W Weldpro2020 Digital TIG 200GD ACDC 200 Amp Tig/Stick Welder with Pulse CK 17 Worldwide Superflex Torch/with Trigger Switch Dual Voltage 220V/110V welding machine

not fit for work. Broke on second use. total work about two hours

I was a welder for 10 years back in the 80’s and haven’t welded much since. I ordered this machine because I had some aluminum to weld on a boat and I just needed Something versatile for odd jobs. The first photo I used the pulse feature to weld up a stainless steel mount for my boat. I have never used that feature before and I was pleasantly surprised. No filler metal whatsoever and zero warping because of very little heat and those who have welded stainless know how bad It will warp with heat. The aluminum welding worked pretty well but, being this is a dry rig, the gun will get hot in your hands quickly running at higher amps. My welds weren’t beautiful but solid. I have since figured out a few things and my aluminum welds are looking much better now. The 3rd photo is my first aluminum weld which looked good but i was running too hot and not fast enough as you can tell. I put a before and after photo of a damaged front end on a aluminum boat, It did a great job!The stick rod works well too. I had to do some stick welding on one of my boat trailers and was pleased.I have To say that I am very pleased with this machine for the money and I havent had any issues with It. I highly Recommend this machine for general work around the home and shop.

I have been a fabricator for many years so naturally I have two Miller Syncrowave’s and several mig machines at work. I’ve been setting up my shop at home so I don’t have to go into work every time I need to get something done and a tig welder was a priority for me, so I started looking around. I came across this little beauty and after reading all of the good reviews and watching the in depth videos weldpro has put out on it, I decided to pull the trigger. That was on Friday, it is now Tuesday and it’s set up in my garage ready to go, so shipping was unbelievably fast. Opening the box I immediately noticed the care these guys take in packing the machine. Custom corner protectors in the box, perfectly fit foam around the welder and a box with attachments filling in the remaining space. For most people packing probably doesn’t mean much, but for me that is a huge indicator of things to come.The machine feels like it is well constructed, it will take some time getting used to the adjustments panel just because I’m so used to my other welders, but it is still fairly intuitive. The attachments are premium which is insane considering the price point. The pedal has a really nice smooth feel and controls amperage nicely and in addition it comes with a finger trigger which I will put to use when I’m twisted into a pretzel welding roll cages. The ground cable has a quick connection to the welder and a premium T clamp, not a junky ground clamp. The torch is CK worldwide so obviously it will be good but reading through the specs on this machine I expected a CK17 ridged torch with the super flex cable, which I would have been happy about, but instead I received the CK17 super flex with a flex torch head, even better!!I haven’t messed with any settings other than amperage and straight out the gate it’s putting down decent welds. I’m excited to dive into this thing and get it fine tuned so I can really see what it’s capable of.In conclusion I truly don’t understand how they can sell this welder so cheap while including premium attachments and a machine with every feature you could want.

I actually weld for a living. Custom fabricator.... I have been try to start something up at home where I can take on everyday people and give them a good price for their work. Right out of the box I was impressed with this welder. It is silly nice and the controls on it are insane! I use miller at my job and I would venture to say this welder will do just about the kind of work a miller or a Lincoln will do without all the complications of the controls having to always be adjusted for this thickness or that metal. This is very nice welder for the price and then some. I will leave pictures of how well this thing welds you when I get the chance to lay down some rod. Super nice welder! I am very impressed! And, I look forward to using it a lot!!!! The delivery was a week earlier than what was projected and everything was nice and tight when it got here. Those are things I appreciate. You can tell when a company takes pride in their work by the way they package. All around it has been better than perfect! Thank you to the Weldpro team for such a quick delivery!!!! You guys are insane! Thank you thank you!!!!

