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  #21  
Old 04-25-2017, 12:11 PM
crystallographic crystallographic is offline
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Originally Posted by topher5150 View Post
What do you guys think of this one? There is another site that sells them refurbd for even less money.
https://www.weldersupply.com/P/1472/...ler130MIGWelde
Hobart is a good machine. Maybe #3 after red and blue....?
So are their industrial mixers.

(note: I've made very decent mig welds on mild steel 1/8 thick with the cheapo 220v machines - using both flux-core and CO2 gas together - and nozzle dip every 4 minutes of welding, and dipping the hot gun in a bucket of water after each blast..... kept the consumables usable for waayyy longer than by any other method, spatter was way down, and the welds looked really nice - horizontal, vertical and overhead. - I am NOT a mig-boy, either !!)
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  #22  
Old 04-25-2017, 08:16 PM
SWT Racing SWT Racing is offline
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My take is, get as much MIG welder you can afford in 220V. . .or one that is dual voltage (Miller makes a few). Skip the flux core only, and go with something with gas. You can always do gas over flux later as Kent mentioned. I have not met anyone working on cars or fabricating that did not regret buying a 110V-only machine, unless it was ONLY to tack and weld 16ga and under.
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  #23  
Old 04-26-2017, 06:34 PM
topher5150 topher5150 is offline
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I finally bit the bullet and got a welder..I went on Craigslist today and found a nice, used Miller sidekick mig and picked up on the home from work. Thanks for talking me out of getting junk.
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  #24  
Old 04-26-2017, 10:41 PM
timothale timothale is offline
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Default welding tips and tricks website

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/...ding-tips.html
jody was a welding instructor and has a new Youtube each week. I have a friend that changed careers, studied all the tig videos, a little practice and passed the welding test and now does a lot of high tech welds.
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  #25  
Old 05-01-2017, 09:42 PM
Stevemo Stevemo is offline
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I guess I missed my chance but will provide a bit of input for anybody else who is looking to buy a machine and has a look in this thread.

If I were to do it again, I would take an evening welding course before buying any equipment. That will let you dabble with what I would expect to be fairly expensive machines. I am just finishing off a 4 month course with one 3 hour class per week and it was good. We were allowed to essentially do whatever we wanted. We could bring in projects, focus on welding plates for bend testing, or just do whatever...

In all, I did some stick for fun, TIG 1/4" plates for testing, MIG 3/8" plates for testing, O/A 1/8" strips for fun, and am going to play around with some aluminum stick this week.

What I learned was that you need to know what you want to weld so you can pick the correct Amp machine with the right duty cycle. 250 Amp machines worked well with MIG and stick but drove me insane with the TIG. The duty cycle of the TIG was laughable for what I was trying to do, you couldn't get across a 6" plate twice before the thing was going into overload. It did a great job welding but I needed 2 machines set up to weld efficiently.

That being said, I own a 211 amp multi-process machine and O/A. If I had taken the course first I probably would have gone to a 250 amp MIG and a separate smaller TIG. Going big on the MIG allows you to crank up the voltage and do different types of transfers on thicker material too. The duty cycle I personally need for TIG allows for a fairly small machine.

As a bonus, everybody who goes to the course will have shields so you can compare them. The instructor also provided some insight on what shields he would recommend looking at.

Cheers, Steve
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  #26  
Old 05-01-2017, 09:44 PM
pops1532 pops1532 is offline
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I see you've already bought a MIG welder but I'm with those that suggested an O/A set up. Others mentioned that a gas set up is extremely versatile. There's another reason to start with a gas rig....once you become proficient gas welding, the other types of welding are easier to master.
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