My new Everlast 250 LX TIG AC/DC welder and some stainless tube welding !

[Vinhtec]

I got a new Everlast 250 LX AC/DC TIG machine.......... well this model is either new or something not advertised because the website apparently doesn't have info on it. Alex from Everlast in California, I believe, sold it to me. This purchase was hard for me because it takes a lot of gonads to jump on an “overseas” machine and pray for no problems. I am not saying this company is bad at all just, I have been eyeing Millers, Lincolns, Thermal arc, and Hobart’s for years but could not afford it. This company is going to drive down the overall cost of welders and if the leaders want to hang in then they probably will follow suit, enough about market economics and supply and demand were welders! Regardless after my initial testing on DC current it is working well.

Here are a few of things that I noticed when I got the machine.

First off the machine was flawless on initial unwrapping and visual inspecting. Pictures are here from my photobucket. All the equipment was there and intact no damage what so ever but actual packing was beat up.








Second thing that happened was physical inspection, assembly, and testing. Upon inspection I found the post-flow gas knob lose and not easy to tighten up. I had to pull the units cases almost completely off to correct this issue. It still is not fully aligned with the marks but post flow is a rough guess anyways. No complaints just that "quality control" could be stepped up but we are welder fabricators and can handle a little working with the product. I did not take pictures because I was eager to fix it.

Third thing weird I noticed was this 250 weird voltage connector. I had not seen anything like that. With further research I identified the culprit. Shown here is an "overseas" 250 voltage adapter.



It would have worked great had I lived on the sunny side of the world. So next thing I did was go to local hardware store and find a connector for the good old USA. Originally I wired it for 220 [v] 15 [amp] NEMA 6-15 for my friends shop connectors. Then my friend's shop wasn’t free to borrow the voltage so I took out the trusty volt meter and measured Mom's dry voltage. It was a 220 [v] so I made a dryer adapter to the NEMA 6-15 and ran with it. Machine fired right up.





Fourth thing was argon gas lines. The line from the argon tank to the machine did not come with clams. I got those at the local hardware store. The barb on the 250 LX to accept the argon was loose as well. I fixed that immediately with a crescent wrench and a pair of pliers. Another weird thing was there was a fitting for exit argon from the machine to the torch. It would not mesh with the gas exit fitting on the machine which I think was a strange compression fitting. I cut the end off, stuffed it in there and put the compression fitting on. It seemed to hold for now but I probably will end up changing it later.

Last thing I noticed was I have a welding torch that has cooler lines in it. I was not told that my welder would come with a water cooled torch. It is a good thing now since I can upgrade the system to accept a cooler later when I have money. For now I am just welding low amperage and it’s not over heating or anything.

Well enough semi-complaining even though I hate complaining in general and will not make a real issue with something until it does not work or function properly. No one probably cares about any of that stuff above but just wanted to inform my fellow welders of a few issues if any I had.

Firing up the machine and testing it went well on DC current. I was working with stock I had purchased years ago and could not progress because I kept melting it.

Stock:
304 Stainless Tubing 0.065 thickness 2.5 diameter

Welding type:
But joints on the pipe using cut bends
Settings:

DCEN on torch
No pre-flow option but you can blip the pedal to get the post flow to act as pre flow (learned that one fast )
5-10 seconds post flow
50-60 amps (gave some foot pedal reserve)
Pulsar off (bad idea!)

The cuts were semi-strait and did not need filler. No back purging because I had not set it up yet. I plan to back purge with Argon Co2 blend next time 75-25%. Tack welding went great on the thick portions where heat dissipation was adequate. As you see I used my band-saw to cut the bends with a little trigonometry you can make any bend you want with as many or little cuts as you want. Problem with this is what is the thinnest part of the cut? It is at the tip of the triangle and that is where it went downhill. Heat transfer was an issue at that tip, when it soaked out and I panicked as it started to burn through. There was plenty of that stuff called “sugaring” where the chromium boils out of the stainless and attaches to the air to oxidize making the welds weak, this is because there was no back purging whatsoever. I did try some filler for the thinner part but it did not help heat soak and I was just not skilled enough to work with it yet. With no back purge, almost no filler, and no pulsar setting on, I could not control heat soak thus burn through was inevitable on that tiny strip of stainless. There were a lot of issues on “first” time TIG welding. I had poor welding position, weak torch control, too long of a welding pass, improper settings, cheapo helmet, inadequate heat control and etc. Here are the pictures and let me know what you guys think. I have done my research and will be mixing in a few more ideas next time I weld and getting better equipment.








Burned through


The sugaring is very bad but not too much splatter sugaring.

