Best fifty euro's I've ever spent Noel.
I found the supplied rods really really good, gave a nice spattery texture to the rods, spatter being a sign of good heat,
2.5mm rods are good enough for 5mm angle iron machine bases and the likes.
The leads are decent, and nice and rubbery, not plasticy,
Supplied shield needs some insulation tape, and also a clear plastic screen to protect the glass. (I like having equal weight for balance, don't like flippy helmets)
Both shield and electrode gun are fairly lightweight, which I like,
Never used supplied tack hammer/brush in favour of a wee warrington pin hammer.
Just bought some more rods as they were on discount, glad to see they are now supplied in nice bag within box, decent rods, perhaps not as good as supplied ones,not tested the new ones yet properly to see if the performance might be due to slight damp, but other rods seem similar with no spatter evident.
Perhaps I shouldn't have used 3.2mm rods I had on it, it certainly didn't like it by the noise, this has a thermal cut out which takes a half hour to cool down, which will happen in 10mins with oversized rods, compared to say a half hour of productive hefty tacks using 2.5mm rods.
Perhaps it might be the damp shed, I can't say.
All in all with suitable 2.5mm rods, I find this machine is much easier to use than the large one at me folks,
Starts an ark so much easier for some reason.
Just need to be a bit more patient if you're used to 3.2mm rods on 5mm steel,
the smaller bead needs a bit more travel, (Yes it has the power to melt through)
which I find way easier to control compared to the larger machine with leads like something like a ships rope,
This machine will teach one good habits, not a bad thing to say about it.
A game changer for one who needs engineering solutions due to space constraints.
Tom
