How do you set the snake oil knob?

jake98 · Feb 17, 2012

I keep wondering about the high end welders and their control features like high speed pulse, and wave form, and can't help thinking that it's snake-oil... If something is happening to the arc, at a rate that's faster than the weldor can react to it, how is it different than just turning down the amps? That melted puddle don't know nuthin, I'm thinking. :confused2:

Shield Arc · Feb 17, 2012

I'll tell you, all these new welders just floor me. They make welding so much easier!
I only use pulse on aluminum, with either my Dynasty, or the Invertec. If I did any really thin stainless Tig work, I'd use pulse on it.
Here is what pulse can do on the Invertec and spool gun, almost looks like Tig.

Baby Grand · Feb 17, 2012

It's the difference between a Kodak Instamatic and a Leica IIIf. If you don't need or know how to use all those additional knobs, you may not want them at all. When I worked at a camera store, one of the finest photos I saw came from an amature with an Instamatic. The conditions were right for that photo at that moment with that camera. A professional with a fully featured camera could have made that shot under many other adverse conditions that would have rendered the Kodak useless. He could also have made many other shots of that scene that the fixed aperture, fixed focal length, fixed shutter speed Kodak had no hope of capturing. Same goes for welders and weldors.

Not that I don't feel your pain. I have yet to find a digital camera that lets me look through the lens and by turning two rings and a knob capture an image without having to diddle with menus and override defaults. I wish I could replace just the film in my Olympus OM-1 with a digital CCD and have the best of both worlds.