Video review of PowerArc 160 STH TIG

So I finally got a video done on my 160 STH. I did this review in 2 parts, the first part being a display of the thin material I've tig welded with this unit. I always like pushing the limits with stuff and doing a couple of contrasting thin/thick videos seemed appropriate since that seems to be all that I've been welding with my new tig. The second part is showcasing all the thick materials I have welded lately.

Everything shown besides the band saw blade weld were either a repair that I was able to finally fix due to having my new welder ( my tool box had many things in it that needed welding), or part of the 2 continual (winter welding contest) projects that I'm trying hard to finish before next week's end....despite not feeling well. Nothing was welded for test purposes or "for the heck of it", everything shown will be put to use making my shop work a little easier. I plan to weld my own band saw blades for the portable band saw (can't buy 3/4" width blades for a portaband type saw), so that really wasn't a waste of time either. More like good practice for making my own band saw blades in the future.

I am starting basically from scratch with my fabrication tools and most of the tools I have now were purchased used (for example, the portable band saw was a $150 Ebay purchase), some tools were pulled from the trash dumpster or job boxes back when I was working in the HVAC fab shop, or they are things I made myself from scratch using leftovers and scrap material.

Much needed tools that I am planning to build soon include an adjustable stool to sit on (while tig welding), a bench vise, a stick welding table, various clamps and hold downs for welding and cutting, possibly a small (short) shop press for light automotive projects that I need to finish. The stool is nearly at the top though as I am using a bar stool now that is WAY too tall (I have to hunch over to tig weld), a short 12" tall shop seat for automotive brakes and suspension (I might as well sit on the shop floor and weld), and an upside down 5 gallon bucket that is really uncomfortable to sit on while welding!

At this point I have nearly used all of my 150 CF Argon bottle's shielding gas up, and I think I've welded a fairly wide variety of materials and thicknesses, which the videos hopefully show. Next up will be a ton of stick welding projects using this new machine. I'm excited to say the least! Anyways, I hope the videos came out better than I think they did. I'm off to bed to get my cold killing sleep! :)

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TSP...ature=youtu.be

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwuMBa38Qsg

Nice job. You have a lot of examples. I really like your little jig to drill holes in Masonite. I'll have to make one of those. If you haven't seen it, be sure to check out Jody's adjustable stool project on WT&T. I have one with a gas cylinder that I will probably change over to the long all-thread so I can get a lot more range. Finding the right height and being comfortable makes all the difference in getting great welds.
If you want, you can use the video tag to put a video right in your post like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TSPhSH_5c

I miss my 160STH. Really nice DC TIG for the price. But with the 250EX and 210EXT, I let it go. Jody at Welding Tips and Trick is quite fond of it as well.

Nice review - you've been busy!

Part of me really wishes I'd chosen the PA160STH instead of the PA140ST that I ended up getting. My thought was that I'll get those nice features (post flow, HF start, foot pedal control) when I upgrade to something bigger and fancier, but really kinda wishing I had 'em right now.

Along the same lines as your drilling jig, I'm planning on eventually making an angled router baseplate so I can put a 10-degree bevel on the end of a desk I built. It's kinda fun to make tools for yourself, eh?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rambozo

Nice job. You have a lot of examples. I really like your little jig to drill holes in Masonite. I'll have to make one of those. If you haven't seen it, be sure to check out Jody's adjustable stool project on WT&T. I have one with a gas cylinder that I will probably change over to the long all-thread so I can get a lot more range. Finding the right height and being comfortable makes all the difference in getting great welds.
If you want, you can use the video tag to put a video right in your post like this...

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Originally Posted by everlastsupport

I miss my 160STH. Really nice DC TIG for the price. But with the 250EX and 210EXT, I let it go. Jody at Welding Tips and Trick is quite fond of it as well.

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Thank you both for the positive feedback! This welder is really working out well for me and I really wanted to show others that 160 amps on DC for tig isn't even needed on that many projects. It's the aluminum and such (which you need A/C to do) where more amps become a necessity.

I didn't watch the WT&T video with the adjustable stool, but I have 36" of 1"x8 (tpi) all-thread that I bought for the vise I will be making, so I figured if I can find a stainless coupler nut online (the metal supply place's stainless couplers stopped at 3/4") then I can use all this extra all-thread and 1-3/8" stainless exhaust tubing that I have for a nice stainless stool. I even have some extra 3/8" thick stainless flanges that were water jet cut. The seat portion and all-thread will be steel.

