For anyone reading this that has never welded, if you use those welding glasses to weld, you can expect to look like a fool that visited a tanning bed, wore goggle and fell asleep. The reason why a welding helmet is a helmet is the UV skin burns. Don't get it twisted, it's every bit as bad as a sunburn. I found this out by watching a colleague do some welding while holding a spare welding glass (oblong shaped) over my eyes. Not one of the old guys warned me, but they sure laughed the next few days as I was in pain and had a visible square of white skin around my eyes.
@@sarinsarin7898 The west copies much also that you know little about. Today, advances in science in the west are being driven by Chinese students. Pick up an impactful scientific journal sometime and look at the names. Hmmm, I wonder why!
@@ocayaro lol, riddle me this, for instance, why is it that your friends the chinese built an almost exact replica of the f25 or f35 cant remember now stealth fighter jet yet the US had ALREADY built such a aircraft?????????, have the US forgotten how to make stealth aircraft?. Oh and why is it that when you can buy an electrical item designed by a western country yet built in china (to cut costs) the chinese factories all of a sudden are building the EXACT same thing with no brand name on it????????. Your journals mean absolutely nothing when it comes to copywrite laws and patents, im not trying to discredit the intellectual people of china, they are an intelligent people, thats not my point. My point is that because most things designed by the west (because of greed mainly). The chinese do copy ALOT of designs because they know it sells (who wouldn't). I think its smart if you can get away with it, thats my point. I have had my say and am now done with this section.
One huge problem I see is hot sparks flying into the unit and melting the insualtion on transformer or something on PCB considering how close is the electrode to the actual unit. A DIY shield in front would help with this problem I think.
For a first time weld, this isn't bad! You should've seen me! Just a couple things that really helped me, strike the rod like a match, it is a lot less likely to stick. Next, try a rod called 6011, it is nicknamed "garbage rod" because it will weld through the nastiest rust and paint so you don't have to be as picky cleaning up your steel. Third, with 6011, use a "whip" technique, thats where you hold still for a second, then rapidly move forward about an inch and then back to the front of the melt puddle, this will give you a good strong weld, you got it down when it gets that nice stack of coins laid sideways look. Also, definitely DON'T weld anything galvanized, the white/ yellow fuzz that forms is a dead giveaway if you do get into it. The fumes from it are BAD news! And don't forget the most important part, HAVE FUN! Welding is just cool!!
for a first attempt at welding you had a right good go at it. i can actually see a use for this, it would be much better if they gave you an electrode holder on a lead and put the main circuitry in a box at the other end with the grounding clamp
so it welds - 12 minutes in only to see that it works? for a person that might need to do a few inches of welds per year why would this be a bad thing? I don't understand why there are so many channels shitting on people being able to use cheap equipment to do small jobs. rate it at homeowner grade or less but this thing welded better than a harbor freight mig welder.
I have no idea why, but for some reason the comments on this video are absolutely hilarious compared to other videos of yours. Apparently cheap shitty chinese welder machines draw in a special kind of crowd...
It sure looks like it welds, but it also looks terrible ergonomically, I feel like it'd be better to have the power supply at the ground clamp and have a lead running to the electrode, holding the entire welder in your hand and trying to weld can't be comfortable.
Those 'welding glasses' are going to give you a nice face tan. My guess is that you are supposed to poke them through newspaper or cardboard to protect your face.😂
Personally I'm interested in getting one solely on the fact it takes up very little space and I could use it at home, as opposed to going to a friend's metalwork shop just to weld a couple bits of steel together
I’m a reasonably skilled welder and I think this thing isn’t terrible. It’s cheap and compact enough to be worth keeping one in your van just in case - and it will clearly do light duty welding ok. Typically for working in difficult locations you have a compact inverter that goes on a harness or belt. Not sure if this is really better or worse for that application. The bulk of the unit will definitely get in the way for a lot of tasks though, compared to a normal electrode holder. If they did a cheap spool gun like this I would say that’s more useful.
You can get those little compact inverters with conventional cable connections for as little as $50 (plus cables) on eBay, probably the same welder in a more sensible box.
