will look the best and the light reflecting off the props is pretty bad to fly with. Looks like that's a dead cat frame so prolly not a problem for you. I have a bunch of this fly high cob lighting and have struggled with what drone to put it on. My drone with the best night time camera is also my long range and it adds weight... and putting it on a freestyle drone doesn't seem great cause i crash all the time and its another thing to break. What was your solution?
I didn't notice any weight or battery difference putting it on my quad. I have crashed several times with those LEDs on and I havent had them break yet.
If you are any good with CAD, redesign your quad arm protectors to have a channel 4mm wide and 1.7mm deep right down the center of the arm. I did that for the Rotor Riot TANQ frame and put it up on printables.
Thanks mate I'll check it out. I have a Tanq as well and since the thing is a brick already adding a couple grams really doesn't mater and it sounds like you've already designed a solution to reduce the chance of the lights getting damaged. I'll check it out.@@Monty_FPV
I have the Lincoln 135 welder. Couple of questions 1. For 1/4 inch steel, what settings would you suggest? 2. For flux core wire welding (no gas), what terminal inside the box should the wire going to the ground clamp be hooked to?
So for welding with flux core the electrode (wire) needs to be negative. As for settings to weld ¼" steel with probably crank the volts all the way up and wire feed maybe mid way? Might have to mess around with the wire feed a bit to get it to where you need it.
Great work! It looks so good! I always recommend soldering right to vbat, for me that's usually to just piggy back on the main battery leads where they're soldered to the esc 👌 the 6S variety is just as bright as the 3-4S and the 5v, but vbat wont put any stress on regulators 👍 Thanks so much for sharing
I have the Hobart Handler 190 welder I got tired of switching from wire to flux core so I went and bought the titanium 125 it is a very good welder for the price and it also welds really good
