You may never use a welding foot pedal again! In this how-to video, Kevin shows how the amperage control wheel and panic button work on Longevity’s TigWeld 200X TIG welder. The amperage scroll wheel replaces the usual welder foot pedal, giving you fingertip control of your amperage from 5 amps up to your welder’s highest setting. First Kevin shows a close up of the torch handle with the amperage control next to the TIG welder display panel so you can watch as he dials up the amperage – you can see the change, right on the display. He turns up the amperage all the way to 200 amps, the maximum on this welder. The on / off button, which doubles as a panic button, is right above the amperage scroll control on the torch handle. To turn the arc on and off, you simply press and hold the button for a second to start, then press and hold a second time to stop. While you’re welding, though, if you find you’re a little hotter than you want to be, you just tap that same on / off button once and the amperage drops to half of whatever you currently have it set at. When you’re ready to resume your original setting, you simply tap the button again. [NOTE: After tapping the panic button the first time, you can reduce your amperage from the halved amount but not raise it. To go above the halved amount, you need to tap the button again to resume your original setting, then scroll down the amperage.] This panic button can come in really handy if your metal gets a little hot and you want to avoid burning a hole. Just tap that panic button, lower the amperage, let the metal cool, and then tap again so you can go back to work. Next Kevin fires up the welder to show you how it looks. At first the arc, at just 5 amps, is thin, pale and wandering. As he scrolls up the amperage using the control wheel, you see the arc get brighter and stronger. When he gets to 200 amps, he taps the panic button, and you see the arc drop to half its previous size. Then he taps the panic button again, and the arc jumps right back up to its 200 amperage size and intensity. Then he scrolls the amperage all the way back down to 5 amps. At 5 amps, Kevin’s auto-darkening welding helmet flashed as it tried to adjust to the low amperage. Kevin points out that, after using a foot pedal, the scroll wheel and panic button take a little getting used to, but he said he did so in just a couple of hours. He says you also have to find a different way to hold the welding torch in your hand so that you know right where the button and wheel are, but once you get used to it, it works great. Visit the company Web site for more information about the Longevity TigWeld 200EX.