Helmet Shootout: W60 Truesight vs Harbor Freight Blue Flame vs HSL-100 fixed shade

[jakeru]

I just got a new Jackson W60 Truesight welding helmet, and haven't found a huge amount of real reviews on the interwebs about it, so figured I'd add my 2 cents. How better to review a helmet than compare it to others, right?

I intend to compare it against my other welding helmets, which consist of: a Harbor Freight "Blue Flame", and a really old Jackson HSL-100 with fixed shade glass lens.


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We'll start with the fixed shade unit... the Jackson HSL-100 with green glass fixed shade filter.


This HSL-100 with the glass lens weighs in at 1.28 lbs:


The headgear really sucks, and has an annoying habit of catching on hair. It feels heavy, with the large glass lens, (I'll bet plastic would lighten it up some) and I am sure that my opinion is worsened by the particularly worn out condition this one is in. It's pretty nasty. On the plus side, it's fairly cheap (about $40 or maybe less I think, would buy you a new one that is probably much nicer than this one) and has a large viewing area. The shell is pretty hard and rigid, but seems a rather clumsy shape/design to me.

How does the helmet perform? What can I say... when there is no arc struck, here's what a test viewing area looks like, compared next to what the same area looks like with no helmet on:

...as it pretty clear from the above, it simply makes whatever you are trying to see pitch black. This is *not* the hot ticket for getting your arc to start where you want it. Once you get your arc started, I suppose it's OK. It's got a quite large viewing area. I never reach for it though, because of it's bad headgear design, it's heaviness, and inability to see before the arc had started.

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... next up: the Harbor Freight "blue flame" 91214 / 67854
http://www.harborfreight.com/blue-fl...met-91214.html



This "harbor freight special" feels pretty lightweight. Weighs in at what seems to be a pretty lightweight 1.10 lbs:


On sale with coupon, it can be had for less than $40, makes it I believe the least expensive option for an autodarkening helmet out there. It does a surprisingly good job. I think it's a great value for a starter helmet.



The controls are quite simple. The sensitivity only has two adjustments (low and high) and neither is good for low amp DC TIG (or even medium-amp DC tig really... anything 50 amps or lower is problematic, would say) without pulse. A workaround is to dial in a bit of pulsing to get it to trigger; the pulsing need not be very "drastic", and it works every time. If you have a pulsing capable machine, that's pretty easy to do. But then when you're welding on the lowest of the lows that the machine can do, it might not pulse and that might make the helmet "flash" you. (Note: when this happens, an autodark still provides UV protection. It just will momentarily blind you and make you have to stop welding for a little while until the spot goes away so you can see very well again.) This helmet also has adjustable shade dial from 9-12 on the outside, which is nice and I do use it to set a lighter for for low TIG amp work, with a heavier shade for higher amp TIG work. It had a grind mode, but I don't find myself using it because the tunnel vision is just not safe IMO for grinding with this small-viewing window helmet on.

I've gotten the headgear to work quite well after fussing over it and getting it all adjusted. Due to the vertically small viewing area, it is important to get the helmet positioned just right in terms of how it sits up/down on your head. If you transition from different angles of looking up vs down (e.g., going from looking sideways to looking up) the helmet will rock on your head and require repositioning most likely to be able to see well. The back knob pushes in to turn for adjusting I never felt like I fought with; was pretty easy to adjust. Even though it's an autodark, I am used to raising it up when not welding when doing most prep work, etc. I remember sanding the tilting mechanism to give it the right amount of friction. I like it so I can make it fall down (without slamming down hard) with a "nod". Don't like it so tight that it doesn't fall down completely. Needs to fall down completely with as much friction as possible to keep it from slamming down. I think I remember the knobs tightening/loosening during helmet movements before I fussed over them. But I got them working quite well. The battery is not changeable, and this helmet relies on solar charging to keep it working right. I've never had a problem with it that taking it out of a dark corner and into the open area where light exists didn't fix. This shell is several years old.

How does it perform? The view, like almost all autodarkening helmets, is primarily green. Here is how the test viewing area looks, shown alongside the area again without any filter blocking the vision, for comparison.

This picture if you enlarge it, actually doesn't do the Blue Flame justice in terms of its clarity, I've actually thought of it as a very clear filter when the plastic covers are fresh. I think it would actually be much better if I put a fresh protective plastic covers on there. However, the photo does represent the colors that it lets though, and the diminishment of intensity in the light state.