Mig Cart Photos

Hi All

Completed my MIG welder cart last night. Photos are in the dropbox under MigCart*.

For some reason the TXT file doesn't wrap properly, I'm not sure what happened, so I've included it here.

"One of the guys here at work upgraded his MIG welder to one with spool gun capablilties. He offered me his old one at a price I couldn't refuse. It worked really well, but the leads were short, and I didn't have a 20amp outlet for it, which limited me to the lower settings for heat. I installed a 20amp plug near the panel in my shop, but I wanted the ability to weld anywhere in the shop, and maybe the driveway. So I bought 9 meters of real 12 gauge extension wire and hardwired it into the welder. I then bought 10 feet of #2 welding cable and replaced the short ground lead with that.

The welder worked really well, but was low to the ground, which meant the short torch cable was bent into a sharp 'S' shape when I was working on the bench. This made the wire feed unpredictable, and made welding trickier. So I decided to build a cart for it, which would have the extra bonus of giving me a spot to store the longer cables, as well as allowing me to work at a higher position. MigCart* files show the assembly and final product. I got to use my new JD2 tubing bender for the side rails. It works well, but I need more practice to make my bends where they should be!"

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell
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Elegant!

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--Winston

Reply to
Winston

What size tubing did you use? It looks like your JD tubing bender does a great job! I didn't see a spot for a gas bottle? Do you exclusively use flux- core?

Reply to
Denis G.

The tubing is one inch diameter, 0.065" wall. The bender works great, but it does take practice to get the bends where you want them. It only took me 4 tries to make the 2 'rails' I needed. ;-)

The welder is set for flux core for now. I can adapt a bottle, but I think 90% of the time I'll use this welder, I'll want the flux core. If I need to weld something fussier I'll use my Squarewave 275 TIG. In one of life's little ironies, I used the TIG to weld up the cart, as the MIG machine was apart on the bench!

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell

Hey Pete,

Nice job. I've bent a lot of stuff with a bender over the years, and four tries to get a good pair seems like you did better than most of us "pros" !!! Good for you.

One comment. It looks like it is a bit of a short handle, which is just fine, but I wonder if putting the roller wheels closer to the middle would make it easier to "roll" when you want to move it. Not so far that it is "tippy" though.

Take care.

Brian Laws>Hi All

Reply to
Brian Lawson

Thanks Brian! I did put some thought into positioning the wheels, and keeping in mind that I may put a small gas bottle on the back someday helped me decide on that position. Hanging 9 meters of #12 3 conductor off the back helps too! I thought about bending and welding a handle to the cart itself, but I'll see how it works with the handle that came on the welder.

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell

...

Nice job.

But now I have bender envy . I *might* talk myself into the $295 for the bender itself:

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I'd need at least a few dies and that would be out of question.

How many dies do you have? Can they be made at home?

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

You have to manually add carriage return at the end of each line. Redo and resubmit to Steve. JR Dweller in the cellar

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Reply to
JR North

Nice job on the cart. Now... Your picture files are apx 1MB each, and huge. I checked migcartcomplete-its 1971X2478. 480X620 would do fine. Steve specifies files of less than 100KB. I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you Bogarting

3MB on his server for 3 JPGs. JR Dweller in the cellar

-------------------------------------------------------------- Home Page:

formatting link
If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses

-------------------------------------------------------------- Dependence is Vulnerability:

-------------------------------------------------------------- "Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal" "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."

Reply to
JR North

Very nice. My mig cart puts the front of the welder higher than the back. So is easy to see and adjust the dials on the front. Then I put my old Airco Stick welder on top of the cart and then installed the Lincoln 180c on top of the stick welder. Makes for a very compact welding setup.

Reply to
Bill McKee

Thanks JR. Turns out I unknowingly had 'wordwrap' enabled in notepad. Fixed and resubmitted with resized photos.

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell

Sounds nice. I thought about tipping it up, but realized I if I did, I couldn't use it as an 'auxillary' bench... ;-)

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell

On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:42:04 -0400, the infamous Pete Snell scrawled the following:

Um, Pete, if you're going to be setting your cuppa joe/beer/BigGulp on top of the welder when it's plugged in, make sure you have Magic Smoke Release insurance _before_ doing so. ;)

-- Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. -- John Muir

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:42:04 -0400, the infamous Pete Snell scrawled the following:

Oops, I forgot to add "What, you can't bend brackets and sheetmetal to form a flat top over the welder to store goodies? Either remove/rivet and replace the top or build the brackets to affix to the standard cover holddown screw placement and use longer screws.

-- Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. -- John Muir

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Yes Larry, just what I needed. More work on my tools, so that I can made other new parts for other tools. ;-) Anybody else have that problem?

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell

snipped conversation re: FCAW vs.GMAW (flux core vs. MIG)

I am making a cart, too, but have very different needs. I like your thought of keeping the machine high to keep the overbend to a minimum. But to me, that makes your whole assembly with the welder on it too top heavy. A friend of mine has the exact Miller, but has a bigger wheelbase footprint.

I stick weld anything I want that much penetration on, so always use a bottle with my MIG. Locating the bottle on the lower level keeps the center of gravity down, but with the bottle, welder, and everything else, the whole thing is rather heavy, I'd say easily going over 100#. On your cart, the bottle would stick WAY out.

It all depends on where you are going to use the welder, too. For your roll around flat floor shop, what you have is good, but I'd watch for tipping, especially if all casters swivel, and it can run sideways. On my wood container floor, my cart is presently a 6" inflatable tire garden cart, but it uses too much space, and has no room for holding everything.

So, I am just cutting down a shopping cart, and going to put the bottle on the bottom, and the machine on the next level up to keep the center of gravity down. The handle is high, and the wheels far enough apart to make it stable. It would be no good outside in the sand, but when I need to take the machine outside, I will just put it on the soft wheeled cart, first making some supports to make it more stable in holding all the "stuff".

I was going to (and may still) make a trick one out of custom cut tubing, but for the sake of time and simplicity, I'll use the shopping cart version, and see how that works out. It may give me the motivation to put concrete on top of the sand.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

Yeah, I thought about that, and the fact that the welder is actually pretty light means it isn't as tippy as it may look. I wouldn't try to drag it sideways by one of the cables, but it is pretty stable.

I doubt I'll ever use a bottle, but if I do it'll be the smallest available. Maybe 16" high and 25lbs. If I got serious I think I would cut the back platform off of the welder so that the bottle would rest on the bottom portion of the cart.

Might haul it out into the driveway, or maybe the patio. Pretty even surfaces. It only has the two rear wheels on a fixed axle, the front just sits on a 'prop' of 3" channel.

Sounds like an interesting base platform. Post some photos when you get it done!

Pete

Reply to
Pete Snell

On Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:08:33 -0700, the infamous Gunner Asch scrawled the following:

You's gittin' old, boy. Net Weight with Torch 86 lb (39 kg)

It only cuts 7/8" stock? You don't need that. Send it up to me. I'll build a nice cart for it and return it, um, at some later date. ;)

Nice score. What'dja pay?

-- Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. -- John Muir

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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