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Background: I am tired of paying to get my tractor trailered and taken to a welder with great equipment and high prices. I am looking for a minimal welding system for patching, small fab work.
1. what type of welder is easiest and cheapest?
2. do I need 220 or can I go to one of the 120 Amp units?
If you could, could you identify what welding you do with what you are recommending?
thanks!
There's no doubt the 230 volt welders will handle heavier jobs. The first welder I ever used was a Lincoln 225 (tombstone) and yes, I had to install a 50 amp 230 volt outlet for it. The mig welders or wire feed welders have gotten very popular and might be the best, but I only tried one out for a very limited time and didn't get the hang of feeding the wire are the proper speed. I was much better with a stick welder. But out in the country I bought a cheap Miller de Mexico 120 volt stick welder. I had to use small welding rod and it only had a 10% duty cycle, but since I had the time and was in no hurry, it did the job. My welds may not have been the prettiest, but I never had one break. When a son-in-law broke the tail wheel off my brush hog, I welded it back. And I welded plate steel brackets onto the bucket of my B2710 front end loader for my 4' forks. I also used it to make my own chain guards for the brush hog.
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I have owned a slew of different welders, from 300 AMP trailer-mounted engine-driven DC machines to the venerable Lincoln red buzz box. At present I have a Miller 35 wire feed welder and a "tombstone" crank-front Lincoln buzz box. So far, I haven't found anything that my Miller won't weld, but it is a professional grade machine; not something a homeowner would normally have. My Lincoln buzz box is a superb stick electrode machine, and does whatever I don't want to use the Miller for, like hardfacing, running a cutting electrode, and stuff like that. A couple of years ago, my neighbor bought a "suitcase" welder from one if his farmer friends. It is a little Chicago Electric wire feed machine, it is 120V, and uses inner shield wire.... no gas. He bought the suitcase for fifty bucks because nobody (it had two previous owners) could make the little sucker weld. So I borrowed the suitcase welder to use here in my kitchen where I was building a tricky, cantilevered table for my breakfast booth and needed to tack up a few steel segments right in place and then take them to the shop and weld them up with the Miller. The little suitcase would not weld for me either, so I took it apart and discovered the rolls were in backwards and a few other problems which I corrected and what do you know it welded for me. HOWEVER..... these little crackerboxes on 120V are THE PITS.... 120V "household current" SOUNDS GOOD in the brochure, but here is the reality: (1) for anything except welding beer can thickness material, the duty cycle is so short that you barely get going before the thing trips and ruins the weld; (2) not many "household" plugs can SUPPORT that kind of current; about twenty-something AMPS. (3) not many extension cords will carry that kind of current without a lot of voltage drop so that makes the duty cycle even shorter. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] It's a battle that you just can't win. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] A buddy who owns a welding supply store has a whole fleet of Hobart Handlers that he rents. Those 240V machines fill the need that homowners have to build a boat trailer in the garage, and he has long, renta-cords that can plug into the customer's clothes dryer outlet. Any welder than can survive in a rental fleet has to be good. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] If I wuz you, I would stay away from 120 volts. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
these are excellent responses! To the point, relevant, not off topic, and expertise laden. There are several jump-off points for me to run down in catalogs and on the internet.
Many thanks! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
I'm not a welding expert, and don't play one on TV either, but I'd look at the AC/DC units. There are some jobs that DC does better than AC.
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Most of the bigger wire feed welders are CONSTANT POTENTIAL machines........aka "DC". I'm not sure about the little suitcases", but I think many of them are as well. You're right about the DC, Gary, it's nice to have a machine that can go both ways which many stick machines do nowadays. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] If you are looking through catalogs at welders and trying to make a determination as to what to buy. DUTY CYCLE and WEIGHT are pretty good indicators of what the machine is capable of. The more it weighs, the bigger the transformer is and the longer it will run before it trips. The other thing to look for is an internal contactor that starts the current when you pull the trigger. Some of the little cheapies have the wire live all the time. It's like welding with stick where you have to touch the electrode, except that in this case you touch the wire and pull the trigger at the same time. It's kind of awkward. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
I was referring to the stick welders rather than the wire feed units. But I guess I left that part out!
I have a Miller 135 120 volt wire feed. I run it on a dedicated 30 amp circuit. It will weld up to 1/4 in pretty well and does fine for tralier repair and other light duty welding. Welding on a tractor sort of concerns me cause that kinda implies some pretty thick and heavy stuff it won't do that. Deck covers on mowers and small braces OK. 3/4 thick lift arms, drawbars or something like that forget it.
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] There are some very reasonably priced AC/DC buzz boxes out there. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]
I lucked out at an auction and got a tombstone and more rod than i could carry for $100. Still use it. Seems like the first welder used is the one that works the best when first starting out. I got lucky and used stick and feed in the first day ever welded. They each have their pluses. I think the poster (IMHO) would be happiest with a wire feed, just seems easier to start with, less stuff to mess with.
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Wire IS a little easier, as long as the machine has an internal contactor. This business of having the wire live all the time is the pits, and takes away the advantage of setting the wire where you wqnt it and then pulling the trigger. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] I think that first-time welders who learn with wire may have to get themselves used to "sewing" the seam together with lots and lots of rod motion. The deposit rate is so small on some of those machines.....especially with inner shield wire... that you have to be conscious of how much you need to "linger" and build up some deposit. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]
Dave, You have been unreasonably prejudiced against little portable MIG units run on 120VAC. Your experience with the CHEAPO unit soured you.
I have a Lincoln Weld Pak 100 (old obsolete model but equivalent is available) that has served me well for about 15 years. It has a gas control solenoid valve but I have never used shielding gas with it, just inner shield (flux cored) wire.