I wasn't able to figure out the whole video tag deal you explained, mostly because I don't even see the video tags that I included in the video anywhere! I'm new to the world of making videos (and youtube for that matter!), so I'll have to figure that one out when I do the next video post on this forum. It might be a setting on my profile that isn't turned on? I didn't see an edit button on my first post (here) anyways, so I couldn't edit it even if I wanted to.

I'm trying to teach myself a little about video editing and such, so I can do better videos in the future. I don't plan on making a lot of welding videos (already an overabundance as it is), but home videos of projects I'm doing or bloopers of my lab puppy goofing off might peak my interest in producing a few videos later on for personal keepsake.

The good news is that I found the multi-quote button on this forum just now....Hey, don't laugh as I never claimed to be smart, and sometimes I'm extra slow when it comes to technology! Haha, I'm so proud of myself for discovering that, and I will now be able to quote multiple posts with one response without having to copy and paste, and open numerous windows of the post I'm responding to! :P

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Originally Posted by MuttonHawg

Nice review - you've been busy!

Part of me really wishes I'd chosen the PA160STH instead of the PA140ST that I ended up getting. My thought was that I'll get those nice features (post flow, HF start, foot pedal control) when I upgrade to something bigger and fancier, but really kinda wishing I had 'em right now.

Along the same lines as your drilling jig, I'm planning on eventually making an angled router baseplate so I can put a 10-degree bevel on the end of a desk I built. It's kinda fun to make tools for yourself, eh?

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I still say that your welder will give you the bare essentials of tig, so that you can work on stainless projects and thinner materials than what you would normally have to stick weld (or avoid altogether). You're main issue is not being able to set the amps where you need them right off the bat. Instead you have to start and stop a million times and adjust your amps until you get a manageable weld puddle. The lack of a gas solenoid is the second problem.:(

The projects are fun and it's nice having the tools and ability to make other tools, even if I'd rather be making projects instead of tools!

Well before you do more searching for a coupler nut, you might have a look. By floating a second nut you will get even more support from a longer MOI and it will be easier to spin from fewer threads engaged.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3vwMdZuSKI

And PART II

BTW the way to insert a video tag is
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzPhqvQl78Y[/video(with a closing square bracket here)

That video was just what I needed! My idea was very similar to Jody's design, however he put more thought (or experience) into his stool, so I will be rethinking my idea to incorporate a few of his! The use of the floating nut is definitely the way to go, and I never would have thought of that. My top portion of the seat was drawn up exactly as he did his, so either I'm smarter than I think, or Jody's not as smart as I thought (Haha-Kidding!)! Thanks for posting that!:)

And thank you for the tutorial on inserting a video tag too! I'm as green as the welder when it comes to that stuff. It's not that I am a complete idiot, I just don't care about all this technology as much as a lot of other people! It's over my head a little and I don't have a problem with that!:)

So this was supposed to be my third video for the contest. I was really bent out of shape that this video wouldn't upload by 11:59 last night due to the computer freezing up twice, especially since I stayed up late to link it to my ending post for the contest!:mad:

Anyways, I figured I would post it here today just for fun. I know it's not the best quality but I was moving fast trying to get this done so I could get to bed. Even shivering like crazy I didn't contaminate the tungsten, which was surprising!:O This proves my welder does in fact work at least, and it's not loud at all (running in the background more quietly than the shop lights). Enjoy!

BTW, I did almost grab the hot round block in the video but was able to catch myself a millisecond early (would have been the icing on the cake)! I managed to make for that by dropping the camera at the end though. I'm not an idiot, but I play one on youtube! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wduV4...ature=youtu.be

You need to shield the camera from light leakage around the shade. All you really see are reflections. Maybe go to a darker shade, and lock the camera not to use auto settings.

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Originally Posted by Rambozo

You need to shield the camera from light leakage around the shade. All you really see are reflections. Maybe go to a darker shade, and lock the camera not to use auto settings.

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Yea, first 6 minutes were all reflection for me too, but the camera drop save the video for me :D. You could see all the scratches on the face shield, that was sort of cool.

Last part was good though. How cold was it? I still miss my 160STH. But like my 210EXT a lot...