By the time I ever tried stick welding I'd been gas welding for a while. So I was used to looking at a puddle and walking it. But when I was done and my bead had flux on it I was horrified until I chipped it clean.
@@1pcfred It's definitely a lot harder then would appear. When I first started I welded a chair that broke together (overly confident), then it broke when my father sat in it. I've only welded a few things since, maybe got a little better lol!
@@fjs1111 welding is a skill developed through practice and training. The people really good welding all have a lot of experience. There's no shortcuts that I know of. I guess being trained by someone that's good can save a lot of time figuring things out for yourself. You still have to develop the mental pathways for it all though. The muscle memory and what have you.
@@fjs1111 I don't weld frequently myself so I do a few practice beads before I try to weld something I care about. I try to practice on something like what I'm going to do the weld on. Same thickness metal. Then once I'm getting a good bead I tackle the actual weld. Of course if practice goes good and the bead on work doesn't that ticks me off. That's happened.
Hahaha i laugh at those guys bellow saying how bad his welds are, as if he advertised himself as a welder! Welders are among the biggest know-it-all jerks on the planet. I don't respect anyone's experience and knowledge if they act like a jerk, if you're new to welding and listen to those guys' opinions you're going to hate it before you even start with it, they will criticize your first welds and your machine like you're supposed to pay 10.000 just to learn how to weld, they will kill your ambition and they'll behave like they're dead serious about you doing a huge harm to something and wont listen a crap from you. Don't listen to anyone unless you wanna sit in the corner like a wet cat and happy welding everyone!
That's right. I also see this way of thinking in the field of electronics hobbies, here in Europe there have often been heated debates in relevant forums in which some "specialists" with their large factories boast their fine equipment and kill the enthusiasm of young people for expressing their "one and only rights" views. In the past, these disputes have concerned components and their procurement, the lion's share of "specialists" think that it is only wise to buy semiconductors from a special reseller, who of course does not sell these 1-2 components to the average citizen. Then, these "professionals" offer to sell it themselves for 3-4 times the price of Mouser, for example. Actually, I have been forced to buy parts from China couple of times due to circumstances (because it is not easy to get elsewhere), even the power controllers and PFC, LLC etc. converter IC circuits have so far arrived 100% working, even from China, where they are also sold to large and well-known resellers. So it really isn't always necessary (not listen to these stories like "you must have and you must buy") that you have to have a fancy and expensive fleet of equipment to operate in a certain field or you only need to get equipment or details from the places with the highest mark-up andonly with the most famous names to create something. No, sometimes you dont really need to this, even not listen this rumors. Well, it really seems that electronics as just a hobby has actually been killed for a last decade now. Added to this is the junk thinking that "everything can be bought in a store" and the negative general attitude towards manual creation ... the result is that the "makers" sit in bed all day long, grow fat with burgers and boast that only IT (gaming junk, betting junk, cryptojunk, etc.) is all what world need.
keeping the unit on (and its fan running) but having the clamp not connected (or on something safe and out of hands reach so you cant possibly create a short) Would be a good idea to help it cool down, as just turning it off after you are done might heatsoak all the components and kill them
when the stick is in dc reverse or negative, ⅔ of the heat is in the rod and ⅓ is in the base metal. that's for thin metal. if you put the welding rod in the ground handle and made the welder clamp to the base metal ⅔ of the heat would be in the base metal and ⅓ in the rod. that's for welding thicker metals. over a quarter inch.
That did better than i expected TBH. For someone with no other welder and a need to make really basic random one-off things like a bracket for your workbench or fixing something i could actually see it being useful.
That's my take. It's not ideal pro kit but for a hobbyist it's the ticket. I have a big welder and I could see myself breaking that gun out for some things.
Awesome vid and info! lmao @ Take it apart first to have a look before you plug it in and melt it. I love it! I have the Arc-130 digital version coming in today. Just curious to see how well it will bead together thin stuff like old couch hardware, bed frames and such. What rods would go well with it. Would be nice to have for quick easy on the spot repairs, something to pair with an old 2.5 kw gen set for temporary mobile fixes. I'm a disabled retired army combat engineer and I always found welding to be very relaxing. If not for myself but to also help out family and friends. Plus I find not as many people bug you while your welding lol
DaZZled and impressed. Far more power than I would have guessed. As a long time (garage) "stick welder " (aka Buzz Box). I could "HEAR" that is sounded useful. The heavy weighted hand-unit seemed to be the only downer. I would grab that in a heart beat for small jobs (not general work, mainly do to the goofy factor:). You gave it some heartache and it continued to work. Bravo! That was a shock (no pun intended). Little bit off your area of expertise... but your job was weld done. Thanks so much. p.s. I generally despise any off shore equipment like this. But you can always dream :) Cheers!
