Esab has introduced the Warrior Feed 404 HD, a heavy-duty bench-top wire feeder designed for applications such as high-volume fabrication, structural steel fabrication, heavy fabrication, ship building and others. The company says its 404 HD can reduce cost of operation by up to 50 percent or more compared to other leading brands of feeders because of its drive-roll design, which combines two lower gear-driven rollers with two upper idler/smooth pressure rollers. This design produces considerably less scrubbing of the wire, reducing debris generation typically created from a four-roll drive system.

The Warrior 404 HD feeder encompasses all the features that production shops require including gas purge, wire inch, trigger lock (2T/4T control), burn back, slow run-in speed and the ability to preset wire feed speed and voltage. The feeder also incorporates short-circuit termination technology, which sharpens the end of the welding wire at the termination of a weld. By eliminating the ball that typically forms on the end of the wire, the feeder optimizes the wire condition to promote a positive arc start. SCT technology also eliminates the need for the operator to clip the wire. In an operation with numerous weld stops and starts, the times savings will quickly add up, officials say.