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I suck at welding. I have a tig welder, and I’m not good at it. I’ve taken a short course, but it’s not enough. As someone who needs more education and pract

I suck at welding. I have a tig welder, and I’m not good at it. I’ve taken a short course, but it’s not enough. As someone who needs more education and practice, I don’t understand how this can help. Like, isn’t the only way to learn how to weld actually welding? Can a simulation be good enough? I have my doubts. Sure this can simulate holding stuff and what would happen in some conditions. I doubt this makes a big difference because the things that screw up welding isn’t just the motion. It’s the prep and cleanliness of the material, the shape and cleanliness of the tungsten rod, the position of the rod in the cup, the downdraft, and all kinds of crazy details that I don’t think can be simulated and these things need to be hard won by real practice.

inconceivable 4y ago
yea, obviously learning is doing. but this looks to me like a product targeted at trade schools, to be used in the very very first stages of an introductory class. instead of using workshop space and materials to do intro concepts it can be done in a normal room, freeing up the workshop during that time slot for other uses. schools are a continuous pipeline of new students to graduates.
- gharman 4y ago
  IDK I’d say high school. I took a semester welding class at community college and we only spent 3 sessions on MIG (what this appears to be) before moving on to other processes. Most of the learning was around dealing with PPC, listening for the sizzle, identifying a good bead and common mistakes. This seems expensive for a one-class tool, especially since they still need the regular welders to complete the training.
elil17 4y ago
I'd imagine this tool is meant for welding schools who want to be able to do something like: 1) Pull intro classes out of their shop to increase capacity 2) Reduce costs associated with power/gas/metal/etc. 3) Give people a taste of what welding is like without having to do safety training
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  If I'm paying for welding classes it's damn well going to be on actual gear.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  I think that if you made people "get good" on the simulator before they touched the real thing they'd get better at the real thing much faster/cheaper.
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    I think you overestimate the expense of scrap metal for laying practice beads. This simulator is waaaay more expensive
    - metal_am 4y ago
      Wire and gas costs aren't the issue. It's the cost of the welding machine because only one person can use it at a time. You can buy multiples of these for the cost of one industrial machine.
      - rpmisms 4y ago
        If you're teaching people, you give them crappy little stick welders. $200 each, maybe.
        kevviiinn 4y ago
        That's how I learned, and oxy acetylene
        behringer 4y ago
        Ah this must be why I never really figured out how to weld in high school.
      - kevviiinn 4y ago
        Does a welding school not have multiple welding machines already? Are they buying new machines every year? Is it actually less expensive than a MIG welder from the same company? https://www.millerwelds.com/equipment/welders/mig-gmaw/millermatic-211-mig-welder-m30024 https://www.millerwelds.com/equipment/welders/mig-gmaw/mille...
pydry 4y ago
My first thought watching this video was that its primary use is probably going to be weeding out people who would never be good at it e.g. because they lack a steady hand or lack hand eye coordination.
- elihu 4y ago
  In my experience (learning aluminum TIG at a hobbyist level) having a "steady hand" is all about setting things up from the start so your torch hand always has something stable to rest against. There will, of course, be people on either extreme who either have a stable enough hand that they don't need to rest on anything, or who have hands that are so shaky that propping against something doesn't help, but I think for the ordinary able-bodied person it just takes some practice and careful attention to workspace setup. I've never done MIG, but I imagine it's a bit less of an issue since you aren't constantly trying to get the electrode as close as possible without ever touching. I could see this product being pretty good at telling students "hey, you're holding the torch at the wrong angle" or "you're going to fast" or whatever. Basically, teaching students a few good habits from the beginning.
- zamnos 4y ago
  That seems... great? If I can buy a Groupon and play for a couple hours on a sim for $100 and figure out if I have the aptitude for it, and if I enjoy doing it, before dropping a couple grand on a class I won't finish and will refuse to pay for, then that seems like a win for all parties.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Yes, it seems like a good idea.
Arcanum-XIII 4y ago
My father was the director of a vocational school and for the beginner those system seems to help. I myself took some lesson for tig - as other have said, a big part of it was cleaning up and prepping. Prepping the tungstène every minutes made you motivated to improve fast :D With practice, I can weld in some complicated position. The inconfortable way of working is the biggest issue (under a tube with a mirror for example, with my left hand holding the electrode as a right handed man… ). Nothing can teach you that beside doing it. And it will happen, only more often in a boiler room :D
convolvatron 4y ago
in the most constructive way possible - you're just being lazy it just takes practice as you say, and its the kind of practice where feedback is good and nearly instantaneous. it also goes pretty fast. by the 40th hour of welding you should be doing a passibly good job. yes, you will have to struggle some with issues like bridging, undercutting, porosity, and under-penetration. all those are tractable and pretty easy to debug. and yeah, if your major problem is cleaning the work or your tungsten, then maybe welding isn't for you...but I kinda doubt it finishing is where you can really distinguish between the professionals and the weekend warriors.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
neuralRiot 4y ago
The only advantage i see for this system is that it eliminates the liability of students working with real welding equipment.
- beams_of_light 4y ago
  I learned to weld in high school. The first priority is safety education. While this is neat, that is a very massive missing element that students must become familiar with when learning to weld.
petee 4y ago
Hi, as a fellow amateur tig-er, I'd highly recommend checking out Weldingtipsandtricks on YouTube, the guy is a great teacher, and there are plenty of troubleshooting topics for new welders. He helped drastically improve my aluminum welding
- dieselgate 4y ago
  Hell yea Youtube U.! That's how I learned to weld as well, saw an open box arc welder at harbor freight and started watching and sticking rods. Meltin' Metal Anthony has a good channel, though he's gotten super crass the past year (maybe i didn't notice it before?) but still relevant. WeldTube and their videos are good too, those guys are great at teaching and are good for a laugh sometimes too All those above can be seen on youtube. I don't tig but have watched a lot of videos on it and there's so much to learn from what's out there
SkyPuncher 4y ago
I'm an amateur welder too. I suspect this is helpful for bringing down the cost for initial training. You'll still need hands-on, but this will get you the first 40% to 60%. Beyond the welder and material for training, facilities also need to have robust electrical supplies, welding tables, and inert gas supplies. This cuts all of that out.
elihu 4y ago
It looks like this AR welding product from Miller is specific to MIG. A TIG simulator would be interesting, but it would probably be a lot more work to pull off convincingly. (For the non-welders reading this: with TIG welding you hold a "torch" in one hand that has a tungsten electrode and it blows an inert gas such as argon at the work area, and in the other hand you have welding rod that you periodically dip into the pool. MIG, on the other hand, uses a torch where the filler rod is the electrode, and there's a motorized feeder that's constantly extending the filler rod as you weld.) edit: It looks like Miller do also have a virtual TIG setup, someone else posted a link to it. It looks pretty good, actually.
bityard 4y ago
These aren't used as teaching tools so much as "demo" tools. They are the rough welding equivalent to running a flight simulator on a laptop with a single USB joystick. They are good for bringing out to trade shows, job fairs, and other marketing venues to sort-of simulate what it's like to weld something, with all the dangers removed.

