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Picked up the Power Pro 256 today from South San Francisco!
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Hi I'm Adam,
I have a shop in the east bay area of SF/Berkeley/Oakland. I have about 8 years of mig welding experience from my previous life on the east coast. I used to be a theater carpenter focusing mainly on moving scenery and the like for an off broadway theater. I've had to weld up truss frames and power systems for things like elevators, tracking scenery, and any other pieces of theater magic that needed to happen. Now on the west coast I build furniture, and also fabricate custom parts for cars. Right now we are working on 6speed adapters for late 80s - late 90s BMW 3 series. We have many other ideas in the future which is why I decided on the power pro 256, the plasma cutter will help us prototype out ideas quickly while the tig part will help deliver a higher quality product while allowing us to work with the alloyed cast magnesium parts and stainless steel exhaust/IC systems eventually.
So as for the unit, I got the Cart and the W300 Setup. Picked it up from the office in south san francisco. I didn't get a chance to talk with anyone except Alex from shipping. seemed like everyone was busy on the phone, Probably from expecting customers.
Got back to the shop and everything assembled except for one thing. On the torch connections, which is the return and which is the input line regarding the water cooler setup? I am all for enjoying some terrible engrish, but god damn the manuals could use some help. Especially when it comes to clearer pictures regarding the units and labeling. On the unit itself everything looks great.
Also with this configuration, at least in the manner that I got it, the tails coming off of the Tig torch leads are just an inch or two short of being able to reach the water inlet/outlets (especially the shorty lead on the terminal) on the w300. I'm going to end up putting a spacer shelf under the w300 to raise up the unit enough to reach the ports and also give me a little bit of storage underneath the unit. I know splicing in a short extension to the tubes would just irk me every time I would look at the unit. And the few inches are going to waste seeing as how the water fill hole is barely accessible with the w300 on the base of the shelf as is. having to pull out the unit a few inches to fill is a small price to pair in my mind.
Thoughts?
I'm picking up my bottle of argon tomorrow morning and a few other quick disconnect/barb fittings to make swapping compressed air/argon a painless experience, also allowing me to have a short air line to power my die grinder at the bench. I want all my leads to be pretty. A few other mods are going to include making a pig tail for the unit into a junction box complete with a separate circuit for a utility outlet (porta band/grinder as needed). Maybe even a small shelf by the handle above the inputs for random items that would be needed ( pliers, cutters, grinding supplies, safety gear ). not sure what the middle shelf will hold, I'll probably make a little base and mid piece for some filler rod containers on the side of the unit. Probably also a hook on the foot pedal so i can hang it on the side when put away. Other than that I'm out of ideas to consolidate a ton of stuff onto this one little cart. Anyone?
I'm really excited to get this baby purring tomorrow. I know my first beads are going to be a crushing experience, but it will give me a place to get better from.
