Two Main Types of Welding Helmets

You might not know that welding helmets come in a number of shapes and sizes. Welding helmets generally conjure up images of plain black steel or iron and a little piece of glass.



If your parents had a welding helmet, perhaps you recall being a kid and playing with it. After playing with the welding helmet I discovered, I would eventually get tired of its weight. Today welding helmets have changed substantially. While they look quite a bit different today than they did years ago, you can still find two main varieties of welding helmet: Passive and Auto-dimming.



Whenever you picture welding helmets, you're probably thinking about manual, or passive as it is also known. The viewing hole is covered by a single rectangular piece of glass that has a fixed density or polarization as it is often known as. And the shape of the helmet isn't very interesting. With 3 basic pieces, the old school manual ones had been not much to get excited about. A single piece of glass connected to a single piece of heavy metal which was connected to a harness. Even though they tend to be cheaper, individuals often discover the up and down action in between welds a bit tedious. For welders who work in numerous equipment, the intensity of the light will also vary, requiring investment into multiple helmets.

With new technological innovation and the capability to save time, auto-dimming welding helmets have begun to rise in popularity. These helmets, like the conventional manual ones, are a piece of metal and a piece of glass. Whilst the outside is inconspicuous and unalarming, a look inside quickly shows that these helmets are all technologies. There is really a sensor in the glass that will tell how much light is coming into the helmet and it automatically adjusts accordingly. The capability to work through and not continually adjust your helmet by lowering and raising it means higher productivity and larger paychecks.



The auto-dimming helmets come in two varieties, some use infrared viewers whilst others use electricity to dampen the glass. Both require electricity. Luckily, numerous of the auto-dimming welding helmets now come with solar panels. That’s correct, you can use the intense light generated from your welding to power your welding helmets. Are not you glad we have technology?