Miller Econotwin HF Question
 

Greetings all,

I ran across an Econotwin HF in the garage of a guy that wants me to build
him some parts out of Alum. plate(.120). There will be some welding done on
these pieces, so I got to thinking I could maybe do some tinkering and see
if this thing works, it is not the property of the shop owners. I did not
get to inspect the machine very well, but I did find an owners manual on
Millers website that answered my initial question, does the HF mean High
Freq.? It appears that the answer is Yes, No?
Otherwise, any caveats or funny little quirks I might need to know about?
I used an Econotig a few years ago, bout the same?

IF this little escapade does work out, I will probably "advise" the owner
to get a simple dry rig to put onto the Econotwin, they would probably not
do enough welding(Alum. of otherwise) to warrant the purchase of a water
cooled torch. I will also suggest using 1.5% Lanthanated Tungsten for its
dual use on AC or DC.

Thanks for any and all advice,
Jim


PS For anyone interested, my boss did finally purchase the Synchrowave
350 LX. This is truly a beautiful machine, and I haven't even got the hang
of the pulser yet, but when I do.............

Jim C Roberts wrote:
Greetings all,

I ran across an Econotwin HF in the garage of a guy that wants me to build
him some parts out of Alum. plate(.120). There will be some welding done on
these pieces, so I got to thinking I could maybe do some tinkering and see
if this thing works, it is not the property of the shop owners. I did not
get to inspect the machine very well, but I did find an owners manual on
Millers website that answered my initial question, does the HF mean High
Freq.? It appears that the answer is Yes, No?
Otherwise, any caveats or funny little quirks I might need to know about?
I used an Econotig a few years ago, bout the same?

IF this little escapade does work out, I will probably "advise" the owner
to get a simple dry rig to put onto the Econotwin, they would probably not
do enough welding(Alum. of otherwise) to warrant the purchase of a water
cooled torch. I will also suggest using 1.5% Lanthanated Tungsten for its
dual use on AC or DC.

Thanks for any and all advice,
Jim


PS For anyone interested, my boss did finally purchase the Synchrowave
350 LX. This is truly a beautiful machine, and I haven't even got the hang
of the pulser yet, but when I do.............


Zirconated Tungsten is MUCH better for AC TIG on aluminum. There are
many aluminum alloys that can't be welded (or at least the results are
quite inferior.) Is this an AC welder, or square wave? (ie. does it
have an AC balance control?) That makes a BIG difference.

I'm still learning TIG of aluminum, but getting better, a little at a time.

Jon