Hopefully I can turn some good examples out to my fellow welding enthusiast. Please don’t do not laugh too hard and or leave me negative comments about the mutilations pictures please. I am trying and learning as I go. It was a difficult step toward the purchase of this machine been reading about this stuff for years finally bought it. So far the machine is dishing out the heat and I just need to try it on stick and AC to confirm it works completely. So far no serious issues or complaints I guess I can say I am lucky or Everlast is just pretty good overall and only time and more welding can tell. If you guys have any questions go ahead and ask I can try to answer them! Sorry for super long post I combined the welding and opening in one post.

[Vinhtec]

Whoops Hit max thread picture count Here is more pictures:

Stainless welds







Machine unpacking and tungsten

[Wrenchtamer]

Interesting post. Never seen that machine before it must be a older model? Or a prototype? Anyways I have a couple of constructive comments on your tubing. I just spent the last two weeks welding up stainless tubing just like that for a set of custom headers for a bazillion dollar custom car. Don't catch me sounding like an old hand at it because it was the first time I had ever done that much stainless for something that had to be polished. Here is what I learned: I noticed on some of your pie slices that some of the edges are a little higher than the one next to it. This is critical because if you have to polish that material by the time you grind down the weld and make the surface look uniform you will be half way through one side on the joint and not very much material left there. And if you find any low spots that you have to go back and fill before you know it you are welding razor blades together. The best thing I have found to do id this. First, do whatever you have to do to get the best fit up possible. Even if it takes all day it will still cost you less time in the long run. If you still have a plateau on one side solar flux the outside of the joint, and weld up the low spot from inside the tube. A short piece like that is a beeznitch to try and backpurge. That way no matter how much you polish down you shouldnt burn through. do this with all of the little turns and radii so that you can join them in the straights from the outside only. Remember to solar flux those joints too, or purge if you are set up for it. Don't take this as a negative comment, just trying to save somebody the hair pulling fiasco that I just went through.

[Paul Moir]

You can setup a back purge off your argon bottle by just teeing in after the regulator and attaching another flow meter, and use the flow control on it for a shutoff. I have my old Everlast LPM flow meter doing this duty. The fittings are all 1/8" NPT so just a tee and a couple nipples will do it.

With backpurge the back of your welds should be nice & pretty.

Preflow is not required at all. Mine is always at 0 even though I can preflow. The argon stays in the line pretty good, and anyway the line builds up a little pressure when it's off, so you get a blast of argon the moment you start which clears the line.

Looks like things got a little hot there by the burning your getting on your weld tops. That will get better with practice. Torch angle, arc length, speed etc, and tubing isn't the easiest to be learning on. Don't worry much about tungsten stickout: make sure you can see what you're doing. Which cup did you run?

Consider getting some pickle juice (stainless pickling acid) from the weld shop. It's expensive but it keeps your welds from rusting and will also clean off the heat marks. For raw welds I pickle them, and then scrub them lightly in the sink with a scotchbrite pad. The sink is got water with washing soda added to neutralize the pickling acid. Takes no time at all, and cleans everything.

I've played with the pulse, but never actually use it. Maybe if I was doing something really thin (1/16 is thin but not real thin. Even 18ga isn't real thin).

My LX225 came without a plug. In fact it did come with a detached regular non-locking 20A 240v plug for some reason. A gift perhaps?

[everlastsupport]

Since everyone jumped in to help on the stainless, I will cover the mystery machine.

The 250LX was replaced with the 225LX, it was dropped from the line and I hope it will be picked back up. It cut into the EX sales with the 250 amps of power with the less features.

I had one for a year and a half (a year or so ago). I did a lot of welding with it. Now I use the 250EX and ignore the extra knobs.

I really liked the two handles on the top over the bar. Technology wise, same control.

[Vinhtec]

Interesting post. Never seen that machine before it must be a older model? Or a prototype? Anyways I have a couple of constructive comments on your tubing. I just spent the last two weeks welding up stainless tubing just like that for a set of custom headers for a bazillion dollar custom car. Don't catch me sounding like an old hand at it because it was the first time I had ever done that much stainless for something that had to be polished. Here is what I learned: I noticed on some of your pie slices that some of the edges are a little higher than the one next to it. This is critical because if you have to polish that material by the time you grind down the weld and make the surface look uniform you will be half way through one side on the joint and not very much material left there. And if you find any low spots that you have to go back and fill before you know it you are welding razor blades together. The best thing I have found to do id this. First, do whatever you have to do to get the best fit up possible. Even if it takes all day it will still cost you less time in the long run. If you still have a plateau on one side solar flux the outside of the joint, and weld up the low spot from inside the tube. A short piece like that is a beeznitch to try and backpurge. That way no matter how much you polish down you shouldnt burn through. do this with all of the little turns and radii so that you can join them in the straights from the outside only. Remember to solar flux those joints too, or purge if you are set up for it. Don't take this as a negative comment, just trying to save somebody the hair pulling fiasco that I just went through.

