Welding Helmets

zro

i agree with rifter, but i WOULD like to add, if you are having a hard time welding and things dont turn out the way you want them to and your weld looks like poop, dont take it out on your hood. a guy at work the other day took his brandy new miller a/d $300 hood, and drove it into the concrete bcuz he cant weld and called the hood JUNK. now he has $300 worth of broken plastic and still cant weld, and is pi$$ed at me bcuz i told him he's an idiot and needs anger management.

Fishing Dude

Found that to weld better needed to use stronger glasses, darken lense this made a big differance as changed focal length and made seeing weld easier. ZRO do agree with you the best helmet in the world won't make you a better welder but techque will. Till took classes thought welding was laying bead and joining the metal. Now I understand cold lap, undercut, plus the importance of the heat. Someone could lay the best looking weld in the world and it not be worth a s#$%. Take experiance to become proficant at welding.

liftedwelding

I have a miller elite and it works great. Not cheep tho, over $300

hitmanharleyk

You only have one set of eyes and you can't get them replaced, buy a decent helmet to protect them.

Check the AD response time between a $200 helmet and a $50 helmet and you will see the difference. Also make sure any helmet you buy has 4 sensors, this will help to keep you from being flashed.

ruredy

I've had a high dollar helmet go stupid on me while welding. Nothing like staring at a arc and have the helmet go clear, seems the batteries died. I can't seem to tell the difference in response time between them, maybe thats cause my eyes are already fried from the "good" helmet. the cheap helmet doesn't use batteries, solar powered, go figure.
Can you post those times for us?

hitmanharleyk

Don't have the numbers for each helmet, but usually the cheaper helmets ($50 to $100) are in the 1/30,000 to 1/35,000 range and this is with new batteries. As with everything, there probably is a exception to the rule.

I know the better ones I'm familiar with are in the 1/15,000 to 1/20,000 range. It doesn't sound like much but every-time you strike a arc or get out of position and it lightens it takes that split second more to darken, after a number of welds you will tell the difference and later in the day you'll really be able to feel it in your eyes.

You can get a decent helmet in the $120 to $160 range. I'm not here to sell helmets, but I do carry one in the $125 range that is 1/22,000 and Speedglas makes a $165 helmet to go along with there $450 helmet.