Welding helmet, fixed shade or auto darkening

Which type welding helmet do you use?

  • Fixed shade

    Votes: 11 23.9%

  • Auto darken

    Votes: 35 76.1%
  • Total voters
    46
drkelly

drkelly

Dipstick who put two vehicles on jack stands
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Location
Oak Ridge/Stokesdale, NC
RenegadeT's thread about auto darkening helmets got me wondering how many people use each type. I am still stuck in the old school with my cheap ass fixed shade. What do you use?
 
been a fixed shade for to many years just used to it & it keeps your coordination in check
 
If you are interested, I got my autodarkening on ebay for $26 and it works great. There is a guy that sells them in bulk on there and starts the bidding at 1c. I'd give a link but I'm at work and they've got it blocked :(
 
auto darkening hands down... once you use one a few times you'll never go back to a fixed shade. i use an older miller XLi personally, it's been great. never had to mess with anything on it other than the settings.
 
I have both and I like both a lot. I love the fixed shade conventional hood especially because of the wide viewing angle which makes it nice for getting into tight places. I use a speedglas adjustable auto darkening hood at work and I recently bought a flexview 9002x speedglas for myself and I wonder how I made it so long without it. Both have their drawbacks. If I was using a HF auto darkening hood I would just rather use the old school hood because IMO the hf is a turd. Now my speedglas is awesome, it has side view lenses, totally adjustable in shade but also in sensitivity and delay. With the one that I bought you can also flip the auto darkening part on top of the hood and then you also have a grinding shield. Its kind of hard to explain but here is a link http://cgi.ebay.com/HORNELL-SPEEDGL...ryZ92090QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

For a occasional welder I wouldn't invest in anything more than a 20 dollar jackson hood but if you weld everyday speedglas is the best money can buy hands down.
 
My dad, mr oldschool himself, LOVES my auto that I let him borrow to see if the window/view was big enough for him with his bi-focals. I have not seen my helmet since then....bout two months now I would guess, but he tells me "great" stories about it and what he welded today with it.

Mine was a cheapie ebay deal, has the 9-13 level adjustment as a big knob on the outside and has solar powered 'battery. I want to say I paid $40ish with shipping... I used a flip down just a little bit and stubborness is the only reason I can think of to use one vs an adjustable auto, lets you dial in exactly what works for YOU.

Sam
 
When I first started welding (as opposed to making boogers), the only helmet in the shop was a *hand held* fixed helmet... after almost 8 years of using it daily, it's taken me years to get used to NOT holding it up with my free hand!

For most jobs, I like the auto. As Tom mentioned, welding in tight places with an auto (where something shields/blocks the sensor from the arc :eek: ) is a PITA...

I keep one of cheapy flat handhelds for trail repairs...
 
Only bad thing about auto dark is you can't throw it when you're mad, cost to much. Other than that, love it, but still use a fixed one sometime to. Just be sure to get one with a really big lens, less annoying.

Had a hand held one early on, think that's why my hair left my forehead!
 
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