By material
Aluminium is not steel with a different setting. Its oxide layer melts far hotter than the metal underneath, so TIG requires alternating current, and MIG requires wire that will feed without buckling. Everything else follows from those two facts.
Aluminium is not steel with a different setting. Its oxide layer melts far hotter than the metal underneath, so TIG requires alternating current, and MIG requires wire that will feed without buckling. Everything else follows from those two facts.
200 A · pulse and double pulse · aluminium synergics · €600
The only machine here with genuine pulse and a spool gun interface — which is what makes aluminium a normal job rather than a fight.
Best for: Aluminium work, and anyone who wants the weld to look like the ones in the photographs
≈ 600 €
No. Direct current cannot break the oxide layer, and no gas, tungsten or technique substitutes for it. This is the single hardest limit in welding, and it is why AC/DC machines cost more. If aluminium is anywhere in your plans, buy AC now — it cannot be added later.
Because it is soft. Steel wire is stiff enough to push four metres down a liner; aluminium compresses and coils behind the drive rollers. The fixes, in order: a spool gun with the spool in the handle, a Teflon liner with U-groove rollers, or a very short torch.
Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.
Welders and plasma cutters swing by a hundred euros or more across the year, and the biggest "discounts" often land at prices the same model sold for six weeks earlier. UniverTrack tracks the real price history across retailers, spots fake reductions, and alerts you when it is genuinely the moment to buy.