inconceivable 4y ago

yea, obviously learning is doing. but this looks to me like a product targeted at trade schools, to be used in the very very first stages of an introductory class. instead of using workshop space and materials to do intro concepts it can be done in a normal room, freeing up the workshop during that time slot for other uses. schools are a continuous pipeline of new students to graduates.

gharman 4y ago
IDK I’d say high school. I took a semester welding class at community college and we only spent 3 sessions on MIG (what this appears to be) before moving on to other processes. Most of the learning was around dealing with PPC, listening for the sizzle, identifying a good bead and common mistakes. This seems expensive for a one-class tool, especially since they still need the regular welders to complete the training.

elil17 4y ago

I'd imagine this tool is meant for welding schools who want to be able to do something like: 1) Pull intro classes out of their shop to increase capacity 2) Reduce costs associated with power/gas/metal/etc. 3) Give people a taste of what welding is like without having to do safety training

idiotsecant 4y ago
If I'm paying for welding classes it's damn well going to be on actual gear.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
I think that if you made people "get good" on the simulator before they touched the real thing they'd get better at the real thing much faster/cheaper.
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  I think you overestimate the expense of scrap metal for laying practice beads. This simulator is waaaay more expensive
  - metal_am 4y ago
    Wire and gas costs aren't the issue. It's the cost of the welding machine because only one person can use it at a time. You can buy multiples of these for the cost of one industrial machine.
    - rpmisms 4y ago
      If you're teaching people, you give them crappy little stick welders. $200 each, maybe.
      - kevviiinn 4y ago
        That's how I learned, and oxy acetylene
      - behringer 4y ago
        Ah this must be why I never really figured out how to weld in high school.
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      Does a welding school not have multiple welding machines already? Are they buying new machines every year? Is it actually less expensive than a MIG welder from the same company? https://www.millerwelds.com/equipment/welders/mig-gmaw/millermatic-211-mig-welder-m30024 https://www.millerwelds.com/equipment/welders/mig-gmaw/mille...

