Solar Auto Darken welders helmet

There are a lot of these available for $25.00- $35.00. Anyone have experience with one? I am 65 years old so I already know about generalities such as "you get what you pay for" and "if it looks to be too good to be true it probably is". I am looking for someone who has one.

I have one purchased from Harbor Freight for $35.00 (with a coupon). It has worked very well for me. I have done mainly stick welding as well as some MIG welding with it. No complaints, but I probably don't know enough about welding to know what to complain about!

Garry

I had one of the cheapies bought from one of the traveling tool shows. Good news was that it helped tremendously to improve my welding versus the old "stab blindly in the general direction" routine. Bad news was that within a couple of years it became unreliable and would not always darken when you struck an arc, or would darken slower than normal. Granting that even the "light" shade is dark enough to protect your eyes from the worst of the arc flash, I still got enough of a flash burn that after the second episode (it would only do it occasionally and completely at random) I bought a good helmet. Cost me around $200 but no more flash burns. While I'm all for saving a buck where I can, based on my experience I'd spring for the good helmet first--you get two eyes per customer with no refunds for misused merchandise.

I have one that served me well for several years with the stick welder. Light weight and reliable. Then I got a wire welder and quickly found out the mask didnt darken quick enough for a wire welder. One night with gravely eyes was the clincher.

I bought a cheap one from Northern Tool a couple years ago. For very ocasional home use, it would probably have been OK.

I used mine quite a bit, but depends on what jobs come in...

It had problems from the begining. Sometimes it would fail to darken, usually the first time the arc struck. Other problems, the battery cover broke, battery would fall out if it got bumped. The inside clearance was too close, my nose hit the inside of the lens so it was always smeared with sweat.

Would I buy another? NO

I dug an old Jackson out of the bottom of the locker, cleaned it up, new battery, new lens protectors (free from the weld shop, obsolete, wanted to get rid of them!). Works great, much better quality.

I've had one for 20yrs and it still works well but I don't weld more then 20 times per yr!

You can buy a good one for a hundred and a great one for a buck fifty. I buy stuff from HF, but not for eye protection. I like my Speed Glass.

I bought one from princess auto about 5 years ago
for $55. I like it better than the lincoln I have
also used. It darkens faster. It still works great
i just set it out in the sun once in awhile to
charge it and I have never even looked to see what
it has for batteries.

I bought one at Harbor Freight for about that on sale a few years back. I have it at work and do use it but it has gotten to where it is mostly dark. It never was real clear before striking an arc. I bought the one that Lanse did a video on a while back and it is window glass clear until you strike an arc. It takes batteries though. I use it at home and love it. I can stitch and tac with it where I used the squint before. It was around a hundred bucks.

I bought a cheap one from Harbor Freight 5 years
ago and it's been great. No we do NOT always get
what we pay for and often we pay way too much. In
this case, less money spent worked out fine. MY
ONLY complaint is when welding inside and using
artificial lighting. If my helmet gets too close
to a work-light- it goes dark.

By the way, I'm the same age as you. I have to
wear glasses and wearing them under the HF helmet
works out better then expected.

I wear trifocal glasses. I've found that the hood with the large window works well with trifocals.
Several years ago I found a large window auto darkening hood at Northern Hydraulics. And it has worked well.
We moved two years ago, and this summer I finely got my new shop set up to where I wanted it.
Now I fine that the auto darkening hood darkens with the fluorescent light on. Why, I don't know. But I have to turn that light off when welding.

Dusty

(quoted from post at 21:30:22 11/07/14) You can buy a good one for a hundred and a great one for a buck fifty. I buy stuff from HF, but not for eye protection. I like my Speed Glass.

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I agree 100%. I paid over $100 for mine. Got it from a Lincoln dealer. I've never been sorry that I paid that much. My eyes are priceless.

Here is all I know . The Lincoln which retails for a hundred is made in China. I bought one and returned it to Lowes after seeing the Made in China. The Harbor -Freight is half that price and could even be made at the same plant The Harbor -Freight has lots of good reviews on-line from all types of weldors. It was funny, a welding instructor guy who used to be on here [ T-Bone] made a comment about auto- darkening helmets that made me laugh to this day and keep flipping my little window. " if you blink when you strike the arc you've wasted your money ". It also seems that on alot of these helmets like the Miller you are paying for the graphic artwork on the hood.

