Kevin is looking at the new machine from AHP, the AlphaTIG 225Xi.
All you analog lovers out there will be happy to know AHP went back to knobs – there are no digital controls on this machine, just knobs and buttons. That’s old school and reliable as all heck.
This TIG / stick welder comes with their Nova package with the upgraded foot pedal and the upgraded torch with the swivel head, which Kevin finds really handy. He’s always changing angles when welding. Kevin also shows the finger control on this F17 torch body. It fits your hand nicely to prevent cramps.
On the lower front of the welder are the cable hookups: gas line, ground, and torch control for finger control or foot pedal.
On the back in the machine, they even included a plug for a water cooler. Also on the back is the on / off switch. Kevin turns on the TIG welder.
Now he can play with some knobs! Kevin shows where to set starting and ending amperage, upslope and downslope as well as post flow. There are also knobs for amperage control, main amperage control, and AC settings, both frequency and cleaning. Pulse settings are to the right: full frequency, base amps and pulse width.
In the upper right of the panel are the controls for the remote, modes AC / DC and stick, and pulse: off, low and high. Of course, there’s a display panel, too.
Kevin has some 1/4″ aluminum plate on the workbench, so it’s time to fire up the welder! The metal is aluminum, so it’s already set on AC. It’s also set on 4T for the finger control. Pulse is off. He turns up the amperage to the max, 225 amps – that ought to work on 1/2″ aluminum plate.
Kevin puts on his welding safety gear, goes to his workbench and fires up the AHP AlphaTIG 225Xi welder.
After welding, he shows the results. The metal was a little cold to begin. Then Kevin started feeding more. At the end a little crater formed – oops!
This welder has a nice little arc that’s easy to initiate. It’s easy to control.
“What the heck?” says Kevin. “Let’s [weld] some steel.” He goes to the control panel’s mode button and selects DC TIG. Pulse is off. He sets the amperage at around 130 for the 1/8″ steel he is going to weld because it is sitting on a 1″ steel table top. All the other settings can stay where they are. Kevin is ready to get back to welding and dabbing, dabbing, dabbing ….
The weld looked really nice at the top, then some air came through the open door, causing a crater at the very end of the weld.
It’s a nice, nice machine. Easy to set up, easy to run and quiet enough that you can listen to the radio while welding. Kevin will try out the stick welding someday to see how it works, too.
For comparison sake, Kevin shows the brand new AHP AlphaTIG 225Xi and the brand new AHP AlphaTIG 203Xi. The biggest difference between the two machines is that the AHP AlphaTIG 225Xi is an entirely analog machine while the AHP AlphaTIG 203Xi is an entirely digital machine. Pricewise, the AlphaTIG 225Xi is preselling right now for $750. After they ship on May 3rd the price will eventually jump to $950. So order quickly! The price is really just stupidly low on both of these machines.
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Well, you might want to stick around for another moment to see all the words drop out of his head ….