Tig welding tips, questions, equipment, applications, instructions, techniques, tig welding machines, troubleshooting tig welding process
BigD
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    Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:56 pm

Picked up my Christmas present to myself, a Coolmate 1.3 and small runner cart. I wasn't sure if I should start a new thread because I am not a braggart but I had a hell of a time finding feedback on the cart and cooler so I thought maybe this would help others.

First on the cart. It's really expensive and my first instinct was to build my own but after pricing it out even with crappy harborfreight components, I really wouldn't be saving a lot of money and it wouldn't be as compact since I wouldn't put in the effort to make it fit the Dynasty as well as the Miller cart. So I bit the bullet and boy am I glad I did. It's really worth it. It's very well made, the sheet metal is heavy gauge, so are the tubular frames and it comes preassembled on a palette (excessive but cool, and extra impressive that cyberweld can ship it truck freight for free). The coolmate and dynasty bolt into it like one monolithic unit adding barely any bulk dimensionally.

Onto the cooler. The manual is silly how bad it is. It's mostly dedicated to telling you not to drink the coolant or get electrocuted. There are a couple of vague diagrams for hookup and one table telling you what coolant to use and how often to change it and the filter.

I got the CK CK225SF FX 25 foot torch, I highly recommend it, truly excellent. It's more compact than my Weldcraft flex 9 even though it's a watercooled torch and the hoses are delightful - very pretty, color coded and they don't kink and drag on each other.

The torch hooks up to the gas outlet directly. The dinse connector, also a CK unit I got (SLWHAT-35, also excellent quality), connects to the cooler hot inlet, and the torch hot hose connects to it. Then the torch cold hose goes to the cooler.

It was my first time turning it up to full jam. I had to stop and start my coupon because my filler hand was cooking and I had to change position. Made a 1/4" alu coupon weld, on both sides, torch never even got warm. I started at full jam and then progressively backed off.

The cooler is very quiet. The Dynasty CPS fires it up only when needed and it's barely louder than the Dynasty fan. I was a bit concerned about how loud it would be, I heard people complaining about how loud the Coolmate 1 is and other coolers (again, part of the reason I'm making this thread - I didn't find any videos of a running 1.3). Not a concern with the 1.3

In summary, I'm in love. If you can swing it, get it. Feel free to fire off any questions if you're interested in getting one but can't find any information like me, I will do my best to answer.

A video of it running and some pics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Q2IdMLlM8
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dmcnally
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    Sun May 22, 2016 11:45 am

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Notapro
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That's an awesome setup, I hope I can swing that someday. Very cool! Thanks for posting,
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Hey, Dmitri,

Cool project! (Pun intended.) I, too am a fan of CK products, and the 230FL torch has been a real blessing for the awkward positions I weld in at work.

Don't ever worry anyone will think you a braggart for sharing a project! We all like to know what our friends are up to, and we all learn from each other's experience. Hearing, over time, what worked best for you and what you think could be improved and why educates us all.

Don't you love water-cooling, now that you've experienced it? I've welded aluminum at 300A on a 250A torch for two hours straight only pausing to grab a fresh rod, and the torch was never hot in my hand.

Steve S
BigD
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    Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:56 pm

Thanks guys!

Steve, yeah it's an eye opener. When I got the welder last December, I had no intention of getting a cooler. I looked at it and thought that's for the guys who weld all day long. I just weld for my racecar and some projects here and there. But I'm used to MIG where you just hold the garden hose and wiggle it around. Getting close to the arc made me realize that even for my hobbyist application, I would benefit greatly. I welded my rollcage in the Toronto winter and I still had to take breaks during the longer sessions because the torch was sizzling my gloves, I think they shrank two sizes. And I was using a 17.

I seriously think I'm going to sell my aircooled torches, I can't think of any reason to keep them. I even have a CK microtorch I used for reaching the really pain in the ass areas of the cage and if I need to use it again I'll just get a watercooled one.
dmcnally
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BigD wrote:I seriously think I'm going to sell my aircooled torches, I can't think of any reason to keep them. I even have a CK microtorch I used for reaching the really pain in the ass areas of the cage and if I need to use it again I'll just get a watercooled one.
An air cooled setup is more portable. If there's a chance you'll weld something outside your shop (i.e. family or friends house) then it would be a good idea to keep the #17 setup. The other side is that they won't bring in much money selling them on the used market. Just my $0.02.

Dave
BigD
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    Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:56 pm

The way the welder bolts together with the cooler in this cart, it's actually a lot easier to just throw the whole cart into an SUV or minivan than to separate it. The aircooled kit I have is pretty awesome so it should bring a little bit back but yeah if I get lowballed on it I will just keep it around just in case

https://www.millerwelds.com/consumables ... -ak-150mfc
Dxx
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    Fri Oct 13, 2017 10:41 pm

Thanks for this post - really helpful. I just fired up my coolmate 1.3 recently myself, and dont understand why the indicator light is not on when in use. have switched the setting to ON just so i could check if that was why, but no luck. Anyone else have this problem with the Coolmate 1.3?
Thanks!
BigD
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    Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:56 pm

Dxx wrote:Thanks for this post - really helpful. I just fired up my coolmate 1.3 recently myself, and dont understand why the indicator light is not on when in use. have switched the setting to ON just so i could check if that was why, but no luck. Anyone else have this problem with the Coolmate 1.3?
Thanks!
I will have a look when I'm working today but I think the indicator light only goes on when the cooler is running, when fired up by the CPS. When you first turn the welder on, it fires up the cooler for little bit, to prime the lines I guess. And if I remember right, that's when I see the cooler light being on.
BigD
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    Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:56 pm

Just to confirm, the light on my cooler only turns on when it gets fired up by the CPS
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