Farmers, contractors and engineers regularly patching up machines in-field can now weld without the hassle of dragging out a generator to provide off-grid power.

Swedish outfit Esab’s latest portable stick and live TIG welder, the Renegade Volt ES200i, comes with a bank of four 18V, 12Ah Dewalt batteries in a detachable case.

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These pack enough juice to deliver up to 15mins of arc time per charge on 250×2.5mm rods – enough to burn through 33 of them, the company reckons – without any connection to AC mains power.

That will equate to roughly 30mins of work time once the chipping of slag and brushing of welds has been factored in.

Those using 350mm rods of the same diameter can expect to get through 22 to a charge, or 14 chunkier 3.2mm versions.

Replenishing the 12Ah batteries takes about two hours via the four-port fast charger included in the kit.

But the Renegade can also be plugged into a 230V AC mains supply, and the battery section removed. This ups the maximum arc welding output from 130A in battery-only mode to 200A.

© MAG/Oliver Mark

And there’s a hybrid Amp+ setting, which sees the batteries supplement an AC mains input to maintain a decent output and avoid both nuisance trips on smaller breaker sizes and the occasional peak loads delivered by a generator.

However, doing so won’t help to charge the batteries at the same time.

These features, and amp output, are selected on the Renegade’s small colour screen, which also displays the battery charge and a calculation of remaining arc time.

This is housed in a rugged, impact-resistant outer shell that comes with a shoulder strap to ease the burden of lumping around nearly 25kg – one-quarter of which is made up of the box of batteries.

The Renegade is priced at a punchy £2,875 excluding VAT, including four batteries – which can also be used on other Dewalt power tools – and the four-port fast charger.

Welding helmet

Esab has also launched a new welding helmet, the Savage A50 Lux, that incorporates a ruck of features and settings that allow wearers to get it working to their liking.

© MAG/Oliver Mark

For starters, there are dual 50-lumen LED lights integrated behind the lens cover to illuminate the workpiece.

These are powered by an AA battery and are linked to a sensor that will switch them off automatically to conserve energy when an arc or other intense source of light is detected.

There’s also a control panel that allows operators to set the shade level to suit the task at hand, and the delay and sensitivity of shade provision in five steps.

The delay setting allows the welder to select how long the lens stays dark after the arc stops, so it can be shortened for a spate of quick tack welds and lengthened for high-amperage work.

Sensitivity, meanwhile, is likely to be most useful when welding low-amp TIG, for example, as it can be fine-tuned to match the more subdued arc light.

© MAG/Oliver Mark

According to Esab, the helmet can be used for pretty much all main workshop tasks, including oxy-fuel and plasma cutting, MIG, TIG and stick welding, and grinding – for which there is a specific button.

The headgear includes five-point adjustment, just like the Sentinel A60 on which it is based.

It is designed to keep the mask relatively low on the wearer’s nugget to reduce neck strain when it’s swung into the open position.

The standard Savage A50 Lux is priced at £175 excluding VAT, and there’s also an Air version that includes a filtration system mounted on a waist strap that costs nearer £500.