What you need to know before you buy welding helmets?

If you plan on buying a helmet may be you are a hobbyist, professional welder or a full time welder. A welding helmet is a basic gear to have in order to carry out welding activity. Other apparel includes gloves and fume mask. During welding it is important to safeguard our body and face from dangerous fumes, sparks, lighting and heat. Welding helmets provides protection and also helps in ease of welding. A welder clearly knows the need and importance of a helmet while welding. Hence some of the aspects you need to know before you buy welding helmets. A wide variety of helmets are available in the market depending upon the type of materials used and usage type.

Purpose of buying a welding helmet plays a major role in deciding the type of helmet to buy. A hobbyist who does welding rarely doesn’t need a high specification and industry standard helmets. A professional welder whose job is welding needs to give more importance on the needs as he deals with welding all through the day. A comfortable and secured helmet can greatly improve his productivity and performance.

With the clear idea in mind for which purpose the helmet is being bought. Type of lens being used in the welding helmets it may be passive or auto darkening lens. Auto darkening helmets change to higher shade when a light arc is struck on the other hand passive lens are static dark shades. The shades during the welding activity ranges from #9 to #13, higher shade means greater darkening of the lens.

The coatings available on the glass lens they are UV and IR protected. The availability of sensors in the helmet also provides better protection. Typically an Auto darkening helmet can have around 2-4 sensors. The viewing size of the helmet, viewing size refers to the available area in the helmet for viewing from inside. The higher the area the better visibility he gets. If the viewing area is small it makes it difficult for the welder to look at the welding area. This would force the welder to remove the mask and look at the weld again masking it back on it to carry on with the welding activity.

Battery operated helmets auto darkening helmets use battery as for its sensors. Usually these batteries are non replaceable which means the helmet cannot be used once the battery drains out. Hence it is important to know this information before buying a welding helmet.

Sensitivity and delay adjust controls modern helmets come with these controls which greatly help to adjust and modify the helmet settings as per the welders needs. Sensitivity controls can be used when the amperages are very low. Delay controls helps to control the time taken to change the screen from a lighter shade to a darker shade when a lighting arc is stuck.

These are some of the things you need to know before you buy a welding helmet. The most costly helmet in the market may not be suitable for you. Hence try to select a helmet which suits your needs and is value for money.