HTP InverArc 160 Plus DV - Dual-Voltage Stick/TIG welder

[General Zod]

Just got this new little guy from HTP. It looks like they're wanting to compete with some of the other "lunchbox" stick welder offerings from other companies, with a few advantages.

Thinking it was going to be a box-inside-a-box, I was pleasantly surprised it came with a pretty big plastic carry case. The small box had the work/ground clamp, HTP stick welding gloves, and HTP T-shirt.

The case is not uber-high quality, but it's better than nothing. The large size lets you put the gloves and plenty other stuff inside with so much space.

Initial observations:

• Power cord is a nice, soft flexible rubber 12/3 cord with a 6-50P plug, 10 feet long
• Work/ground clamp is pretty normal 400A rating, cable is 10 feet long.
• Stinger is 250A rated, good strong spring as one would expect in a good stinger. Cable is 15 feet long.
• both clamp and stinger have USA-made Flex-a-prene 4awg cable, very flexible, and both are included with the welder
• No Arc Force nor Hot-start
• can be used for TIG (not sure if scratch-start or lift-start yet)
• has a PFC circuit so I assume it can run from ~90V to ~270V, and I would be willing to bet it will run on a wide variety of portable generators, where as other cheaper/lower-quality inverter stick welders will void your warranty unless you have clean power with <5% THD. That is usually one major advantage of a PFC circuit.
• Low-end is 7 amps.
• receptacles are standard Dinse 35, ½" size.
• Duty cycle is very respectable
  • 
• As you can see it's not Italian, but none the less the performance is on-par with the stick-welding side of my Pro Pulse 220MTS
• Despite the rather low OCV of 55V, it will properly run 5P+ and 6P+ 6010s, Hyweld 6010s, but not Blue Demon nor Böhler Fox 6010s. The latter doesn't matter too much, since the Lincoln 6010s are the better smoother running 6010s anyways, IMO.
  • by "properly" I mean no beating around the bush and "forcing it" by burying the rod in the puddle the way a cheap small inverter stick welder would require. You can whip and drag using a normal 6010 arc length, and the arc will not extinguish when a lesser quality welder would.
• As one can expect, to go over 95ish amps on 120V, you do need more breaker than a standard 120V/20A breaker. I1max is 33A, so to get the full 125A on a 120V outlet, you do need a 30A breaker.
• The arc dynamic/performance does not decrease when using it on 120V vs 240V. I assume this is a secondary benefit of the PFC circuit; where as in other cheaper inverter welders, if you are not on 240V you see a noticeable decrease in arc intensity when on 120V at the same welding amperage.

More info tomorrow after I do some more testing.

 

[Nutfarmer]

Have you tried welding with it ? The only thing I would care about is how it welds . Every thing else doesn't matter

 

[General Zod]

Yes, I wrote down some of my observations that came from actually using it. They are quite specific to actual welding.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

i have been looking at the lunchbox welders with interest
did i read it right, it has a 30% duty cycle on 115V@135A ???

 

[General Zod]

i have been looking at the lunchbox welders with interest
did i read it right, it has a 30% duty cycle on 115V@135A ???

Close. 125A @ 30% duty cycle on 115V. But note that just because it is on 115V does not imply that it will do it on a 20A breaker. As I mentioned in my first post

As one can expect, to go over 95ish amps on 120V, you do need more breaker than a standard 120V/20A breaker. I1max is 33A, so to get the full 125A on a 120V outlet, you do need a 30A breaker

 

[General Zod]

I'm not an EE nor do I know a lot about welder circuitry, so I'll just leave it at that.


Plastic protective sheets on both sides, likely to protect against accidental short-circuits if the case is bent inwards

No cheesy super-large globs of solder anywhere, like you see on some very low tier welders. Boards are lacquer coated. It's not super thick like my other welders, but none the less, it is there.

Very large fan for the size of the internals.

What I can see is that this thing is nearly all heat-sink inside. I like how the fins themselves are "corrugatted", so the fins themselves have fins for more surface area for better heat dissipation. Can't remember if I've seen that before or not.