Stamos Power Aluminium Welder Arc Welding Machine Inverter S-ALU 220 (220 A/230 V, TIG AC-DC/MMA, POWER, 2/4 Tact, Power ventilators)

A good piece of kit. Welded 10mm alu with it without problems. Very good on stainless and hf better than I have had on other machines. Wouls I buy another? Absolutely would.

First off I have to say I was offered a discount for a positive review. Well, after three month of use I will keep this machine but I can't provide the completely positive review asked for, so refused the discount.This welder is very well made, and very competent, but the biggest difficulty is the extremely poor instruction manual and the inflated specs.I have to be clear that I have been a welder for over 40 years, and have TIG welding equipment already. My main kit is just too big to be portable which is why I looked for something more flexible.I chose this welder because of the German heritage, and the blurb from the Stamos site that their products are built to their exacting standards. And to a large extent I can agree on this, but there are enough foibles to pick holes in this 'German quality' history.The welder professes to max out at 220amps, but the mini din connectors are only rated to 200amps. The Euro plug fixed to the main lead is rated at 16 amps, but at the welding voltage of 26 volts this gives a maximum of just 147.6 amps of potential. When you take into account losses in the machine, servos and fans this is lessened more, and then take into account the Euro to UK adapter which can only accept 13 amps input then we are left with just 120amps potential output.I see that for the TIG specs the closed circuit voltage is reduced to imply that there are more amps available, but this is sleight of hand because to get the same 'heat' the welder has to be turned up to compensate. The low volts can lead to more 'arc blow' as well. I used an inline Ammeter to check and found the Amps on the dials and display are rigged to show 20% more than the true figure available. My experience tells me that I have to run this welder at a much higher indicated rate than my other machines to get the same flow and bead.Having said all that I still feel this welder is worth me keeping for the following reasons.1). It is far More versatile than the very poor instruction lead me to believe.2). After all is said and done it does give me portable TIG capacity. I purchased a trolley that would take this welder, and a gas bottle, so now I can work anywhere in the shop.3). The welder can be used DC+ or DC- or AC in stick mode (MMA). This is not in the instructions and I had to find this out by biting my lip and jabbing away with rods at arms length.4). The perverse and esoteric diagram under the knobs can be worked out by a competent London underground traveller, and once worked out can be almost used................. No, not really, I made that one up. The diagram only leads to the same madness that befalls those who try to follow the instruction manual.Against:Unfortunately the display is only hooked to the peak amps knob, so all the other settings and knobs are just 'guesstimates'.Aluminium welding is quite difficult because of the low amps and heat sink effect, and pre-heat is often required. S-ALU 220 = big pinch of salt.Did I mention the poor 'instruction manual'.This same welder can be bought 20% cheaper from the same people if you shop around. When challenged they blamed Amazon for making it very expensive to sell through them.I looked into that and this is the only company I have found that feels Amazon forces them to overcharge. Everything else I have bought through Amazon is competitively priced with every other method of purchase, be it shop, warehouse or other online retailer. So, just be aware you can get a better price.The better prices I have found more properly reflects the true value of this item.