Great value proposition, however the initial quality control and long term reliability is questionable. I purchased it about a month ago. Unfortunately the welder I received had several issues and it had to be returned to Amazon because WELDPRO wouldn't honor their 2-year warranty. They were giving hard time that it was purchased from Amazon WAREHOUSE rather than from them directly, and they didn't want to deal with it at all. From time to time, Amazon would offer this welder with few marks and tears on the outside cardboard for $50 cheaper, but you will not have any warranty with WELDPRO.The packaging is outstanding with the machine able to survive a drop from a truck without being dented or scratched! Best packaging EVER!!!!! All accessories and there are a lot of them including a pedal and finger control, gas gauges, ets are very well packed. It comes with everything you ever need to start welding including 2 tungsten sticks. I plan to post a video review of unpacking and my thoughts about this welder at the later date.Before I go further into my views and opinions about this 200DGACDC TIG welder, I want to describe the kind of issues I experienced with it. To begin with, I noticed that the front panel would blink every minute or so, it was so quick, so you could miss it if you were not looking directly at the screen. I think it could be result of either noise in the supply voltage or some other electrical issue that would cause voltage droop. However it didn't appear to effect the controls, and I was able to configure the welder. However, it made me worried about the long term use. Welder worked in STICK mode, however changing welding current didn't effect welding current. The stick welding would function exactly the same when I had it set at 10Amps or 200Amps. It cause stick welding to run very hot, and burn through the material. It was very disappointing. However the biggest issue I experienced was using TIG mode. The machine never switched from START AMP to PEAK AMP. For example, if I set START AMP to 10AMPS, and PEAK AMP to 100AMPS, it would never exceed 10AMPS. This issue was with both pedal and hand trigger. It was unacceptable issue, and a long troubleshooting over the phone with WELDPRO resulted in diagnosing a defective board. However their response to this problem was that I return it to AMAZON rather than doing warranty work. I would like to credit AMAZON for allowing to return this welder a week past 30 day return window.Regarding the design: There are many welders made in China that look very similar to each other. When I first saw WELDPRO 200GD ACDC, I immediately recognized almost identical front panel and external design used by THERMAL ARC 186ACDC, ESAB ET201I and EVERLAST i-TIG 200. For those of you who are not very familiar with Asian-made welders, there was THERMAL ARC 185(Thermal ARC 185TSW) that was manufactured in Japan over 20 years ago. Their simple design and high reliability made it legendary and very potent opponent to brand name welders that cost 5 times as much. The following years created many copy-cats that followed the simple and modular design. This resulted in Thermal ARC 186, THERMAL ARC 202(sold in England), and few others that followed the same design and were manufactured in China. Recently, there has been an explosion of other Chinese-made welders and plasma cutters that decided to "improve" on the existing design to reduce cost of components and manufacturing. Some of these companies are WELDPRO, LOTUS, EVERLAST(to some degree), PRIMEWELD, CUT, and few others with less recognizable names. Some of you may have noticed that I grouped companies such as LOTUS that specializes in Plasma Cutters with the rest. The reason is I strongly suspect that all of them are designed and manufactured at the same place. The overall layout, components used, and design is indistinguishable from one to another. This bring the most important lessons: NOT ALL CHINESE MADE WELDERS ARE THE SAME. Companies like ESAB, THERMAL ARC, Thermal Dynamics use different designs and most importantly different components for their welders and plasma cutters.If you search for reviews of LOTUS, PRIMEWELD, and other value-brand cutters and welders, you will quickly run into very inconsistent reviews: a lot of people like it, and almost the same number of people have problems with it. This is the result of inconsistent quality control and use of make-it-cheaper designs. My biggest pet peeve is large number of solenoids used by these companies instead of power MOSFETs. Good and high quality solenoids use precious metals that don't oxidize and can handle electric arcing without burning out, however cheap solenoids use inexpensive materials that cause it either to stuck open or weld shut internally. Examining internal design reveals that these companies and their products use transistors manufactured by Shenzhen MASPOWER Semiconductor. It is a Korean company that is described as the supplier from China, with the research and development in Korea and Taiwan. There isn't much information about this company and about how reliable its components. NOTE: last time I checked, ESAB uses brand-name transistors and high quality capacitors overthought their machines are assembled in China.Reviewing design of WELDPRO 200GD reveals that (as many other value-brand companies) transistors, diodes, and IGBTs made by MASPOWER. There are 6x 50AMP (rated at 450 Volts) IGBTs in parallel. Doing simple math would imply that the output drivers(IGBT) can handle 33% extra current drive that the welder is rated for(50AMPs x 6 = 300AMPS total current drive, 200amp/300amp = 66% utilization). Obviously it is very encouraging that the design isn't maxed out, however there are many single IGBTs that can handle much larger currents thus reducing number of transistors used in the design. Having fewer components/transistors increases reliability as if even one IGBT fails, it will most likely lead to a chain reaction with the rest IGBTs burning out. The HF(high Frequency) arc/start is coupled to the output, and it can't be disabled. There is no scratch start option available.I had to return my welder to AMAZON because WELDPRO wouldn't warranty my machine. My initial hopes that it would use the same proven, modular and reliable design used by ESAB/THERMAL ARC didn't materialized. Not being able to turn-off HF is disappointing, but not a big issue for most people. Unlike some of EVERLAST welders( I didn't really like because of over-complicated design) that allows users to do at-home board replacement), WELDPRO isn't modular that would force you to send the machine back for repair. There are no service manuals, and some components and boards are not accessible if you need to troubleshoot an issue. I don't know what the turn around time for their warranty service. Weldpro uses a few solenoids and a large number of diodes and transistors connected in parallel to reach the required current drive. I couldn't figure out the maker of their capacitors, but it is definitely not a brand name. However, the overall construction, solder joints, strapping, wire shields is outstanding. With the exception of printed circuit bards being on the thinner side, it looks like a quality machine. Considering that this is relatively new machine, I do expect that the company will further improve quality control and make changes to the overall design to make it more reliable.I will be a return buyer in a year or two when there is 2.0 version of this welder. Meantime, I highly recommend you checkout ESAB-branded TIG welders that are unfortunately more expensive, but I expect you having fewer issues with it over a long time.