Lidl Arc and Tig

[Turbo]

I did all sorts of tig welding repairs on a food factory floor in sometimes horrible conditions & locations using a scratch start tig & a valved torch. The welds weren't always pretty but they were strong & functional. So there's no need to have HF start to tig weld, sure it makes things easier but its not a necessity.

As for welding cars using tig, did it once for an emergency repair & I had no mig available but never again! Painfully slow, awkward & you have to have everything spotless to get a decent weld. It also has a higher risk of panel distortion than either gas or mig, the best 2 options.

 

[GRW]

I bought one of the 50-quid MMA Inverter Welders this afternoon.
I've had a quick play (last & only time I tried stick was nearly 40-years-ago) and it seems like a good little unit
Anything that I can just plug in and create a strong weld with (not prettily I assure you) can't be bad!

 

[Neutronstar]

Next Thursday, also inverter mma £49.99

Parkside Inverter Welder - at Lidl UK

Parkside Inverter Welder - Powerful professional device with 2 welding processes: MMA (stick electrodes) and TIG (tungsten inert gas) Portable -

www.lidl.co.uk

Read this and enjoy:

Always avoided TIG, on a boat and in boatyards etc. the gas is a big problem. The cost of gas is stupid and you never get a deposit back. The big boys even charge you a monthly fee. BUT LIDL had one unit left and it had scratch start for £149. Like an idiot I bought it. No bottle, only quarter inch gas union, mickey mouse chipping hammer and 2 rods. One tungsten rod and 3 cups, manual gas valve etc. BUT for that price well lets give it a go.

No readout was visible on the dial control and it had a stupid blue 16 amp plug. I made a pigtail to a 13 amp plug and bought a bottle of gas (£160) these units eat gas and I have no workshop so just like my MIG days in the 80's I know you need lots of gas. Bought all the other gear, gloves, rods, gauges, regulator, made bottle stand, made a carry case in old sail canvas etc. etc. Cost was over £300.

Sert up beside the shed, connected gun to negative etc. and switched on, fan going all OK.

No readout, not after pressing the dial, turning the dial, switching on and off, reading the useless booklet, etc. It did trip the house fuse once but never showed any life at the dial. LIDL suggest emailing the BOSCH, well the Parkside, (I don't think Bosch make the thing, it might just by a long shot be Chinese ???).

Got my cash refunded.

They say TIG welding is difficult, Bl**dy right it is, very awkward in some ways. I will chat with a mate who has a welding company and take his advice, I see about £500 quid going the journey soon !!

 

[Neutronstar]

Hi all,
Has anyone got any experience of the TIG/MMA inverter welder on sale at Lidl next Thursday at £149.99? Possibly a new model.

I was wondering if it would be a cheap way in for TIG welding for car body work. I have a primary MIG machine but thought this might use this for the odd TIG job.

I've had a some limited use of HF TIG Ignition but haven't used a Lift Arc TIG ignition. Would the latter work with thin car body stuff.

Any views would be much appreciated.

Parkside Inverter Welder - at Lidl UK

Parkside Inverter Welder - Powerful professional device with 2 welding processes: MMA (stick electrodes) and TIG (tungsten inert gas) Portable -

www.lidl.co.uk

View attachment 357346View attachment 357347

View attachment 357345

Read this and enjoy:

Always avoided TIG, on a boat and in boatyards etc. the gas is a big problem. The cost of gas is stupid and you never get a deposit back. The big boys even charge you a monthly fee. BUT LIDL had one uint left and it had scratch start for £149. Like an idiot I bought it. No bottle, only quarter inch gas union, mickey mouse chipping hammer and 2 rods. One tungsten rod and 3 cups, manual gas valve etc. BUT for that price well lets give it a go.

No readout was visible on the dial control and a stupid blue 16 amp plug. I made a pigtail to a 13 amp plug and bought a bottle of gas (£160) these units eat gas and I have no workshop so just like my MIG days in the 80's I know you need lots of gas. Bought all the other gear, gloves, rods, gauges, regulator, made bottle stand, made a carry case in old sail canvas etc. etc. Cost was over £300.

Sert up beside the shed, connected gun to negative etc. and switched on, fan going all OK.

No readout, not after pressing the dial, turning the dial, switching on and off, reading the useless booklet, etc. It did trip the house fuse once but never showed any life at the dial. LIDL suggest emailing the BOSCH, well the Parkside, (I don't think Bosch make the thing, it might just by a long shot be Chinese ???).

Got my cash refunded.

They say TIG welding is difficult, Bl**dy right it is, very awkward in some ways. I will chat with a mate who has a welding company and take his advice, I see about £500 quid going the journey soon !!

 

[addjunkie]

They say TIG welding is difficult, Bl**dy right it is, very awkward in some ways. I will chat with a mate who has a welding company and take his advice, I see about £500 quid going the journey soon !!

at least 500 …. a lot more for the dogs danglies. And youll never get rich in boatyards especially not the few left around your neck of the woods!

 

[Che]

I got the Lidl stick one for £39.99 as I use the Lidl app and got a £10 off voucher . It has a 3 year guarantee , so I figured if it's no good, then I can just return it.
Used it today with some 6013's and although I had to turn the power up almost full, it was ok.
I haven't welded with a stick for decades, so I may as well have been starting from scratch.

