Tig welder choice...

[Masimec]

Hello! I want to buy a portative TIG welder, and I have 2 choices... the Lincoln Electric Invertec V205-T AC/DC or the Miller Dynasty 200 DX. Same power and weight. What is your experience with theses machines??

Martin

 

[X-Y-Z]

Both are great machines, I have the Miller Dynasty, no complaints at all, I have the finger control, sometimes I wish I also had the foot control also. If you are working at a bench most of the time, I would go with the foot control.
I got the machine to use mostly as a portable, lots of pontoon boats around here, they are always banging in to something! I can carry the Dynasty and a small bottle almost anywhere without breaking a sweat.

You probably already did your research, but these are great machines, but not big power, your pushing it to the max to weld 1/4" aluminum. They are great for small fab. jobs and general light duty stuff. Between this and my 250A MIG, they fill all of my welding needs.

If you want a lot of real life info on them, spend some time on this site (hope its OK to put a link in for it?):

WeldingWeb™ - Welding forum for pros and enthusiasts - Powered by vBulletin

 

[rayman]

I have a Dynasty 200 DX and I love it. It senses the type of power coming in and auto adjusts for 120 VAC to 480 3Ph. A friend's son went to Lincoln's welding school in OH and he is partial towards Miller...

I haven't used a Lincoln in years so i can't comment on that unit.

 

[Fixed_Gear]

Let me chime in regarding the Lincoln. I've got a V-205, it's been a fantastic machine, that is of course when I actually use it, which isn't very often. The Lincoln can only use 110 or 220V whereas the Miller is 110-480V but if you're using it at home, 480V will never be an issue. I'm not sure how the Miller is configured but on the Lincoln you'll need to make a small extension cord from the 220V plug on the machine to a 110V plug, not really a big deal. Power at 110V is strong too, 120-140Amps with reduced duty cycle is possible. The Lincoln has a 40% duty cycle at max compared to 20% for the Miller at 220V.

The one thing I liked about the Miller when I was making a decision was the fact that you could adjust the AC frequency up to 250Hz, IIRC, where the Lincoln would only go to 150Hz. It helps to focus the arc when welding aluminum. I think the Miller also goes down to a lower amperage but not by much and isn't much of an issue unless you're welding razor blades together.

Honestly, you won't go wrong with either machine, I only bought the Lincoln because that's what my local welding store carried.

 

[SND]

Either one should be pretty good, but I'd tend to go with the miller I think.
I used the fairly big Lincoln 350 or 425amp inverties, I forget the series and all it was for stick and fluxcore/mig and only lift arc tig(no ac that i remember) good and powerful, but what was weird is that although there was over 30 of them you could go from booth to booth, try the same settings and never get the same results, always had to tweek each of them different so we hated when we ended up in a different booth and have to figure it all out again. No clue what was causing that.


As to the Hz thing doing Al, I rarely found any use to going over 90hz and I still keep my TA-185 on 60hz the majority of the time.

 

[gary-sc]

I have a Dynasty 200 DX, love it. The biggest drawbacks from my point of view are the limited power for bigger stock (as mentioned by X-Y-Z) and the extremely cryptic menu system for getting at the advanced settings.

I ignored advice to get the coolmate 3 instead of the coolmate 1 that is normally paired with the 200 DX. I should have listened, the coolmate 1 is loud, and doesn't have a wheel to visually check that coolant is flowing, the CM 1 works fine but I wish I went for the 3 instead for the small cost difference.

I'm sure the Lincoln is a good machine, but overall I'm very happy with the 200 DX.

Let us know what you get and how you like it.

 

[recoilless]

Here...

A competative comparison(from Miler site)

Miller - Dynasty 200 Series - Competitive Comparison

I like the autoline feature on Miller's machines. I've got 240v power at home and 208v at work, certainly helps vs. autolink.

 

[MichaelP]

Did you look into Thermal Arc TIGs? They are very good machines and significantly less expensive than Dynasty.

 

[SND]

The Thermal-Arc's tig units are not sold in Canada, not CSA approved, not sure why. I ordered mine from the US on ebay, it went through customs fine and I've been very happy with it for probably over 4yrs now.

 

[cro-magnum]

Miller for tig
lincoln for mig

Thats been my opinion for a long time The miller auto converts it power input so if you can adapt to what ever plug is in the field it will do the rest.

 

[chris f]

You might want to look at HTP. I have a miller but Ive heard good things about the 201 they offer.

 

[jvangelder]

I have a slightly older Miller Tig with foot control and a chiller, zero complaints, works great. only problem ive ever had is the gas line fittings leaking inside the unit

 

[Dave Cross]

Another vote for the dynasty series here. I have a few of them, they are excellent machines for production or mobile work. They can't be beat in the aluminum arena, between the high speed pulsing options and the adjustable frequency you can make some awesome welds. Gone are the days of balled pure tungsten, grab some zirconiated, sharpen to a point, crank the frequency up to 250 and go to it!