Jim, nice work. That is very intersting effect on the thick plate melt-through. Haven't seen anything like it.
Can you add how long it took to get a puddle on those thick pieces? If you say "right away as fast as can be, I wasn't even flooring it", for pure argon, I will be VERY impressed (although that is probably not a realistic expectation).
Eventually, I'd like to know or see how the 255EXT with your "magic settings" might work on a truly large weldment. Here is the massive flatbed alumium trailer that kicked my Super 200P's butt:
It's the biggest and thickest aluminum "thing" I ever tried welding. I think those cast side rails (with a cast-in beam shape) had upper and lower flanges about 2"x1.5" (you can see the 2" dimension being measured above). But the massive size weldment really made it impossibe to pre-heat or even really to sit there with the arc letting the heat build up, even. The massive weldment just conducted the heat away too fast for anything to work. (This was before I got Helium, and I still wonder if even with Helium I could have done it with the Super200P.)
Do you think your 255EXT could have done it with pure argon?
I'm curious if you've thought of a way to test the 255EXT's different A/C waveforms to make sure they're working properly? I tried them (only briefly and once, so far) on my 255EXT, and my first reaction was, I didn't notice the softening in the AC arc sound qualities that I was expecting. (I've welded a transformer machine and it definitely had a softer arc sound, but it wasn't running 120Hz so maybe I'm just not used to the higher frequency yet.) My Super200P that I'm most used to is a 60Hz inverter. On my first run on my 255EXT, I was using the default 120Hz and 25% (I think?) EP. Short beads, relatively low power since I'm still getting my torch setup sorted out on this new machine and don't yet have aircooled or a watercooler going. I did notice that the triangle wave needed more current to run a puddle in same material than the other waveforms did. So I do believe they are doing something. I was just surprised the sine wave wasn't more "mellow" sounding. (And to a lesser degree, also the soft square)
Initially, I found all the different 2T/4T/footpedal/nopedal options of the 255EXT to be quite dizzying. And I was surprised setting the "footpedal" didn't take off the downslope. (But it was nothing that couldn't quickly be fixed, just adds a bit to the initial learning curve of this particular machine design.)
I still have very little arc time on my 255EXT. (I've just been busy with other stuff!) But hope to get more time to focus on it soon. Thanks for the best 255EXT review on the Web yet, though (takes some pressure off of me from having to get mine done so quickly 
).
Last edited by jakeru; 10-31-2013 at 04:53 AM.
'13 Everlast 255EXT
'07 Everlast Super200P
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