So I got a "cheap" wire welder for christmas and the past weekend or so I've started to "weld" for the first time. Quite addicting! Now I see why they say it's all about practice and "feel". It came with some cheapo goggle type things which were hard to work with and left my face a little burned. So today I picked up an auto-darkening helmet: http://store.cyberweld.com/hohoweheblxv1.h...ce=pricegrabber

Pretty nice helmet, but to be honest, I don't know what half the dials and settings are for. I got it at a pawn shop and it's almost brand new. Not sure what the "shade" setting means, and I'm still trying to find the battery on it lol.

Slowly accumulating some nicer equipment so that I can venture into the dark world of rust repair without paying a "restoration" shop a grand a week to stare at it (oh to do that over again......)

Just wanted to share. Kinda excited about the whole welding thing now that I have the stuff to be able to do it, but I can only get to it on the weekends (apartment life )

You might be able to find a manual for the auto-darkening helmet through a google search. I've found manuals for lots of stuff I didn't think I'd be able to find. You can also take the helmet to a welding supply place and maybe they can tell you about it. There are many welding how-to books available that have great information for not a lot of mony. Good luck and have fun.
Cheers, Elliot

George (ThePaintedMan) provided a link to a Welding Helmet Repair article.

See if it looks like your style of helmet and if you can replace or modify the batteries ... Click Here