pydry 4y ago

My first thought watching this video was that its primary use is probably going to be weeding out people who would never be good at it e.g. because they lack a steady hand or lack hand eye coordination.

elihu 4y ago
In my experience (learning aluminum TIG at a hobbyist level) having a "steady hand" is all about setting things up from the start so your torch hand always has something stable to rest against. There will, of course, be people on either extreme who either have a stable enough hand that they don't need to rest on anything, or who have hands that are so shaky that propping against something doesn't help, but I think for the ordinary able-bodied person it just takes some practice and careful attention to workspace setup. I've never done MIG, but I imagine it's a bit less of an issue since you aren't constantly trying to get the electrode as close as possible without ever touching. I could see this product being pretty good at telling students "hey, you're holding the torch at the wrong angle" or "you're going to fast" or whatever. Basically, teaching students a few good habits from the beginning.
zamnos 4y ago
That seems... great? If I can buy a Groupon and play for a couple hours on a sim for $100 and figure out if I have the aptitude for it, and if I enjoy doing it, before dropping a couple grand on a class I won't finish and will refuse to pay for, then that seems like a win for all parties.
- pydry 4y ago
  Yes, it seems like a good idea.

Arcanum-XIII 4y ago

My father was the director of a vocational school and for the beginner those system seems to help. I myself took some lesson for tig - as other have said, a big part of it was cleaning up and prepping. Prepping the tungstène every minutes made you motivated to improve fast :D With practice, I can weld in some complicated position. The inconfortable way of working is the biggest issue (under a tube with a mirror for example, with my left hand holding the electrode as a right handed man… ). Nothing can teach you that beside doing it. And it will happen, only more often in a boiler room :D

convolvatron 4y ago

in the most constructive way possible - you're just being lazy it just takes practice as you say, and its the kind of practice where feedback is good and nearly instantaneous. it also goes pretty fast. by the 40th hour of welding you should be doing a passibly good job. yes, you will have to struggle some with issues like bridging, undercutting, porosity, and under-penetration. all those are tractable and pretty easy to debug. and yeah, if your major problem is cleaning the work or your tungsten, then maybe welding isn't for you...but I kinda doubt it finishing is where you can really distinguish between the professionals and the weekend warriors.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

neuralRiot 4y ago

The only advantage i see for this system is that it eliminates the liability of students working with real welding equipment.

beams_of_light 4y ago
I learned to weld in high school. The first priority is safety education. While this is neat, that is a very massive missing element that students must become familiar with when learning to weld.

petee 4y ago

Hi, as a fellow amateur tig-er, I'd highly recommend checking out Weldingtipsandtricks on YouTube, the guy is a great teacher, and there are plenty of troubleshooting topics for new welders. He helped drastically improve my aluminum welding

dieselgate 4y ago
Hell yea Youtube U.! That's how I learned to weld as well, saw an open box arc welder at harbor freight and started watching and sticking rods. Meltin' Metal Anthony has a good channel, though he's gotten super crass the past year (maybe i didn't notice it before?) but still relevant. WeldTube and their videos are good too, those guys are great at teaching and are good for a laugh sometimes too All those above can be seen on youtube. I don't tig but have watched a lot of videos on it and there's so much to learn from what's out there

SkyPuncher 4y ago

I'm an amateur welder too. I suspect this is helpful for bringing down the cost for initial training. You'll still need hands-on, but this will get you the first 40% to 60%. Beyond the welder and material for training, facilities also need to have robust electrical supplies, welding tables, and inert gas supplies. This cuts all of that out.

elihu 4y ago

It looks like this AR welding product from Miller is specific to MIG. A TIG simulator would be interesting, but it would probably be a lot more work to pull off convincingly. (For the non-welders reading this: with TIG welding you hold a "torch" in one hand that has a tungsten electrode and it blows an inert gas such as argon at the work area, and in the other hand you have welding rod that you periodically dip into the pool. MIG, on the other hand, uses a torch where the filler rod is the electrode, and there's a motorized feeder that's constantly extending the filler rod as you weld.) edit: It looks like Miller do also have a virtual TIG setup, someone else posted a link to it. It looks pretty good, actually.

bityard 4y ago

These aren't used as teaching tools so much as "demo" tools. They are the rough welding equivalent to running a flight simulator on a laptop with a single USB joystick. They are good for bringing out to trade shows, job fairs, and other marketing venues to sort-of simulate what it's like to weld something, with all the dangers removed.