Review on 🔥 Weldpro Digital TIG 200GD AC DC 200 Amp Tig/Stick Welder with Pulse CK 17 Worldwide Superflex Torch- Ultimate Dual Voltage 220V/110V Welding Machine: 3 Year Warranty Included by Josh Elkins

Great deal but initial quality control and long term reliability are questionable. I bought it about a month ago. Unfortunately the welder I received had several issues and had to be returned to Revain as WELDPRO did not live up to the 2 year warranty. They were very concerned about the fact that he was bought from the Revain WAREHOUSE and not directly from them and didn't want to deal with him at all. From time to time, Revain will offer this welder for $50 less with small marks and tears on the outer box, but you have no guarantees with WELDPRO. dented or scratched! Best packaging EVER! All the accessories are very well packaged and there are plenty of them including pedal and finger controls, gas sensors etc. It comes with everything you need to start welding including 2 tungsten rods. I plan to post an unboxing video and my thoughts on this welder later. Before proceeding with my views and opinions on this 200DGACDC TIG welder, I would like to describe the problems I encountered while using it. First I noticed that the front panel was blinking every minute or so, it was so fast you might have missed it if you weren't looking directly at the screen. I think this could be due to either noise in the supply voltage or some other electrical issue that could be causing the voltage drop. However, this did not affect the controls and I was able to set up the welding machine. However, it worried me about long-term use. The welder was in STICK mode but changing the welding current did not affect the welding current. Stick welding works the same if I set it to 10 or 200 amps. This causes the electrode welding to become very hot and burn through the material. It was very disappointing. However, the biggest problem I had was using the TIG mode. The machine has never switched from START AMP to PEAK AMP. For example, if I set START AMP to 10 AMPS and PEAK AMP to 100 AMPS, it never goes above 10 AMPS. This problem occurred with both the pedal and the hand trigger. This was unacceptable and a lengthy phone troubleshooting session with WELDPRO resulted in the diagnosis of the faulty board. However, their response to this issue was that I am returning it to AMAZON rather than doing warranty work. I would like to thank AMAZON for allowing me to return this welder a week past the 30 day return period. In terms of design, there are many welding machines in China that are very similar to each other. When I first saw the WELDPRO 200GD ACDC I immediately recognized the almost identical front panel and exterior design used on THERMAL ARC 186ACDC, ESAB ET201I and EVERLAST i-TIG 200. For those of you who are not very familiar with welders made in Asia, THERMAL ARC 185 (Thermal ARC 185TSW) was made in Japan over 20 years ago. Their simple design and high reliability have made them a legendary and very strong competitor to branded welding machines costing five times as much. In the years that followed, many imitators of the simple and modular design emerged. The result was the Thermal ARC 186, THERMAL ARC 202 (sold in England) and several others that shared the same design and were made in China. Recently, there has been an explosion of other Chinese-made welders and plasma cutters who have decided to "upgrade" the existing design to reduce component and manufacturing costs. Some of these companies are WELDPRO, LOTUS, EVERLAST (to an extent), PRIMEWELD, CUT and a few others with less recognizable names. Some of you may have noticed that I have merged companies like LOTUS, which specializes in plasma cutters, with others. The reason is that I strongly suspect that they are all designed and made in the same place. The overall layout, the components used and the design are indistinguishable from each other. Here are the most important lessons: NOT ALL CHINESE WELDING MACHINES ARE THE SAME. Companies like ESAB, THERMAL ARC, Thermal Dynamics use different designs and most importantly different components for their welding and plasma cutting machines. Reviews: A lot of people like it, and almost as many people have problems with it. This is the result of inconsistent quality control and the use of cheaper designs. What annoys me the most is the large number of solenoids being used by these companies instead of power MOSFETs. Good quality solenoids use precious metals that will not oxidize and can withstand an arc without burning out, but cheap solenoids use cheap materials that are either left open or welded inside. An examination of the internal design shows that these companies and their products use transistors manufactured by Shenzhen MASPOWER Semiconductor. It is a Korean company and is described as a Chinese supplier with R&D in Korea and Taiwan. There is not much information about this company and how reliable its components are. NOTE: Last time I checked, ESAB uses proprietary transistors and high quality capacitors and is considering their machines to be assembled in China. An analysis of the WELDPRO 200GD design shows that (like many other budget brand companies) the transistors, diodes and IGBTs are manufactured by MASPOWER. . Connected in parallel are 6x 50 amp (rated at 450 volts) IGBTs. Simple math implies that the output drivers (IGBTs) can handle 33% additional current that the welder is rated for (50A x 6 = 300A total drive current, 200A / 300A = 66% usage). Of course, it's very reassuring that the design isn't pushed to the limit, but there are many individual IGBTs that can handle much higher currents, reducing the number of transistors used in the design. Fewer components/transistors improves reliability because if even one IGBT fails, it will most likely cause a chain reaction that will burn out the rest of the IGBTs. HF (high frequency) arc/start is connected to the output and cannot be disabled. The option to start over is not available. I had to return my splicer to AMAZON because WELDPRO did not guarantee my machine. My initial hope that it would use the same proven, modular and reliable design as the ESAB/THERMAL ARC was not fulfilled. The inability to turn off the highs is frustrating, but not a big deal for most people. Unlike some EVERLAST welders (which I didn't really like because of the overly complicated design) that allow users to change the circuit board at home, WELDPRO is not modular, which will force you to send the machine in for repairs. There are no service manuals and some components and circuit boards are unavailable if you need to troubleshoot a problem. I don't know how long their warranty period is. Weldpro uses multiple solenoids and a large number of diodes and transistors connected in parallel to achieve the required current. I couldn't find out the manufacturer of their capacitors, but it's definitely not a brand name. However, the overall construction, soldering, bundling, wire shields are superb. Aside from the fact that the circuit boards are thinner, this looks like a quality machine. As this is a relatively new machine, I expect the company to continue to improve quality control and make changes to the overall design to make it more reliable. I will be a regular customer in a year or two when version 2.0 of this welder comes out. In the meantime, I highly recommend you get ESAB brand TIG welders, which are unfortunately more expensive, but I expect you'll have fewer problems with them for a long time.