I don't mind off shore stuff (even chinese) if it's well made to standards... problem with chinese stuff especially is they are MORE than happy to cut corners if pushed on price... and if they're told to do it as cheap as possible, this is what you get. :) I was impressed by the bead on Mike's first ever weld, till the thing he was welding to the box section just lifted off...
@@TheChipmunk2008 Stick welding isn't the easiest thing to pick up. By his second bead he'd improved a lot. Heck I can fail to tack stuff sometimes myself and I've had a few goes at it by now.
@@TheChipmunk2008 I do agree with that Chip'. My bad for putting all off shore tools in the same tool bad.. Clearly tools of varying quality are available. As we know, it's basically ALL made across the pond (somewhere). I've just run into some stinkers. But like they say, if you need it and it's the only tool you have available.. it's worth a $1,000,000 :) Thanks for the comment. 200 points awarded. p.s. If mike just accounted for thickness.. well, that's a pass (pun intended)
I've had to go up a ladder to weld stuff, the small factor stick welder i needed worked just fine. I'd imagine it would be absolutely horrible to weld up with this. :))
I have a large Hobart 230 amp 240v welder and I think this thing is awesome. I did not think it would work nearly this well. By the way the hotter you can run it without burning a hole the better, because you want good penetration for a strong weld. And don't travel too fast, you have to give it time to make a good puddle. It's always easier to weld if you can lay the work flat.
@@deeperlayer "high air flow"... even if the fan is high airflow - I don't think the airflow is high enough to push splatter away at the other end where the transformer is.
well my welder weighs about 80lbs its a portable hobart mig135 A 120v and for the size and weight of that unit it would be worth it just to tuck in a tool box for short welds and dang 15% duty that would be suitable for small repair stuff on a short notice.
I’m a skilled stick welder, I’m tempted to buy one and try it for the lols. However with that volt/amp curve, that’s not going to weld very nicely. The output connector looks like a standard dinse socket so you could swap the polarity relatively easily
Holy fuck Mike. You're the ONLY person EVER to glow a stick, bend it numerous ways AND keep it's flux intact. 100% legend. also. this video was funny af.. MOAR!!
I own a lipo battery version of these welders. I work as a car recovery driver, we attempt a repair on a car before we tow it. This has been handy for repairing exhaust brackets, small things that have broken away etc. The weld from them is rough to say the least as you can not get a stable amperage, But if you are stuck at 3 in the morning, miles away from home. It did repair a broken car spring hanger on the side of the motorway, The family on their way to a holiday, this would have been a major dissapointment to the kids. 25 minutes of jacking and welding they were happily on their way. I know these are cheap Chinese crap and they don't last that long. But for my application of the welder, it may be used only for a few minutes, once every few months. I would not use this for any prolonged welding. Plus I can weld anywhere, even on the side of a motorway if you shield the flash from passing motorists.
As someone who has purchased some crap welders before, I will say that is not the worst welder I have seen. Definitely hard to use as the bulk would prevent you from getting in the proper position.
That’s how all arc welders work though - you leave it on all the time with the fan running, and just don’t touch the electrode to the work when you’re not using it.
@@evan010101 Sure, I get that, but its not really a valid reason to continue the design choice. Especially considering this thing is targeting first-time welders or welding in unusual locations. People who aren't going to understand the heating and duty cycle implications of switching it off between welds. Or situations where it might be super useful to set this heavy thing down for a moment.
For a Chinesium product im actually quite impressed. For the odd welding job here and there i guess its actually ok. If you had clean metal joints i think you could get a reasonable result with it. Your material had rusty surfaces, so the result was never going to be great. Arc welding is about the hardest of all to do. As you have to "Strike" the arc and then maintain your hand movement to keep the rod tip and a constant 5mm from the surface while at the same time feeding the rod as it burns away.
