Today I sold my manual milling machine and used the money to buy a Syncrowave 250 with external water cooler.

Now I need a cart and some advice from those with experience. The heavy argon bottle and radiatior (stand-up unit) make it awkward to move the welder around -- it sits on a harbor freight dolly for now. I'm totally new to TIG and as a first project, I want to build my own running gear. So I was hoping to gather some feedback from all of you with similar welders.

So far, I have a few rough ideas:

1. Large, pneumatic wheels (already have a set of 4 ultra-heavy duty 8" casters)
2. Space for two bottles (or in my case, bottle + radiator)
3. Storage for cables! With all the water, gas, power conductors coiled up on this machine, it's hard to wheel it around without constantly worrying about running over the cables. I am thinking of having some flat drawers to tuck the coiled cables into. I would do this in a way that the cables can stay connected even when coiled up in the drawer.
4. Vertical tubes to hold a selection of filler rod.
5. Storage for unused stick-welding electrodes
6. Storage for TIG consumables
7. Storage for helmet, gloves, safety glasses
9. Integral lifting point at center of gravity. (to make it possible to hoist it into a trailer without removing the welder from the cart)
10. Large handles mounted at waist level or above, to make it easier to pull around.

What would you put on your wish list? Does anyone have the Miller running gear No. 37? What do you like or dislike?

Should I put in a cupholder? =) I would love to hear your ideas, crazy or practical!

If you could put your hands o na #37 buy it.

Solid tire instead of pneumatic. Unless you forsee moving across uneven surfaces. I hate flats on handtrucks muchless welding machines.

Fabbing up a rig to hold your filler rods, hooks to hang your cables, etc are needed. I'll see if I can find the link to a very tricked out 250.

Heres a quick pic of my 351 cart. I would recommend the hard tires, I think pneumatic would be very difficult to push. This one is hard enough even with hard wheels. I dont have the tank atached yet, someday I plan to do that, I think that is a necessity for portability. I have the radiator down in the basement and a skin of ~040 aluminum velcro'd around the outside, and also a little soundproofing foam to keep the radiator noise down. Make sure you have good airflow and duct it properly to do this or your radiator won't function as well.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll go with hard tires.

Zcases, that's a trick rig! Do you worry about it being top-heavy? Nice technique using aluminum panels with velcro! I also like the way it takes up very little floor space.

Any objections to the idea of storing the cables into flat drawers, rather than hanging? My garage is to tight, I'm trying to eliminate things to snag on as I snake my way through the garage. I'll rarely use the stick electrode, so it will be put away most of the time.

Any one else want to share pics of their custom carts? It doesn't have be for a syncrowave -- I'm really just hunting for good ideas in general.

I got the Tig Runner set up from Miller and I really like it. It came from the factory pretty much ready to go.

If you aren't planning to use the machine often, I suppose putting the cables in a drawer would work, but that kinda sounds like a PITA to me. I use this machine daily so that sounds impractical.

Scott

Nice setup Scott!

I will be using my machine about once a week -- on the weekend. I know I won't be doing very much stick welding, so I want to get at least one lead out of the way.

Another problem is that I don't have a dedicated space for welding. I will have to cart the welder out every time I want to use it. It's the process of extracting the welder from the garage (through narrow the passageways) that initially made me think of getting the cables put away. I don't want to snag on anything on the way out. =)

Since the leads come out the bottom of the welder, the drawer idea may not work very well anyway. The drawers would be above the welder, so a portion of the lead will be exposed no matter what.

....I don't have a dedicated space for welding.

That's because you have entirely too many mills in your shop! What are down to now, three or two?

:)

How much is the TIG runner package from Miller? It would be a bolt on deal that would save you some time and frustration if it wasn't rediculous in price.

Scott

You're absolutely right -- I'm down to 3 mills, although the buyer hasn't picked up mill #4 yet. When I get down to 2 mills, I'll have enough space to breathe!

Miller's No. 37 running gear is somewhere around $350. I can buy a lot of stainless steel from the scrapyard for that price! For me, the point is to get practice by making something useful. I know it probably won't turn out looking professional, and I might decide it isn't the configuration I want after I use it for a few months. But that's why I bought a welder, so I could make things custom. I don't mind redoing it later someday =)

When you are ready to sell a mill let me know.