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

[performance]

Jake, the colors do look the same to me.

[ShaneJackson]

I kind of wish I had never seen this tread.... Now I want a W60, but find it hard to justify spending so much on a helmet when my blue flame works fine for what I am doing.... but then again the W60 does have my name on it (i know..... you don't even have to say it...)

But seriously if I welded a lot, I would probably order one. Seeing the color difference makes me want to go get an old gold tinted helmet. I wonder why other companies don't use the gold color instead of the green? Humm.... I wonder how well a green Everlast helmet with a gold filter would sell.... it doesn't have to be so large either......

[X83]

I have one of those Harbor freight blue flame helmets and while the external adjustment feature is nice the downside would that the lens has a diagonal dark streak across the center which is bothersome. I think my next helmet is going to be the Speedglass 9100xx because it has a real large lens with great features.

[Winky]

As far as the cheaters go, I have a solution. Walmart eye centers carry wrap around safety glasses with magnification. Since you are technically supposed to be welding with safety glasses on anyway, this may actually help your vision, with or without a cheater. And they have them in different strengths and styles for just a very few bucks...About what you'd pay for a cheap pair of reading glasses or less.

Good old Wally world ... hate to admit it but we go there a lot ... large selection good prices.

[DaveO]

As far as the cheaters go, I have a solution. Walmart eye centers carry wrap around safety glasses with magnification.

Thanks for this bit of info: I'm going to check it out. Is the entire lens a magnifier? I ordered some Jackson Nemesis safety glasses with magnification and when they arrived the magnifier bit was just a patch at the bottom of the lens. They've worked out so far but I know there will be out-of-position situations where they won't help.

[jakeru]

I found a situation where the arc sensors didn't trigger. I did have their sensitivity turned down (perhaps more than was needed) when bright daylight coming in through a window was triggering it. I was welding through one hole on the inside of an intake manifold plenum, looking in through another hole (about 2.25" diameter).

It was not a typical welding situation, to say the least, I barely fit the torch in there and only managed after putting on a stubby backcap and flexing the head "just right". Anyway, what I discovered is that if you are looking into a hole that is smaller than the "viewing window" of your helmet, it can put all four sensors out of direct view of the arc and possibly not make it trigger.

A downside to having a large window I suppose, is that the larger the window is, the more the sensors will tend to get pushed away by that large window, further away from where your eyes are actually at. This makes them more likely to be occluded by something that is not occluding the view seen by your eyes. To compensate for larger windows, I do think there is value to having more sensors as the window size increases. (And/or something like an X-mode feature.)

I am really digging the brightness and comfort this helmet provides, especially in light state. There have been many moments where I've been able to see detail with the helmet down, that I know if I had the blue flame on, I'd not have been able to see without flipping it up. There was even a moment where I caught myself out of instinct, trying to flip the helmet down because I thought it was up, even through it was actually already down.

I found a situation where I put the lighter shades (5-8) of torch mode to use. I was welding down in the manifold in a position where I couldn't see the arc directly. Seeing the lighter shade helped me see in this situation. It would have been nice if it auto-darkened in that situation also, but it was at least nice to be able to turn in down lighter than shade 9, but darker than the light state.

The weight is not bugging me. I like the up-detent, although find it needs to be supplemented with some extra friction still to reliably keep the helmet raised up. Still having a little inconsistency with the friction setting.

Also, I think I figured out why they designed all the lenses to be packed so tightly together on this helmet. I think it's so that if multiple reflections occur, that they are positioned close together rather than spaced further apart from each other (which, if you've ever experienced those, you'll know what I'm talking about; they can be very annoying...) I haven't experienced any of this type of reflections yet with this helmet but do recall seeing them sometimes with the blue flame. That's a good, functional reason to stick to the proprietary lenses that they sell for this helmet, IMO. And make sure to install them correctly (with the front lens flipped so it's close to the ADF, not backwards, which I'm sure a lot of users will do since it's not explained in the owner's manual at all, and front outer lens does fit flipped around either way.)

Also, Mark, as I get some more time in with the new helmet, I now see what you mean about there being green in the arc color of a clean aluminum arc. That's pretty cool.

[MoparCar]

Nice reviews (and comments) by all. These kind of threads are so helpful in keeping from spending on the wrong set-up. I really like that Jackson color spectrum with the crayons compared to the green tint. That has to help a lot!

[undercut]

I want this helmet:

http://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augme...-welding-mask/

Imagine, true colour, full screen with embedded real-time information about the weld. I'd add welding amperage to the screen too as a "small mod".

[undercut]

I've copied the link from my previous post:

http://www.eyetap.org/~siggraph2012/

Be sure to watch the video.

[Rambozo]

I want this helmet:

http://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augme...-welding-mask/

Imagine, true colour, full screen with embedded real-time information about the weld. I'd add welding amperage to the screen too as a "small mod".

Great technology, crappy welder. I wonder if something like this will ever come to market?

It's interesting that through mutiple exposures, digital cameras have overcome their chief flaw, that they lack the dynamic range of the human eye.

[undercut]

Great technology, crappy welder. I wonder if something like this will ever come to market?

It's interesting that through mutiple exposures, digital cameras have overcome their chief flaw, that they lack the dynamic range of the human eye.

... and the extent of the dynamic range of that helmet was surreal. Arc and puddle were super clear and yet all of the surroundings looked like it would in a normally lit room.

[everlastsupport]

I hate to be mean. But Rambozo is right. His welding was bad. Would have made a better video if he could weld. I mean you could see everything so clear.

[redbeard]

http://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augme...-welding-mask/

I like how the very first comment was a Vader joke.

That is pretty awesome tech though.

[jakeru]

Interesting camera / vader-helmet. I am impressed with the quality of the view that it offers. And also impressed that they did it in binocular vision. Looks like they used beam splitters and two cameras for each eye. I hope at some point, they can make it light enough weight, low enough in bulk, long lasting enough in power, and low enough in cost for welders to actually be able to feasibly use it on a large scale - if so (that it could be a while until that happens) I could see that technology replacing auto-darkening technology. One concern: I've heard that using night vision is fatiguing for long periods, and wonder if the same would apply to any other technology involving looking at display screens placed right in front of your eyes.

-------------------

Back to the Jackson Truesight, I've used it some more (actually given it some good scuffs already, not exactly how or when it happened, but it doesn't quite look "new" anymore - that's fine ). I really like how you can see the glowing color of the steel, to judge how long to keep shielding gas flowing on it. The clarity especially in light state continues to impress. I generally really like the performance of the autodarkening filter at lot.

My main beef with it at this point is, I continue to be frustrated by the friction mechanism in its headgear not staying set. It loosens up and ends up slamming down, which is hard on my neck muscles. It's tiresome having to make frequent adjustments to keep it working properly. It's bothering me enough at this point that I think I'll try disassembling the friction mechanism and probably sourcing some different size o-rings to replace the factory ones (or someone otherwise improve its design) to fix the inconsistency.

[undercut]

Great technology, crappy welder. I wonder if something like this will ever come to market?

It's interesting that through mutiple exposures, digital cameras have overcome their chief flaw, that they lack the dynamic range of the human eye.

Hope you can figure out how to adjust your helmet, jakeru. Sounds like a really good buy otherwise.

Rambozo, had to give you this link that I found:

http://gizmodo.com/5815282/a-camera-...s-video-in-hdr

Video with a dynamic range of 17 stops!

[jakeru]

Hope you can figure out how to adjust your helmet, jakeru.

Thanks, undercut. I think I made some headway!

Here are the pivoting components on each side of the Jackson headgear:


This part appears to be the culprit:

Sloppy tolerance in the square shank was causing rotational play with the mating part. This rotational play between these parts was causing the friction adjustment knob (only on one side of the helmet, which I never figured out why) to rotate back and forth some each time the helmet was raised and lowered (and possibly, loosening up over repeated up/down cycles).

My solution to eliminate this slop was to carefully cut and apply some aluminum foil tape to the square shank of the post:



The foil tape seemed to give the needed dimensions to take up the play between it and the mating part:


Initial testing of the pivoting mechanism shows that raising and lowering the helmet no longer causes either of the friction adjustment knobs to rotate, so I think this might have fixed the problem with the friction not being consistent. However, I'll have to put some longer term use on it to be sure that this is the cure.

---------------------------

Also, I thought I'd add a pic showing how the up/down detent mechanism works. Here it is in the "up" position:

(It's interesting that there is also a weaker detent for the "down" position; I didn't realize this before.)

In other news: I trimmed/sanded off most of the casting flash around the edges of the plastic "basket" part that sits on your head (which was also a little bothersome to me). I think I'm gonna like this helmet more and more!

[undercut]

Great bit of sleuth work! Hope those strips hold up and solve your problem long-term. Cheers!

[Winky]

I hate to be mean. But Rambozo is right. His welding was bad. Would have made a better video if he could weld. I mean you could see everything so clear.

I'm no Jody either but ... OMG ... if I was that bad I would just give it up. That is a pretty sweet camera set up though. I've looked at this one a few times ... interesting.

[Rambozo]

This rotational play between these parts was causing the friction adjustment knob (only on one side of the helmet, which I never figured out why) to rotate back and forth some each time the helmet was raised and lowered (and possibly, loosening up over repeated up/down cycles).

Probably one of those things that ideally would be reverse threaded on one side, like bicycle pedals.

Well thanks in large part to your review, jakeru, I just got a Jackson Truesight as well. Under $200 shipped was too good to pass up. I'm still trying to get the headgear setup to fit better, and have not yet had a loosening up issue, but I find that the helmet hits the adjuster knob before it locks into the detents to hold it up. I'm sure a little fooling around will get it sorted out. I'm still thinking about adapting the dual band miller headgear at a later date. I'm not much for wild graphics, so I didn't go for the serpent version. I ordered a basic black model, but because the first one was damaged in shipping, I ended up with the ace of spades graphics. What is it with skulls and welding? Flames I can sorta understand.


So for I've been just doing aluminum TIG and I have to say the better color rendition is really nice. I'm anxious to see what it looks like with stainless or titanium. It's not quite the same as what I remember the old gold foil shades to be, but very close. I went and got a new gold shade, to compare, but they must make them differently or there was some special brand that I used to have, because it didn't look like I remember. If anyone knows what brand of gold shade that has a blueish rather than green or amber tint is, I would love to know. The view is very clear and the autodarkening works perfectly even at super low amps. I was inside so I can't say how well it works with sunlight. With 10 sensitivity levels I'm sure you can dial it in for your environment.

I ordered the Jackson cheater lens that was specific for this model, and from the pictures I thought it would be the full size of the window. Alas it turned out to be a normal 2"x4" type lens and you can slide it up or down in the slot to fit you. It is also very loose in the holder so it always falls to the bottom of the slot. I'm sure I can take care of that, but I was bummed that it wasn't a full size lens. I think I will explore some special welding glasses so I can use the full viewport. It really sucks getting old and I would advise anyone not to do so. Having to remember to turn it on is going to take some time, but I realize that this will also give it a much longer battery life. Since I don't weld everyday it makes even more sense to have it that way. I like how easy it is to change the cover lens, and that the clips that hold the module in are on pivots with real springs and not a springy plastic hinge waiting to break.



The only problem is that it's so nice, I will probably only use it for TIG so I don't get it all smoked and spattered from stick or MIG, at least until it gets some scuffs on it.

[redbeard]

Under $200 shipped was too good to pass up.

Dude, where in the world did you find it for that price? Even after a long search I got nowhere close.

It really sucks getting old and I would advise anyone not to do so.

I wish you had told me that 15 or 20 years ago.