Cool good to see nice people on here willing to share information! Some other forums I been to people bash each other for no reason at all just because you do not know as much as they do.
Thanks for the info I have never even heard of solar flux before? I will do more research on this and see if I can incorporate some of it into the welding that I do. I think I have an idea of how to back purge the welds even these small pieces. These pies were cut a long time ago so I was anxious to weld them togeather. When I did cut these out I did not pay very much attention to the messed up gaps. Next time I cut these pies out Ill work on them more to get them straighter so there is no gaps on it to cause blow out problems. Thanks for all the advice seems like I need to read more and mix in more practice.

[Vinhtec]

You can setup a back purge off your argon bottle by just teeing in after the regulator and attaching another flow meter, and use the flow control on it for a shutoff. I have my old Everlast LPM flow meter doing this duty. The fittings are all 1/8" NPT so just a tee and a couple nipples will do it.

With backpurge the back of your welds should be nice & pretty.

Preflow is not required at all. Mine is always at 0 even though I can preflow. The argon stays in the line pretty good, and anyway the line builds up a little pressure when it's off, so you get a blast of argon the moment you start which clears the line.

Looks like things got a little hot there by the burning your getting on your weld tops. That will get better with practice. Torch angle, arc length, speed etc, and tubing isn't the easiest to be learning on. Don't worry much about tungsten stickout: make sure you can see what you're doing. Which cup did you run?

Consider getting some pickle juice (stainless pickling acid) from the weld shop. It's expensive but it keeps your welds from rusting and will also clean off the heat marks. For raw welds I pickle them, and then scrub them lightly in the sink with a scotchbrite pad. The sink is got water with washing soda added to neutralize the pickling acid. Takes no time at all, and cleans everything.

I've played with the pulse, but never actually use it. Maybe if I was doing something really thin (1/16 is thin but not real thin. Even 18ga isn't real thin).

My LX225 came without a plug. In fact it did come with a detached regular non-locking 20A 240v plug for some reason. A gift perhaps?

Hey Paul thanks for the info. I saw a tee like that on a welding supply website to split the argon off the bottle. I will probably do that when I get a larger tank. Mine is a 125 or so and I bet I would use up all my argon pretty fast. I read that you can use argon c02 75/25% mix to back purge too and I actually have a full bottle 300 size tank that I want to use up. It was for a mig machine but the mig machine welds like crap with the gas on it so I just run the flux weld wire.

The 250 LX came with a 5,6,7 size lens and I used the 7 size seemed to be the largest. I dont know if that was the right thing to do or not? But I got a lot of heat that is fact!

I never knew you could pickle the pipes for corrosion protection and cleaning. This was just a test on if the machine could weld but I plan on doing a lot more tube welding in the future. I always wondered how the guys get their stainless pipe clean after welding because it produces so much heat and coloring.

Well I had a small bead with the pulsar on and the heat soak was not bad at all. I just need to perfect it but I think it will be a great to for welding in the thinner areas where heat is a definite problem.

You got a nice gift there !

Thanks for all your help and advice!

[Vinhtec]

Cool so I got an oldie but its still a goodie! It works fine I am happy I got this machine since some of the other features probably would be obsolete to me anyways. Its a good machine over all no problems at all with it as of now !

[Titan winch]

I tend to agree with mike on the 250lx . unfortunatey the price of the build is so close to that of the 250EX it was just not practical to carry both and the EX having more features was chosen . But as Mike has said in his post the 250LX is a really nice unit to weld with .I was actually welding today with one of the spare units for Warranty replacement / exchange and i had forgotten just how nice it was to use with a smaller flex head 17 torch.
In fact we are moving the First of the month and Jean wants to get rid of all the older Warranty replacement stock ( we try to keep a couple of units back in case we need to replace something under Warranty)
The 250LX is supposed to go on sale but i think i would like to hold onto it for myself .
cheers

[performance]

Take a look on the website at the manual button on the top right hand of any page. Click on it and down load the oldest version of the powertigs.

As for the plug. The plug you need is a 6-50P. The plug you are using is too light and it will cause problems. The one in the box should have been thrown away.

[Vinhtec]

Take a look on the website at the manual button on the top right hand of any page. Click on it and down load the oldest version of the powertigs.

As for the plug. The plug you need is a 6-50P. The plug you are using is too light and it will cause problems. The one in the box should have been thrown away.

Hey Mark thanks ! I don't know if my dryer is rated for 50 amps let alone my entire house ? Ill probably have to borrow my friends show and use his voltage when I need more output. It will probably trip a breaker at my house if I crank the machine up to 250 and try to weld but I am sure not going to be doing that anytime soon.

[worntorn]

Elec dryers are generally on a 30 amp 240 volt circuit, older stoves with ovens are most often 40 240v amp. Some of the newer stoves only require a 30 amp circuit.

Glen