PowerPro 205 Arrived yesterday also!

[presure2]

Hey All,
When I got home from work last night, I was Greeted by my Everlast Box as I walked in the door!
My brother in law signed for it, since I wasnt home, luckily there was no damage to the unit itself it seems so far!
a neighbor saw me carrying the box out to the garage, and said " i hope there isnt anything fragile in that box, the UPS guy just tossed it off the back of the truck!"
I was like, uhhohh..here we go! but, the foamcell packing did its job well, and the unit is undamaged.
see pics below.

anyway, once I got it unpacked, i figured I'd try the plasma cutter first.
it seems like the pilot arc feature is a bit spotty, it dont fire at full power consistantly, and sometimes takes several trigger pulls before it actually works properly, but once it does, it sliced right thru some 3/8" steel stock i had laying around like a hot knife thru butter!
im thinking the points thingy may need adjustment, ill poke around the forum abit before i call one of the guys about it.

next i tried the stick welder.
since i have never stick welded before, all i did was pretty much make a mess with some 6010 rods i got from a friend, but at least i did verify that it does work.

then i moved on to the tig. ( the main feature that i bought it for)
again, i've never tig welded, but after a handfull of times of going to start, and dipping the tungsten right into the workpeice, i was able to get the beginings of a bead like formation! lmao
i only had a bit of argon left in a small tank i normally keep around for the small 110v mig machine i have, so i only got about 5-10 passes before i ran out of gas, but i took a couple crappy pics with my ipod ill post in a bit.
friday im getting a bigger argon tank, and this weekend ill get some proper practice material and get to work!

[performance]

This unit doesn't have HF start on plasma. Check and adjust your air pressure to 60-65 psi.

[welderdude]

Thats sweet. Im glad it made it there in 1 piece. It looks like UPS will have to try harder to kill an Everlast welder! I, personally, have never had any issues with UPS killing packages, but I have read tons of horor stories about it.

[presure2]

hi, mark, i had the pressure set @ 60psi..it seemed like it was switching from low to high power, with a weak stream, then going to full power, killing the arc or going back to low power sometimes when i started trying to cut.

[everlastsupport]

Presure2,

Make sure there is no CO2 in the argon for your TIG. Not sure what you have, but saw you mentioned the tank from a small MIG.

[presure2]

Thanks mike the small tank was straight argon I had bought before I found out Tri-mix works Better for stainless with mig.
Anyway, the issue with the plasma was before I ever hooked the bottle up, plasma was the first thing I tried out of the box.
I got a fresh, larger bottle of argon today, and got about an hr worth of practice with the tig.
This machine is VERY cool.
Im an absolute beginner, so I can't speak to the quality VS anything else, but I'm definitely feeling like I am getting the hang of the basics, and the machine is working perfectly as far as I can tell,
I haven't welded with the pulse yet, but did check it for operation, and works perfectly.
Here are a couple pics





Still need tons of practice, but hey, that's what it's all about, right?!

[geezer]

Not bad, for a guy who just opened a box and pulled out a machine he never worked with before, I'd say you are on the right track. In a week of practice you will be showing others how to do it.

[everlastsupport]

Geezer is right, not bad for the first time and right out of the box. Any O/A background?

Now join some pieces and hit some joints. Main thing is it doesn't come apart Looking nice is a plus.

[presure2]

Geezer is right, not bad for the first time and right out of the box. Any O/A background?

Now join some pieces and hit some joints. Main thing is it doesn't come apart Looking nice is a plus.

hey thanks alot guys!!
nothing other than some crappy mig experience, never O/A'd before.
imma get some more practice in today, hopiing to fill the 5X5" peice of alu up with welds, then try some steel.
it definetly seems like all the research, reading and watching jodys vids on weldingtipsandtricks.com, WW, and here is paying off!!!
maybe ill try a couple T joints later.
at some point i gotta try the plasma again, see if i can figure out the issue that i was having on monday when i first tried it.
since the HF start works perfectly in tig mode, im guessing that eliminates the point gap adjustment?
i know mark said it dont have the HF start in plasma mode on this unit, but then what is the pilot arc connection on the front of the unit, and on the plasma torch for?
(you can see the pilot arc connection on the front panel, in the last pic of my first post.)
thanks for the compliments guys!
after i stopped welding for the night last night, i had an "wow" moment, while playing with the torch.
while i was welding, i let the cables from the torch just hang down to the ground, which in turn was pulling on the torch, making it harder to control.
i realized that once i took the weight of the cables off the torch by sorta hanging the cables over my shoulder, the torch became much lighter feeling, and easier to handle.
ill get more pics today and see if we can tell the diffrence!

[performance]

HF and Pilot arc aren't related. Pilot arc offers a ground to the torch itself to complete the circuit to continue the arc (very simple way to describe it). HF is the start style.

[presure2]

Ahhh ok, mark, sorry for the confusion.
Never the less, I haven't tried the plasma cutter since then, I'll report back at some point this weekend I'll do more cutting.
Thanks!

[jetjoe]

Glad to hear that you are having good sucess with the tig welding. Gives us other newbies inspiration. Let us know about the plasma deal.

[presure2]

Glad to hear that you are having good sucess with the tig welding. Gives us other newbies inspiration. Let us know about the plasma deal.

Thanks Joe.
I played with the plasma again this weekend, swapped in some fresh consumables, and once I got the hang of it, was able to get it to fire reliably over and over.
Took a few minutes of me messing around to find the sweet spot where it liked to be as far as distance for it to fire (I've never even seen a plasma cutter in person before mine arrived), but once I got it down, it worked perfectly on both 3/8"steel and 3/16" aluminum.
Also got more tig practice in as well, this makes a total of maybe 3 hrs total welding time.





You know, Joe, it's funny... if you look back thru my posts, you'll find one that is almost exactly what you said about how seeing another beginner make progress is inspirational... I'll tell ya, man, if you haven't welded before, and are planning to, or are waiting on a welder, the best advice I can give ya is watch jodys vids over and over... I definitely feel like they have helped me tremendously.