It is great for welding less than 1/4 inch steel and will do 1/4 inch steel too but slowly and perhaps with multiple passes and while doing it you may have ample opportunity for a break to think, get a beverage, or just cool your heels as it will shut itself off rather than burn up. I have often exceeded its duty cycle and gone into thermal overload/shutdown. I have abused the heck out of this unit for 15 years and the only maint has been to change contact tips and the plastic thingy around the tip.
One of the few nits is that you have to unbolt (with a tool) the connections and reverse the wires to change the polarity. So... I don't do that (yeah, I'm that lazy!) In theory I could weld aluminum or stainless with it but haven't. It is way more portable than my AC/DC Lincoln tombstone/buzz box.
I sometimes use it for tacking a structure together that I stick weld. IT is super for that. It will run on a small generator for portable welding and you don't need a few thousand pounds of welding trailer. I find it to be convenient, effective, and a little frustrating when wishing for a little more umph and duty cycle welding long beads.
When I built storm shutters for the guest room in the basement (super safe room) I only used the little Lincoln MIG for welding. I made the piano hinges out of 3/4 inch black iron pipe with a close fitting round bar for hinge pins. One side of the hinges was 3/16 angle and the other side 3/16 sheet steel (the shutters.) Heat distortion can easily make the hinges into a resistance trainer (been there and done that with stick welder on previous effort) but the hinges on this project work just fine.
I'm not religiously fanatical regarding the little Lincoln MIG and if I had it to do over again based on my experience, I'd get the 220-240 VAC unit to get more duty cycle and reduce the need for multiple passes. If you get a more powerful unit you will run into the same exact problems but just a few gauges of steel heavier until you finally end up with a BIG HD PRO UNIT which is expensive as well as not easy (totally impossible) to pickup in one hand and walk away with.
I recently set up a small welding trailer using equipment I had and a few purchases. The trailer deck is 4x8 ft. Amidships I mounted a 17,500 Watt gas driven genset. I then mounted my Lincoln tombstone, plasma cutter, little MIG, and an air compressor with horizontal tank (just under 4 ft long.) I have hold down clamps for standard portable oxygen and acetylene bottles. This gives me enough power to run the compressor and plasma at the same time and if anyone is working with me there is enough capacity to support a grinder or the MIG at the same time as the compressor and plasma. During a recent power outage I used it to support our residence since the automatic standby generator wiring wasn't finished.
Suggestion to OP...
Get a 220 MIG unit from a major manufacturer NOT Chicago Electric (cheapo Chinese Harbor Freight unit) Get a Lincoln, Miller, or Hobart (did I leave out anyone?) Lowe's has decent prices on Lincoln but shop around. Then keep alert for a used stick machine on the order of the Lincoln tombstone/buzzbox in AC/DC. The stick is very low tech and hard to hurt and less risk to buy used. The portable MIG units are way higher tech and if you aren't some kind of super lucky guy or really knowledgeable about MIG units, buy a new one.
Pat
Wow Pat I am envious of your welding trailer.
Here is mine I made just for use around the place.
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/b...d/100_0711.jpg
Jim, It is the same basic idea, I just spent more $ and have a little more stuff on mine. Mine doesn't have a wagon style tongue on it so when you pick up the tongue fairly high the CG shifts rearward and you rapidly lose tongue weight, nearly balancing the load so on fairly level cement (garage or shop floor or garage apron) one guy can move it around pretty good. Of course the odd wood scrap, larger than standard piece of gravel, or an overweight gnat in the way and you need help.
I thought mine small enough to get into most places I need to get but you definitely got me beat. Backing the short coupled single axle thing is challenging but doable if you stay alert to small changes which tend to grow quickly.
Pat
I have a Lincoln Electric 120V model SP-135 plus, which will run MIG or flux-core. I've used it to modify a boat trailer and build a sailboat cradle, both with a max steel thickness of about 1/4". I've also used it to weld stainless and do some other smaller mild steel projects and repairs. I've never had it time out, and I couldn't be happier with it. I bought a 120V model because of the convenience and portability. IIRC, it was about $500-$600 new.
Tod
I have an ESAB 120V mig machine that I've used for over 10 years. It requires a 20-amp circuit, and uses almost all of it with heavier gauge wire and higher settings, but is ideal for thinner metal, and for tacking subassemblies together prior to stick welding. I tried it with flux-cored wire, but that was as messy as stick welding, and I gave up on it. Gas is the way to go.
I use a Lincoln stick welder, and it's on a 220-volt 60-amp circuit, so I can crank it and apply some heat.
I also have a small Harbor Freight inverter stick welder that works surprisingly well up to about 1/4 inch material. I think I paid $99 for it, and it's been worth every penny. It'll run on a 15-amp circuit, and even a short extension cord, so it's perfect for small jobs and tacking outdoors. It's based on an inverter circuit, so it's very lightweight, and has an over-current feature for starting that seems to work very well.
Yeek!... I just spent almost a full week in the shop making friends with my Miller 35 wire machine, and once again it is abundantly clear to me that bigger IS better. The duty cycle of that machine must be somewhere out in space because I have never had it trip off. I have to say that when it comes to wire vs stick, he who runs wire has to be much more aware of factors like "deposit" and "penetration" because on thick material the wire doesn't automatically get in there and blast it's way to the bottom of the "vee" like stick does; you have to move-move-move, around and round; as in that old old rock and roll song.
I suppose in the final analysis, the right welder is the one that meets the needs of the owner; be it building up tracks on a Cat hour after hour with harfacing rod, or welding sheet steel on a do it yerself project. It's hard to beat a highly portable machine if the power supply can deliver the needed current. The combination of a gen set and a small welder is hard to beat for those jobs that can't make it to the shop.