Quite impressive performance for it's size. 70-80 A on stick is fine for small repair jobs up to 3/8 in. Not for big jobs, and I can see the weld sparks eventually shorting out the boards especially doing overhead jobs.
I dont think I will be rushing out to get one of these, ok it works , sort of but why would you want to be waving the whole welder about. Inverter welders are pretty small these days and you can swap the leads if you want. Love the glasses supplied, imagine the panda eyes after a welding session.
It’s melting away the material like its set to high isn’t the issue. You are not close enough. The arc is flopping around blowing material away. You want to start the arc. Move in to create a pool. Bring the rod closer to the pool then pull away. Do this all the way across.
welding duty cycle is 10mins. So 15% is 1.5 minutes at 120a followed by 8.5 mins of rest I'm guessing to keep the unit cool. most welders are 70% duty while industrial are 100% literally never need a cool down.
I can imagine the target audience for this is hole-in-the-wall repair shops in developing countries that bike and motorbike RU-vid tourists end up at when something snaps. Any welder is better than no welder…
These comments are a dumpster fire. Mike, great job. Thanks for going through this and putting it out there. Very interesting content. Ignore these folks in the comments.
I see the appeal of the handheld format. Too bad it’s not yet been done well. Surprising that this thing wasn’t more flimsy. In a few months, when this gets randomly recommended to peoples “home” tab, and the youtube welding experts come here - the comments are going to be a battlefield…
yeah, more of a 'dumbell' format would've made more sense, simply for ergonomics, maybe the earth lead and xfrmer in the base below the hand, a slim handle (with trigger switch) and an electrode holder and the electronics etc in the top half? And you're NOT wrong about the comments section
You hit the nail on the head when you said "For tacking something together at height" as a use case, you could attach A lead to the end of it and use it like A normal welder too.
For the right job this looks like an excellent tool. It appears to have plenty of power and would probably weld better if you ground the surfaces first.
As you say, amazing that it is even possible. Great portability, good little repair machine for the tool bag. If it could be paired with a car starter battery pack and battery powered angle grinder, one could do 5 minute(?) bodge jobs in any location. Certainly not for serious work.
I do some welding as a side job, mostly FCAW and MIG, and (rarely) SMAW when doing heavier stuff. I'm not convinced there's an advantage to this thing's "portability" over a traditional SMAW source, especially when you've got to wield the entire weight of it in your hands. That's not great when the quality of your welds very much depends upon your ability to control your hand movements, and I'd imagine that after a few minutes straight of welding, one would be struggling to hold it up, let alone steady. I do think you're right that it needs to be given a fair shake by an experienced stick welder, and I'd like to see a follow-up video.
Not a welder but I've seen people carrying their machines up with a shoulder strap. They are quite light (2kg) and then you have full control over the rod. The diagram in the manual shows that the electrode is negative and clamp positive, but hard to make out what they're trying to communicate. Ergonomics aside, looks like a useful product to have somewhere, not taking up space, for quick jobs. The penetration issue is probably due to either dirty surfaces or improper technique (welding thin to thick is a bit more challenging).
Neat video but I feel like a gun form factor like that is just about the worst possible choice for a stick welder. Thanks for taking the bullet for the rest of us! :-)
Positive ground for shallow wide welding beads (thin stock), Negative ground for deep penetration narrow welding beads... 220-240V be fine. Galvanized and aluminium rich coatings reject weld fusion. Best to practice on plain mild steel with freshly ground surfaces to remove all oxides. Biggest issue with that machine is the weight and awkwardness of it, much easier with a normal hand piece. Probably find 40-60 amps is more than enough with thin wall tube. You have picked some rather difficult learning materials.
Yea, chinesium level. My made in china corded impact wrench died after using it twice. 1st was hub/bearing nut, 2nd was control arm bolts. At 3rd attempt to use it, it started throwing sparks all around. Opened it to check whats going on, brushes misaligned, eaten half way. The thing was so shoddy inside I tossed it into electrical garbage bin instantly. You gonna buy a tool, buy a solid one, not the cheap one. In the end had to get another one, Milwaukee this time.
