davesisk
Platinum Member
I bought an ESAB Heliarc 161 AC/DC about 6 months ago. It's an inverter-based TIG machine. I really like it. The decision factors for me were that it's lightweight (about 30 lbs) and at full power (160 amps) it draws 27 amps @ 230V. This means I can run it off the dryer connection in my garage, rather than paying an electrician a few hundred dollars to run a 50-100 amp 230V circuit. It cost about $1500 (versus a little less for a Lincoln 175 Squarewave Pro or Millery Synchrowave 180 SD, which are both transformer based), but I more than made up for it with the savings from running a simple extension off the dryer circuit myself. It's home-workshop type use, so I don't beat it to death by any means, but I'm hoping it'll last me for the next 20 years at least!
Dave
Dave