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I have not posted here for a while and wanted to share some experiences I have had lately.
Currently, my go to welder is a Everlast 140. It's been good and I'm happy with it. The welding cable was too short for my liking and Everlast welding guns are on the cheap side so I ordered a NU-Tech through Welding Direct. Everlast does sell a fifteen footer for it. Welding Direct can be slow to ship which makes me wonder if they are just a middle man for guns custom made in china. This particular one only took about 3 weeks and looks really nice. I have bought ones through them that were falling apart and took over two months to get. I like the Binzel nozzles and Everlast is a Euro Connect so I had them make me a 15 foot version of those.

As I had a project that I was working on and remembered the long wait for a falling apart gun last time, I decided to get a cheap one from Amazon as well .The Nu-Tech ; overall is nicer,3 times the price but the gun has about the same feel. You have to compare the two pretty closely to notice a difference of 3 times the price. The Amazon one works fine. It shipped from cali and not directly from china.

I finally decided to get a better welding helmet than HF. The first one I had lasted maybe 2 years and I was sick of running through ;tons of lens protectors or have to go on a run because second one failed like the first one.. HF sells them cheap but they are difficult to clean without damaging them, They are that soft. I got a ESAB one and besides for the better lens protector, it's like the welding gun.It's three times the price but is pretty flimsy. The battery is replaceable though. All of the welding helmet makers have a new type of lens that supposedly does not distort the colors through the lens. I don't think it matters. It's like adjusting the hue or something with a TV.

Lastly, I had to buy some steel from a wholesaler and it was double the price I paid for it 3 years ago for the same stuff. I'm sure glad I learned to set up a welder and weld before the covid price hike. All I needed was a small piece but lowes is selling steel that won't weld. I kid you not. I tested one of the joints for the hell of it and it looked fine but it broke right off.

I going be doing some panel making work soon that thread will be getting bigger and better.

Links and or model#s of the bits you liked?

Here's a link for the welding gun.


Sorry,link won't work
YILIKISS-Welding-Connector-Replacement-180A-500
Not recommended for .025 wire. With out taking the gun apart and looking at the switch, I would say that it's at least as good as what my Everlast shipped with.

Welding helmet link is
https://weldfabulous.com/esab-savage-a4 ... 700000490/
I have the yellow version. I really need the adjustment on the outside and did not think that a elaborate adjusting band would be worth it for the average amateur welder. If the helmet would be on for a long time, then I might go with the neck brace as well.Most of the lower end name brand helmets don't have the shade adjustment on the outside. The 'real' lincoln' does but has the neck brace. Some of the lincolns look exactly like a HF helmet for 3 times the money. The 'bang for the buck' HF helmet was costing me productivity so I spent up. The better welding helmets have a gasket between the protection lense so if you are using fluxcore or stick, it won't fog up the shade lens.

The ESAB welding helmet; I think it's a A40, lasted about 1 year. I only used it a few times and it developed a delay before it would auto darken, It would work correctly after the first arc. It would work normally until I was idle for maybe 10 minutes. I would think that it is working on solar only and the battery circuit is faulty. I replaced the battery and it was the same.

The new helmets boasts 'natural colors'. With the ESAB it has more bright colors (variations close to white) where as the HF everything is mostly a variation of red.

I noticed at about the same time that my HF helmet is failing in the same way but it is not as noticeable because of the distorted colors are mostly in the darker range so it's not as abrupt.

The ESAB is under warranty so I sent the lens back for a replacement. I bought a super cheap helmet off Amazon for 30 bucks as a back up. It's super lite and thin but stays on your head better because of this.

So maybe a cheap helmet is the way to go. I do not plan on ever buying another ESAB helmet. One of the reasons is with most of these helmets, you have to bend the lens protective covers way too much and force them under weak plastic tangs.

The cheap welding gun has been holding up really well. I had to weld a bunch with it lately.

I had a chance today to try out my new $31 welding helmet.

It works good and auto shades really fast. Can't even notice it switching on. The external lens protector is the same as HF. It's very light and crappy but works fine. My advice for cleaning a cheap welding helmets lens covers is to just dab it with a alcohol/soap mix and rinse it off. Never wipe it. I sent the ESAB auto lens back for the warranty repair. Unless it proves to be a fluke I'll stick with cheapies and deal with the soft lens that are hard to clean without damaging. In other words I'll actually revert back for less problems.

It just occurred to me while reading this that I should put a piece of gorilla glass phone protector over the lens on my Home Depot Lincoln helmet. ($30?) I bang into things since without glasses I can only see clearly about a foot. I'm an awful welder, but the Lincoln helmet has been great, and has lasted much longer than my previous HF model (though I paid even less for that).

They make prescription inserts for welding helmets... even progressive lenses.