Like I said, not the best quality video but I made it at like 9:00 that night for the contest, so it was a "quickie" video. I wasn't even going to use the face shield, but then I remembered all the videos I've seen where the person welds and you get (arc) flashed. Things got blurry when I zoomed in, but the idea was to show that this welder can thick or thin stuff smoothly.

I first tried mounting the camera inside my welding helmet (right in front of my face), but that didn't work out well. The face shield is only a shade 6 or so which didn't work out either. A big peeve of mine is the "hum" of the shop lights though!

I don't even know all the settings on my new camera yet, so I will have to check into setting things manually.

The last few nights the temp in the shop has been warmer but still only 48-50 degrees...hey it's better than 40 degrees if you're an optimist (which I'm not!:P).

If I had the 210 EXT, I wouldn't miss the 160 STH at all!;)

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Originally Posted by youngnstudly

Like I said, not the best quality video but I made it at like 9:00 that night for the contest, so it was a "quickie" video. I wasn't even going to use the face shield, but then I remembered all the videos I've seen where the person welds and you get (arc) flashed. Things got blurry when I zoomed in, but the idea was to show that this welder can thick or thin stuff smoothly.

I first tried mounting the camera inside my welding helmet (right in front of my face), but that didn't work out well. The face shield is only a shade 6 or so which didn't work out either. A big peeve of mine is the "hum" of the shop lights though!

I don't even know all the settings on my new camera yet, so I will have to check into setting things manually.

The last few nights the temp in the shop has been warmer but still only 48-50 degrees...hey it's better than 40 degrees if you're an optimist (which I'm not!:P).

If I had the 210 EXT, I wouldn't miss the 160 STH at all!;)

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I have a Sony camera, still do somewhere, that I could record welding with no shade over it. Was shocked the first time I tried it.

50 is a little cold, but it was in the 50's here in Florida when I woke up today. I was plasma cutting scrap for my son in shorts :)

True, the 250EX and the 210EXT I have are nice, but minus the AC, the 160STH is a dynomite machine. Jody in a video mentioned he has one under his bench. I liked it a lot, just no room for all the welders and it went (to a friend at a great price).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by everlastsupport

I have a Sony camera, still do somewhere, that I could record welding with no shade over it. Was shocked the first time I tried it.

50 is a little cold, but it was in the 50's here in Florida when I woke up today. I was plasma cutting scrap for my son in shorts :)

True, the 250EX and the 210EXT I have are nice, but minus the AC, the 160STH is a dynomite machine. Jody in a video mentioned he has one under his bench. I liked it a lot, just no room for all the welders and it went (to a friend at a great price).

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I'm just using the cannon digital camera that was my Christmas present last year...and so far I've dropped it twice and left it in the cold shop overnight (in the 20 degree range) once or twice too. The display got all screwy on it until I left it in the sun to dry out.

The temp isn't terrible here, but with the cold I have (fever, chills, sweats, etc) it's not as easily tolerated being sick. My ex-boss used to tell us that drinking scotch for 2 or 3 days worked well for killing colds. I don't drink alcohol though...besides, he drank scotch every night after work anyways, even when he didn't have a cold, so I'm not sure how he came to that conclusion!:D The past few months it's been in the low 40's in the shop, and that's a little too cold for me! I'm not what you would call "heavily insulated!";)

I'm really finding that the 160 STH is more than enough for most any project that I need DC tig for. Even the stick welding function works fine for the projects I do. In Jody's case, the 160 STH is a good backup welder (just in case all his other welders fail at the same time)

I've only ever needed 160 amps or more when I'm welding aluminum or magnesium, and I doubt I've used more than 110 or 120 amps so far with this machine. I should record the display while welding, just to see how many amps I'm using on the thicker stuff to kill my curiosity.

New video was taken for this 2013 summer contest. It's still not perfect, but it's better quality than I think the last ones were. Plus I learned a little about editing video. :)

Video 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHUI1pola9A

Video 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07KOHgOTYFc


Video 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKxSm...t=HL1380623355

I hope I will be able to get a few more videos done for the contest...talk about cutting it close! :O

I decided to make one last video of this unit for the Ebay auction I listed it in, so here it is. Shows a little closer view of the welder, and a few short clips of welding misc. junk together in a hurry to show the welder in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoOkLNoPIAQ