what are your thoughts on a Thermal Arc, Arc Master 185 AC/DC tig
http://www.thermadyne.com/uplF...5.pdf
im looking into geting one of these to do manifolds and things like that.

 

Thermal Arc is a good machine.

 

I hate the company that is Thermal Arc.

They break a lot, the parts are expensive and the customer service sucks.

I've used a handfull of their machines including tigs and plasma welders. They all suck imho.

 

Honda-tech will tell you that if it's not miller it's no good. Get in concact with your local TA service rep and find out what service and lead times are in your area in case you should need it. I could tell you about lincoln service, but my precision tig has hundreds of hours on it without a single problem.

 

Hundreds of hrs is like a month of real work dude. honestly. When you get into the mulitple thousands it's a different story.

The lincolns weld fine when they work. So do the thermal arcs. It's just when they dont work that it's a bitch and a half to deal with. Each to his own. Some of the old lincoln stuff is ok.

 

I have a Thermal Arc TA185, and it works quite well. I've had it for about 2 years now. I don't use it everyday, but so far no problems.

 

I also have the TA185. It has served me well for my garage fabrication needs.

I think the concensus is, TA makes great machines for do-it-yourself'ers, but it shouldn't be the backbone of a full-time fabrication shop. The fragile electronics are not going to stand up to 10,000 hours of use. For the people that might only weld 100 hours a year, it is plenty good, and one of the smallest and most affordable square-wave machines available.

 

Yeah that pretty much sums it up beepy.

Sry I'm like one of those mechanics that insists on having Snap-On tools or something. It's different when it's your livelyhood I guess.