Dinse or Tweco?

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Ok so according to my other question, I guess I have narrowed it down to a Miller CST 280 220-230/460-575v.  I will be hooking it up to 240v in my garage.  I will be doing both TIG and Stick.  I'm still not sure if I should go with the Dinse or the Tweco version of this.  From what I understand, the Dinse is for TIG and the Tweco is for Stick.Is it just the cables that come out of these two machines that make them Dinse or Tweco or are these two machines totally different in themselves?Once I purchase one or the other, can i switch back by just buying different connectors or something?Last edited by TheKid; 10-27-2009 at 07:06 PM.
Reply:Hello The Kid, If you are going to go with the CST 280 you may wish to go ahead and rig-up with the Dinse connector w/built-in gas fitting, this should keep your set-up very clean and avoid a lot of extra spaghetti when you are using it. You will likely be using a torch with a manual gas valve, so by going with the Dinse with a built-in fitting you will have a single power/gas cable, providing you are using an air-cooled torch. You can also use dinse connectors to rig-up your stick welding set-up, or use Dinse/Tweco adapters to connect any other cables with Tweco connectors. If you have questions at all about these connection combinations, go to www.millerwelds.com and I'm sure you can find a detailed explanation of the various applications. Best regards, Allanaevald
Reply:The machines are not any different inside so far as I know, just the connector type is different.My XMT has Dinse connectors.  All my stick leads on the truck are Tweco, as are everyone else's cables who I know.  I use Dinse to Tweco adaptors in the XMT to hook up my cables.  When I do TIG from the XMT, I take the adaptor out of the negative terminal of the XMT and plug in the Dinse connector my torch came with.   I would prefer if the XMT had Tweco connectors instead of Dinse, but the adaptors work fine and are no problem for me.   My PowCon is the same type of machine as the XMT but has Tweco connectors on it.   If I wanted to connect something Dinse to it, I would just use a Tweco to Dinse adaptor, or make my own adaptor with a Tweco male, a short pigtail and a Dinse female.I prefer the tig torch I have that has seperate power and gas cables and connectors, rather than the single power/gas cable and connector.   Since my XMT doesn't have a gas valve in it, the gas hose has no reason to connect to the XMT at all, so I send to the torch's gas hose straight to the argon tank, via a Western quick disconnect between the torch's gas hose and the regulator's gas hose.  Makes connecting and disconnecting the torch very quick and easy.  Also makes connecting my spool gun and mig feeder gas hoses quick and easy too, since I use the XMT primarily for stick and mig and only occasionally tig.  I have a fabric cable cover on my tig torch leads, so it doesn't matter to me how many cables the torch has, they're all contained inside the cover and I never see them anyways, except the ends when hooking it up and disconnecting.Last edited by DesertRider33; 10-27-2009 at 08:43 PM.MM350P/Python/Q300MM175/Q300DialarcHFHTP MIG200PowCon300SMHypertherm380ThermalArc185Purox oaF350CrewCab4x4LoadNGo utilitybedBobcat250XMT304/Optima/SpoolmaticSuitcase12RC/Q300Suitcase8RC/Q400Passport/Q300Smith op