I bought a similar shape handheld welder from aliexpress last year, but it was for stud welding, rather than a stick welding. Basically welding nail-like studs directly onto automotive panels so you have something to pull out dents with. It worked pretty well.
Actually I am surprised with the performance of that unit, not bad at all! Best place for those glasses is the bin, nothing worse than UV radiation burn of the eyes so investing in good quality welding mask is a good idea. Good to practise on that heavy piece of metal, 100 amps is a good current setting to start with and try and run straight weld lines ( slowly and consistently to deposit the weld metal ). The light guage metal I suggest 70 amps or less as it will blow holes in the tube, tack the pieces together first to hold them. A ventilation fan is a good idea, smoke from the welding process is toxic especially metals containing Zinc and Cadmium. Welding is a great skill to have, grab plenty of old metal offcuts to practise on and a box of general purpose welding rods, have fun!
spool it to get a coil, zigzag it to get a resistor and smash it to get a fuse. interesting effect: the fuse also shorts the incoming wires to trip another fuse
You can make it a lot more reliable, change all the IGBT's and electrolytic caps to parts from a reliable distributor like RS, Farnell, Digikey and so. The IGBT's and electrolytic caps are usually low quality and under rated as these are the most expensive components.
That´s just a different PCB-layout for the power-side of a mini-welder, and mini-welders function reasonably good. I don´t think it´s even lower quality than my 17€ mini-welder (althought mine claims 25% and not only 15% duty cycle), since this thing costs 9-10 times more (only based on reasons of "novelty", of course, but still...). What all of them miss, is a soft-start, and a rod-anti-stick-feature. Both features demand costly and voluminous components (intergrated circuits get cheaper and smaller, but power-resistors and iron-powder-ring-coils cannot get even cheaper or smaller), and so, would´t fit the price- and size-tag any more.
14:24 - that's an angry little box if it can do that without bursting into flames. 10/10 China, well done. I feel more high power devices need to come with Type 2 EVSE sockets on them. I know I can get 3kw out my wall socket, but there's a 7kw cable right outside my front door...
I'd argue the opposite, a 32A industrial socket is cheaper to install than an EV charge point, and you can charge your EV off it at 7kW with a suitable adaptor cable... :D
Maybe it's just the shape making me think this but it's a metal hot glue gun. You aren't going to use it for any precision work but having it to bodge stuff together is definitely valuable once and a while.
I've got a Chinese plasma cutter and a Chinese Tig welder in the garage, but I've never plucked up the courage to plug them in. The similarly lack EMC and fuses.
I don't like the way they have crushed the mains inlet cable but as a tool I can see it has it's uses. There have been times when I wished I could weld a bracket or something small and could never really justify the cost or the space requirements of a full size welder. Be handy for some contractors to keep in the back of the van etc. I think it has it's place.
Most people don't know what a duty cycle is and how it's measured, most professional welders are around 50-60%, home welders 20-30%. the duty cycle is measured as, how long you can weld at full power, in a 10 minute period of time, example: 20% duty cycle , you can weld for 2 minutes and then stop welding but leave it on so the fan can cool it. 15% would be 1 minute and 30 seconds of welding. the reason there is no trigger is so you can leave it on to cool it when you aren't welding. Believe me a non welder is going to fry those circuit boards long before the transformer.
@@actionjksn no doubt you have an inverter welder, fine if you can do the jobs you have with that welder then your well suited for each other. I don't have a problem with that.
@@robinborkowski5598 it's just a plain old ARC welder. I would probably get more use from a mig or tig welder,but this is just what I happen to own. I don't really use it that often the last time was I fixed the mount for a foot peg on my buddies motorcycle, it worked perfectly for that.
@@actionjksn I didn't say they are bad , and even with inverter welders you can get up to 40% duty cycle, but they cost a fortune. If your making your living with a machine, you want the best you can afford, if your using it for odd jobs you buy the one that will do the anticipated jobs.
