Flux 125 welder youtube11/12/2023 All told, I spent more than $100 on the upgrades, and that is why it’s not worth buying a new unit to upgrade: for $50 more you can get the $150 220 volt 170 amp welder that is DC from the factory, and also can use shielding gas for MIG welding. Also necessary was some miscellaneous hardware like wire, soldering supplies, machine screws, and etc. I ordered and installed a 150amp three phase 1200 volt bridge rectifier $13, a 68,000 microfarad 63 volt capacitor $20, a toroid core $13, some ceramic resistors $4, a 22-foot 10 gauge cord $34, plug for the cord $10, zinc cable connector $5, 500-amp ground clamp $10 and etc. I also added some resistors across the capacitor terminals, a toroid core inductor, a 22 foot 10 gauge power cord, and a beefy ground clamp. For me it cost closer to $100 since I went ahead and made more upgrades than the bare minimum. Minimum cost is about $13 to $35, depending on the availability of parts and materials. This conversion requires, bare minimum, a bridge rectifier, a capacitor, some wire, wire connectors, screws, and soldering equipment. That is an advantage that the flux core wire process has over the MIG processes: welding outdoors in windy conditions. I ordered the parts I needed from eBay to convert my unit to DCEN, and I am very excited about turning my day-late-and-dollar-short welder into a higher performance machine that I can take with me in my truck and weld anywhere. It’s a good plan, and they’re making money. Harbor Freight makes A/C output welders because their target market are people like me who didn’t know the difference, and it’s cheaper to make a welder with A/C output that will glue metal together. The arc is stable, heat is concentrated on the work, and with a quality flux core wire: spatter is minimal, the weld is covered evenly with slag, penetration is maximized, and the weld is stronger. The weld ends up being colder, less penetration, the slag gets dispersed everywhere causing weld contamination, oxidation, brittle welds. This oscillation causes an unstable arc, it causes the wire to pop 60 times per second, and that is the cause of the massive spatter with a stock HF unit (combined with really low quality wire). Electrons moving through air cause heat, and when they move from the wire to the work, the hottest point is near the work. When it jumps back and forth like that it causes the hottest point to move back and forth. With A/C flux core the arc changes direction 60 times per second, moving from the wire to the work then from the work to the wire. (They are not stupid.) I see the difference in the weld quality on DCEN, and also I see how simple and cheap it actually is to make the conversion. Even the Harbor Freight manuals for the 170 and 180 amp units say that flux core should be DCEN. Everyone including Steve Bleile, ChuckE2009, Miller, and everyone else says that flux core welding should be DCEN. Now during the building of my new gasifier I am taking some YouTube courses on flux core welding, and the topic of DCEN comes up over and over. ChrisAdmin and Wayne Keith both highly recommend a quality welder for gasifier building, and I agree. I was a bit confused and intimidated by that statement, though, and never seriously considered it. I read one reviewer say that he modified his HF welder to weld with DCEN (direct current electrode negative) instead of A/C. However, I decided it would work on my truck exhaust system, and it did. I asked my brother, an experienced MIG welder about flux core. I studied the reviews on the HF website over a period of time before buying it. Now I still have the welder, and I’m building a gasifier. I have the 90 dollar 90 amp flux core welder from Harbor Freight (item #68887) that I paid for by doing the muffler job on my truck two and a half years ago. Behold some simple, cheap modifications to turn a metal glue gun into a higher performance machine with a rock solid arc that welds like a dream.
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