Originally Posted by
dgapilot
Just to follow up on this thread, DO NOT run a water cooled torch without a cooler, or tap water running through it! You can run a total coolant loss system with tap water. If you try and run a water cooled torch without any coolant, you will quickly burn up the torch. You need to decide if the cost of a 17 or 26 torch is worth it to handle higher amperage, or break down and but the cooler. A 17 should go up to about 150 amps, and a 26 will go up to about 200 amps, but they will get hot if your duty cycle is very long. Since you got the 255EXT, the cooler will be a wise investment. You can also build a cooler, lots of info on the internet on how to do it.