Yes welding is by definition a good RF transmitter, broadband enough to go almost from DC to light, and 1 kW plus of power. No mains filtering will stop that from being reflected back to the supply, and will just kill the filtering quickly. After all you have got what was the first radio transmitter there, no tuned circuit, and broadband RF noise source in a compact form, modulated at roughly mains frequency from the ripple on that capacitor.
@@SeanBZA Yup :) I've done my share of sleeping on EMC/EMI lab floors in the past 10 years (i've been through EMC compliace testing of a 30kW induction heating generators) emc rules for industrial machines are way much loose than consumer/commercial. The Electrical safety reg. Compliance is a completely different thing though:)
Angry pixies, magic smoke and as promised the worst welding I have ever seen. I call that a success. No click bait here. Huzzah. BTW the welding arc sounding like moderately fast cooking bacon vs dropping a pig into a foundry is what you are looking for.
Maybe also the same for other welders, but the 80 volts open circuit voltage seems a bit on the borderline in terms of safety, considering that there are exposed electrodes and DC current involved...
@@dimitar4y I used to work in the plating business. That is all DC currents. I did reel to reel plating, and when you got between the two strips while setting up or splicing, you certainly feel that limited amount of current. The large barrels would knock you on your ass, frankly.
I believe it thermal cut off because you kept turning off the power switch. There is no circuit to keep the fan running with the switch off. You need to run the fan for a bit after your done welding. Same as any other welder with a fan. My mig is the same.
Was just about to say the same thing..just seen the FLIR He showed, it did look a teensy bit Red Hot! lol.. same as your car fan cooling the motor after a long drive, it keeps going after removing the keys to get rid of that residual heat, like you say, Welders need to do the same thing
After welding in board shorts and a tee-shirt for "a small quick job", just once, I can fully recommend 10 minutes of gearing up leathers even in 100% humidity is worth it.
I certainly sounds like it's welding, but much like a pimple-faced teenager, it's just not getting any penetration. It certainly is melting metal though.
Because it have the Standard Terminals i give it to a professional Stick weder and with normal Stick welder handle it works great. We both was shocked that it realy weld and dont get to hot at all But please let it cool down a little bit after use (Fan blowing)
It's actually much better than I expected so I guess I'm too pessimistic. I was expecting there to be just a wire connecting the mains to the tip inside with a weight attached.
A lot of modern welders drop the open circuit voltage down to reduce the risk of getting a decent belt off of an isolated power supply. That thing will give you a pretty noticeable zap at 80v open circuit. As for the welds, it looked like it did quite well, the voltage and current can very wildly with arc length so measuring those parameters with an experienced welder using the machine is a better idea.
Even if you were only going to use it a once a year I think you'd still be better off with one of the inverter lunchbox ones. There's less working against you with that and the price point isn't too dissimilar. I did see a cordless version which is probably a fair bit cheaper than any other cordless welding option but that's a real niche use.
Yes, this form factor has too many drawbacks - can't switch polarity, can't weld where space or angle are restricted, just painfully heavy thing to hold comparing to standard rod holder. And I just don't see any benefits over conventional corded design at all.
It is welding and doesn't seem short of current. It has a thermal trip. What more do you want. It looks like just the job to bodge stuff in the field, its obviously not intended for welding long seams. But looks ok for me.
normally the cheaper end welders will have about 30~40% duty cycle at max amperage, there is a temperature sensor on the diodes radiator - improve the air flow, get a better radiator - extend your max duty cycle, I did that on mine, at it seems like made it 2x better with just a better fan in the case 15% is great if you get payed by the hour :))
I know only enough to be dangerous but IIRC the industry standard for duty-cycle is based on 10-minutes. So I think that means you get to weld for two minutes then sit on your hands for eight :D
The device we're looking at here isn't designed for production work. It's made for the quick tack. When a bit of bead will do ya. Which covers the gamut of hobbyist welding.
@@1pcfred it's a pretty horrible (cheap) idea, I'd take a small inverter box with leads and a light stinger over this any day, the housing adds to the already long length from your palm to the end the electrode, not to mention the extra weight
@@dsfs17987 I can see use cases for such a device. I am not saying it is a breakthrough that's going to replace traditional welders in all applications. But if I had one I can definitely see times when I'd use it. If it was all I had it'd be infinitely better than no welder at all too.