 

[premmington]

I'd tried lift arc once out of curiosity. I wouldn't want to repeat it. Get a TIG with HF if you can.

With scratch or lift tig I think you have to "snap out" at the end of the weld to break the arc instead of pressing a button on the advanced HF sets. It can make weld stops a bit messy although practice makes perfect of course.

I don't have a problem with liftarc - DC set I got only does lift - other AC/DC does lift/hf.

First DC set I had was scratch only - that was messy to start with - till some piep welder showed me how to ignite the arc using the filler wire against work piece and torch.

 

[Richiew]

What are your finishes like? Not being clever. It's just not easy to stop in my extremely limited experience.

I've been spoiled with hf and button pushes stops and starts.

 

[eddie49]

A similar arc welder to the weird-shaped dial-control Lidl/Parkside one is being offered by B & Q, for just £99, but without the TIG torch:

Autojack 140Amp Inverter Welder DC MMA Lift TIG Portable | DIY at B&Q

The Autojack Fusion DARC-140 welder is a light weight and portable multi-function unit that comprises both an ARC welder and a lift TIG welder in the one unit. Powered by inverter technology, this welder has a much longer rated duty cycle than a standard transformer welder. The welder has an...

www.diy.com

 

[Neutronstar]

at least 500 …. a lot more for the dogs danglies. And youll never get rich in boatyards especially not the few left around your neck of the woods!

You sent me my first reply, Thanks. I was given a free session with one of the North East's top welders. Great bloke, and he helped me a lot. My old Lincoln set will do scratch start and as it was a £800 job 25 years ago it is quite steady and can cope well with TIG. That saved the day for me. I must now practice practice and practice more. As for boatyards, the wars with the boys who claim to have local monopolies, along with the yards placing restrictiions on "hot work" plus the poor power sources due to too long runs to the 16amp sockets, make the whole thing a nightmare. I travel 700 miles round trip to service my boat, it is that bad. Fortunately I only do work on my boat or on close friend's boats. One time there were a few welders around who could help or knew someone who could, but since the demise of Tech Colleges and manufacturing, there are only elite tradesmen, with no spare time, or wild Eastern Europeans (who can weld upsidedown with bad power, variable consumables and lost of expletives). How times change.

 

[fractured]

A similar arc welder to the weird-shaped dial-control Lidl/Parkside one is being offered by B & Q, for just £99, but without the TIG torch:

Autojack 140Amp Inverter Welder DC MMA Lift TIG Portable | DIY at B&Q

The Autojack Fusion DARC-140 welder is a light weight and portable multi-function unit that comprises both an ARC welder and a lift TIG welder in the one unit. Powered by inverter technology, this welder has a much longer rated duty cycle than a standard transformer welder. The welder has an...

www.diy.com

So with the Lidl one you get a tig torch and an extra 40 amps. Plus the 3 year guarantee, though not sure of the guarantee on the B&Q set.

I need to try mine (Lidl) but need to get it out of the box first!

 

[addjunkie]

You sent me my first reply, Thanks. I was given a free session with one of the North East's top welders. Great bloke, and he helped me a lot. My old Lincoln set will do scratch start and as it was a £800 job 25 years ago it is quite steady and can cope well with TIG. That saved the day for me. I must now practice practice and practice more. As for boatyards, the wars with the boys who claim to have local monopolies, along with the yards placing restrictiions on "hot work" plus the poor power sources due to too long runs to the 16amp sockets, make the whole thing a nightmare. I travel 700 miles round trip to service my boat, it is that bad. Fortunately I only do work on my boat or on close friend's boats. One time there were a few welders around who could help or knew someone who could, but since the demise of Tech Colleges and manufacturing, there are only elite tradesmen, with no spare time, or wild Eastern Europeans (who can weld upsidedown with bad power, variable consumables and lost of expletives). How times change.

700 miles round trip to service a boat seems extreme! Norway, Holland or inverness? There must be other options closer to hand.

@Hood on here may point you to nearer options, all depends what you want done I guess.

 

[jenny1]

has someone tried to weld with the mma lift yet? i have one of these machines myself, but it just keeps burning the tig tungsten the same exact way as the mma stick, so i wonder if there is something wrong with the machine itself or do they have different polarities or smth? i was using the tig torch in the negative plug, but the cup and stuff got so messed up that i cant even remember if i tried the positive plug too or not...

 

[Hood]

DC Tig should be torch negative so it would just make things worse if you did try positive, unless of course the labels on the sockets are wrong, unlikely but you never know.

 

[jenny1]

my machine also has the Mig/Mag option and it even has the lift tig option under the same loop button etc... but these versions should be negative polarity too anyway?
plus the tungsten also gets stuck into the material every time... and it probably does not even matter what amps i use, it just creates a ball at the end and then starts to burn it off like the mma stick etc...
i even tried a smaller 1,6mm rod and thinner metal, plus some different color rods etc, but they all just end up the same exact way for some reason...

 

[jenny1]

well... there was def something wrong with the machine, because i bought a new stick/lift welder and that worked like a damn charm after all of this bloddy mess.... -_____-