AD Helmets

It seems my 15 year old AD helmet has died. I am looking for recommendations for a new one. I have stick and wire feed welders and do casual welding so it will not get a lot of use. Also these old eyes are not seeing the weld puddle very well anymore. I am thinking a larger window may be a help. Next project is to weld up some Rebar for the concrete base for my 35' antenna tower and sometime this summer I hope to weld up a base for the 50' tower.

About five years ago I purchased my first Ad helmet from harbor freight. On sale at the time for around $45. I've used it a bunch and have not one complaint. For the money I don't think you can beat it.

You'll probably get a lot of different opinions on the subject, but IMHO,you get what you pay for...

There was a nasty, old, beat up Jackson helmet hanging on the welder when I started working at my new job about 5 years ago. I just couldn't bring myself to put it on, decided to get my own personal helmet, leave that one for those who let it get the way it was! LOL

So I pick up a $35 helmet at Northern Tool. After a couple uses, the strap stripped out, could still live with it. Then it rolled off the table, batteries went flying, cover broke. They would stay in if handled with care. Withing a year it began to sometimes not darken. By year 2 it completely quit working.

So I needed to finish a job, got out the old Jackson, wiped it out, used it for the first time. Even though it was in really bad condition, it still worked.

I took it all apart, washed it in the sink, took the works to the weld shop. They hadn't seen one of those in a while! But they had some NOS parts, a new battery, lens, head band, etc. All free!!!

It works and feels great! Never realizes what junk the Northern Tool one was until I used the Jackson!

Lesson learned!

Arc One. I'm told Jackson's are just as good but I haven't tried them. Do expect to pay a couple hundred bucks for a quality helmet but they are worth every penny.

I also got an HF helmet. It died after about 5 or 6 years but i bought a replacement "insert" for it online (Ebay) for about $20 delivered.

When I first started wearing bifocal, now trifocal, I found that I needed a large window helmet.
When the AD helmets came out, it took a while to make them with the large window.
I finally got one from Northern Too.
We moved, and in my new shop with the same fluorescent light, it sometimes dims under that light even when I have not struck an arc.
Also the tension adjustment that holds it in-place does not hold.

Dusty

You deffinately get what you pay for in an AD helmet. I had a Jackson for over 15 years and liked it a lot, was the best available at the time. I dropped the lens and broke it so I needed a new one. I chose the Viking 3350 from Lincoln and it is so much better than my Jackson was they are not even comparable. Viewing is clearer by far, and has many more settings. It's much clearer in the off setting too. It is so much better that I can get by without glasses. It has a separate setting for torch and another for grinding. It's solar powered too. The only shortcoming I don't like is it's always on, so the batteries are always dead because my shop is dark with no windows so I have to put it in the light for a few minutes before it will work.

stop by your local welding supply and try some different helmets out. i used the a/d for a while, but it would give me headaches. i went back to the large lens jackson flip up style, and i like the gold filter lenses. you can also get magnifying lenses for the helmets, which are really nice. i wont buy a harbor freight helmet.

could not wire weld with the hf... could not see what I was doing, but regular arc welding was fine. Got a miller helmet and now I can see everything. Not all helmets are created equal.

I have a Jackson With the full fresh air package. I never use the bag as I dont go into tanks, etc, but enjoy the breeze that keeps the lens and glasses un-fogged and smokeless. Good tools usually pay for the higher cost in one way or another.

Hi awlknottedup;

In my opinion, it's next to impossible to get objective advice about welding helmets. The topic is so full of prejudices, misinformation, individual style, and personal taste, that it's something like asking who builds the best pickup, or even what's the best kind of music.

A few years ago, I ran an informal test on myself between an expensive Speedglas helmet (possibly the top of the line helmet at that time) and a bottom of the line Harbor Freight A/D helmet. I had another person put the helmets on my head one at a time, not telling me which was which. I couldn't tell the difference from the feeling of them on my head, so it was objective to that extent. The Speedglas had a large window, and the Harbor Freight had a regular sized window. In use (stick welding), I couldn't tell a lot of difference between them. At one point I noticed that visibility seemed quite good with one helmet, so I assumed that it was the large window of the Speedglas, but it turned out that I was wearing the Harbor Freight helmet at the time.

I don't have an ax to grind in this debate. I can afford whatever helmet I want, and I do a lot of welding. On the other hand, I don't' like being chumped. I believe in buying as much quality as I need, but I won't spend extra money on a label. I have a nice Jackson helmet, but when I bought it I carelessly bought a fixed shade version (shade 10), which is darker than I need for normal welding. So I end up using a Harbor Freight helmet much of the time, and I have no problem with it.

Here are some things you might want to consider:

1. Despite what people say, your eyes won't be damaged by a cheap helmet. All A/D helmets provide 99.9% UV protection in the clear state because it costs almost nothing extra to do so. A helmet that fails to darken (or doesn't darken quickly enough) might dazzle your eyes like looking into a flash bulb or an incandescent light---it might even cause headaches if what people claim is true---but you won't suffer permanent damage.

2. You might have better luck adjusting the headgear so that your eyes are close to the window instead of paying extra for a large window.

3. A magnifying lens mounted inside the helmet can improve your vision greatly. It's more convenient than wearing reading glasses (if you don't wear bifocals) because raising your helmet gets it out of the way.

4. There's no good way to test a lot of helmets without paying a lot of money---retailers don't offer test drives. It might make more sense to spend $40 on a Harbor Freight helmet and see if it's good enough than to spend $400 on a top of the line helmet and find that it's more than you need.

5. Not all of the extra cost of an expensive helmet goes into quality, some of it buys extra features. Don't pay extra for features that you don't need.

Good luck. I hope you find something that suits you.

Stan

Thanks, thats good info I needed and hadn't even asked ! !

A big component of whether you're going to like a helmet or not will depend on the features of the helmet. When I went to work in the frame plant, we were issued new Jackson AD helmet. One of the ops where I worked had a robot with a particularly bright strobe light on the arm; when I finally figured out that the strobe was messing with my helmet turning on and off, I adjusted the sensitivity of the sensor. So unless all of your welding will be done under ideal conditions, you might want one with a sensitivity adjustment.

Another thing to consider is the darkness adjustment. I've seen some newer helmet with darkness adjustment that goes as low as a 5...perfect for oxyacetylene work, if you're more comfortable in a helmet than a pair of goggles.

Bottom line is, figure out what features will work best for the type of work you do...and then buy accordingly. A cheap helmet is no bargain, if it's not as helpful as it needs to be. And an expensive helmet is not a great value, if you never use the features it has.

http://www.weldersupply.com/P/658/JacksonHLXWeldingHelmetw
Jackson has been really good for My technology labs. They have robust head gripping components that adjust easily and stay that way. The darkening is way fast and adjustable for darkness #. They have worked for 4 years with no failures while being pretty well abused by students. Jim