I’m going to learn some welding and I’ve bought myself an auto darkening helmet. I tested it my holding it up to the sun, and it darkens, but stops darkening right away (depending on the delay I set). Also tried with a powerful flashlight and it does the same. Also left it outside for a while for the solar panel to maybe charge the battery, no dice. Is my helmet is defective or is it going to work as intended with real welding?
It’s possible that the sensitivity is set to a low value. If your helmet has it, increase the sensitivity and try again.
The light from welding is orders of magnitude brighter than the sun or any led flash light you can hold to it. If it flashes at all holding it up to light then it will most likely work just fine when welding.
Rest assured that even if you try to weld with it and it DOESN’T darken, the lens still protects from the uv rays. You should not continue to weld with it if it does not darken as it will so be bright and will strain your eyesight, but it won’t cause any physical harm to you.
I managed to make it work by setting the flashlight to a high speed strobe. Makes sense.
I’m also new to welding, tried to test my helmet with the sun, and had the same result. However, I found that it does indeed stay dark while running a TIG arc. So I think you will probably find it’s fine if you test with an actual arc.
Also, the solar panel does not charge the batteries. The batterries should be replaced if the are low/dead.
Depends on the lens. Some have replaceable batteries. Some don’t. Some do solar charge. Most don’t. There’s a wide world of crap hoods out there. For staring at the sun, what you want is a fixed shade. Honestly, learning to weld with a fixed shade isn’t the worst idea in the world. Teaches you hood discipline, which is useful in a shop environment.
