Bassani Pro-street exhaust pipes are probably the most popular choice for custom chopper or Harley applications. Especially for those building a custom Buell or Sportster. And for good reason. They look mean, sound mean, and they are engineered to perform.

Pipes can make or break the look of your bike. In fact it’s one of the most important componants when it comes to impact on the look of your bike.  Sound is important too… You want them loud enough to let the driver beside you knows you’re there. But at the same time, you don’t want the feds constantly breathing down your neck. Some pipes look and sound decent, but actually hurt performance… or worse, shorten the life of your motor.

When you buy a set of Bassani pipes,  you can rest easy knowing that time and money has been spent on engineering, research and testing. In terms of price, the are a great value for the money and a lot less expensive than many of their competitors.

I have Bassani pipes on my bike and I can honestly say that they are the nicest sounding pipes I’ve ever had on any Harley or choppers I’ve owned. No , I don’t work for Bassani, nor am I married to a Bassani. Just giving credit where credit is due.

Even though the machine I was looking at was made China, I did take some comfort in the fact that the company Ramsond, which was importing them and stamping them with their company colors and logo, was from the good old USA.  And even though they aren’t actually making them, they were covering them with their warranty, and promised to fix it promptly should something go wrong.

So to make a long story short, I bit the bullet and laid my money down. A couple weeks later, the machine arrived at my doorstep. I eagerly opened the box and started going through the parts. It came with all the accessories. Tig torch with cups and collars, Plasma torch with extra tips and cups, and an argon regulator which was totally useless. The odd-ball fitting and thread on it wouldn’t fit on to any kind of argon bottle I’ve ever seen. Obviously made for some sort of Chinese bottle.

After assembling everything, I put it through the test.  The plasma cutter worked great, The tig set up, with the high frequency start worked better than expected, as did it in the stick welding mode. I really liked the fact that it worked off either 110 volt or 220. All though the arc seemed more stable using 220, it did work pretty well on 110.

I was actually  happy with it…. even pleasantly surprised. I used it again a few times, then sort of put it away and forgot about it. Then one day, about six months later, I pulled it out to cut a piece of 14 gauge plate. The first 6 inches of the cut went fine then…nothing!  I looked over at the machine and noticed a red light labeled ‘OC’ was on. (I’m not sure what it stands for…maybe ‘Oriental Crap’) I thought, “OK maybe it reached the end of it’s duty cycle or something…  I let it sit for a bit”. A few minutes later the light went out and away I went cutting again. A few inches  into the cut, it died again. This time though, the light never went out, and it hasn’t worked since. I didn’t know who I was more pissed at, the company that sold me on it, or myself for buying a piece of crap Chinese welding machine. Yah…I know, my own damn fault.

That evening I jumped on my computer and started searching forums. I wasn’t surprised to find others with the exactly the same experience which described the exact same symptoms. I emailed Ramsond , and they replied with a pdf file of testing procedures to do with a multimeter. They told me to let them know what the problem is and they’ll send me a new part…at my expense. My expense??? I used the f**kin’ thing all of 4 times for a total of about 20 minutes total. Oh well…lesson learned. Moral of the story… Don’t buy cheap shitty Chinese welding machines off Ebay!

Update: Here’s a link to a thread with  reviews of others who were sucked into buying Ramsond Tig Plasma inverter  welding machines  Check it out here