(quoted from post at 09:41:21 11/08/14) Here is all I know . The Lincoln which retails for a hundred is made in China. I bought one and returned it to Lowes after seeing the Made in China. The Harbor -Freight is half that price and could even be made at the same plant The Harbor -Freight has lots of good reviews on-line from all types of weldors. It was funny, a welding instructor guy who used to be on here [ T-Bone] made a comment about auto- darkening helmets that made me laugh to this day and keep flipping my little window. " if you blink when you strike the arc you've wasted your money ". It also seems that on alot of these helmets like the Miller you are paying for the graphic artwork on the hood.

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I've got a couple of welding helmets that are made in the USA. They are NOT auto-darkening. Not very likely that ANY welding helmet today has a "made in the U.S.A." label.

Harbor-Freight is a major contributor to that problem.

Miller - Korea Hobart - not researched but probably same as Miller. Speedglass -Estonia or Sweden, Jackson - Michigan [ some imported as well.

Harbor Freight contributes to the "problem."
Of what? Goods made outside the USA? If that's
the stated problem, labor unions in the USA are
just as guilty if not more. Overly high wages
mean overly high prices on US goods. Those who
have private sector non-union or non-government
jobs are sometimes glad to find lower priced
goods and don't really care where they came
from. I'm one of those people. Every car,
truck, and computer in this country has Chinese
parts in it. Heck, even external_link's poorly working
health-care Website is foreign made.

You may not have done your eyes the favor you intended. The Lincoln helmet you paid $100 is almost certainly a Chinese made helmet, and most likely identical in all critical respects to the Harbor Freight helmet you hold in low esteem. It may have a different shell, a more attractive paint job, and the Lincoln logo, of course. What won't be different is the optics---the one part which actually protects your eyes. If you think that buying from a Lincoln dealer (Air Gas, for instance) will guarantee quality, I'll mention a few products that fall short. Radnor stick electrodes may be the worst performing electrodes available. The MIG pliers that Air Gas sent to our college shop (free samples, and worth every penny) wouldn't dependably cut MIG wire, which is the very least you would ask of them. To be fair about it, they were no worse than the Chinese made pliers Harbor Freight had started selling a few years earlier. Harbor Freight used to sell MIG pliers made in the other China (Taiwan) which were about as good as anything currently available.

As of a few years ago, only Jackson made their own optics---in America. Speedglass optics are, or used to be, Swedish made. Both companies make good welding helmets, although they cost more than $100. You shouldn't worry too much, though, even the cheapest helmets use plastic lenses that block or 99.9% of UV rays---the rays that actually damage your eyes---even when they're off. They do that because it adds almost nothing to their cost. I've done quite a bit of welding with welding helmets that were failing to consistently darken, and I flashed myself dozens, maybe hundreds, of times when I was learning to weld with the old, non-auto darkening type helmet, and I've never had scratchy eyes or headaches. But I can't say that you can't get those things from an A/D helmet that isn't working properly---just that it will still protect your eyes from permanent damage.

Stan

I also have a HF auto-darkening helmet used for about 20 years. Up until last year, it would darken when I faced the sun, since I weld outside. It has a slight shade at all time, but now will only darken when welding. It was the lowest cost HF helmet. The batteries are not replaceable, so they say???
If you go to the store and compare window specs on the three helmets they sell, they are identical, the difference is in the graphics and material of each helmet. The shape and size of each helmet seem to be identical also.
Don't be afraid to take them out of the box and compare.

I got one at HF about 8 years ago still working fine. Paid about $50 as I recall.

I have a cheapie HF auto. I thought it was
broken. Then I discovered there is a slow/fast
switch inside helmet. I must have switched to it
slow when I wiped the condensation off inside
lens.

I too am 65. I got more flashes from old school
helmet. So even thought some may say the auto
helmets are bad, I can see what I'm doing and
have some protection. My cheapie HF is also has
adjustable darkening. That is helpful too.
Just wondering if there is a rechargeable battery
in helmet that the solar cells charge up so it
responds fast? If so, is it a good idea to leave
helmet near a window to allow sun to charge it?

The cheap ones work just fine for me and I would not be able to weld at all without them.

Mom gave Dad "permission" to buy one of the more expensive $100 ones, and frankly I can't tell the difference. The $100 helmets are also made in China, and don't "feel" any better than the cheap HF ones. They don't hold up any better either. His

You've got to get up into the $200+ helmets before you can really start detecting a difference in how they're made. But, you can buy a lot of HF helmets for $200.