New to mig welding

I am looking for a mig welder and have been looking at the Lincoln SP-125plus, SP-135T and the plus, also the Hobart handler125 flux, 125 mig, and 135 mig. (Miller out of my price range, I think)

I feel so confused...

Big Q......... If you had to do it again, what would you buy from these or nun of them in the 115 V? any pro's or con's between them?

I am going to most likely use it to make horse panels (tube stock) on our new land. I am going to try to make a 60' round pen and a 100 X 200 arena all in time of money. (12' - 16' panels each) I just bought a 5500K generator to do the welding on instead of the house elect. To expensive to use the house current. I am going to have to find stock at a good price to make this go. I am also going to have to self teach myself till I find someone to help me or night school, I think I have enough feet to weld to see if I can do it.

Last time I welded was in high school 20 or so years ago and that was gas and stick only. Any good books or tapes / CD's out there? Thanks for your help in advance

Reply to
Don D
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ouch ...... how did you figure that ???? house hold electricity is chepaer than using a generator ????

how much was the generator ???

Reply to
acrobat-ants

I paid $550. for the gen. but we are mostly using it on our land were there is no power run anyway. We will not even run power till we know were we are going to put the house.. We will then also use it for the flood lights at night when they all work the horses late in the arena and round pen.

I have always been told that a welder uses a lot of elect. and our bill is high enough.. Maybe I was wrong.. I can run a generator for 8 - 10 working hr.s on 5 gal. (again I may be wrong in my thinking)

I did not buy the Generator just for a welder. I am going to also use it at the riding club that our horses are boarded at for my table saw, and compressor as we have to help doing up grades at the grounds. Talking about having my hands full.. I can't wait for the week days so I can come back to work and relax.

Reply to
Don D

I went down to the welding store that does sell Lincoln, Hobart, and Miller. We were talking and we started to talk about the Millermatic 135, He would sell it for $585.00 and as much training, setup, and welding that is needed included. I asked if it was an hour and see ya or what.. He said what ever time it took and also some tricks he has learned over the years. he would do flex and gas.. using his metal. He said other wise he gets $60.00 per hr. for his time and service if I buy from someone over the web, or Depot I know he has been here for years and street up. Does that sound like a deal?

Reply to
Don D

Unless you have high electric rates and a diesel genset (not likely for $550), it's probably costing you more to make electricity with your genset than your utility charges you for it. Assume you get 10 hours on

5 gallons (of gasoline), a fairly optomistic consumption rate for a 5500 watt unit. If you were using the full power available from your genset, that means you got 5.5kw for 10 hours, or 55kwh. The local overpriced utility here would charge you $6.60 for them (12 cents/kwh). Breakeven occurs at a gas price of $1.32 a gallon - 20 cents less than we pay here at the moment. And you're probably supposed to do an oil change every 10, 25 or 50 hours, which adds more cost on top of the fuel.

If your utility charges less than 12 cents/kwh, gas would have to be even cheaper to save you any money. If your actual run time at full load is less than 10 hours, likewise. If you get 10 hours, but you're not running at full load, likewise.

Here, the utility wants $10-14,000 to make a fairly short connection - they'll either run it expensively underground the short way, or overhead a long roundabout way that will cost as much. With an efficient diesel genset, I can make power for a few cents less than they charge, at current fuel prices, and for several thousand less than the cost of the line connection. I'll add batteries and an inverter to allow turning the genset off during times of low power demand, and eventually adding solar panels to the system, but solar panels cost way too much for running the sort of heavy loads (motors and machines) that I need to run.

My gasoline welder/generator costs considerably more per kwh than the electric company's power, and is also miserable to listen to, as mentioned in the "welder/generator" thread.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

WE were thinking of solar power also for the barn like you say for the reason or the cost it will take to run to the barn and for what time they would be in there it would not be cost effective.. At the stable we are at now, they have no power to the stalls. I have 4 12V lights running on a small jell battery. We pull it out once a week if that and take it home to charge it up. Out of 40 stalls we are the only ones that have lights to feed at night, everyone else use there headlights.. I am going to hook up a cheep solar panel that is used in an RV to keep the battery charged that way I will not have to bring the battery home to charge..

Sorry for the long OT. I will check with the welding shop and see what there input is also, then just use the Gen. for mobile work . Thanks for the heads up on the costs.

Reply to
Don D

You know some place the subject got lost in what this was about "new to mig welding" I am looking at WELDERS. Miller is in the picture also.. Worth the price difference? or Lincoln, and Hobart. What would you all do if you could do it again in 115V?

Reply to
Don D

I would buy my Lincoln SP-125+ (135 now) all over again. I'm very happy with it as my second purchased welder. I use it with both solid steel or flux core wire. The first one I bought was a used Lincoln AC/DC 225/125 and am also happy with that. I was frustrated with the stick welder at first because I mostly weld thin stock. Now that I have a choice between the two I have most all of my welding covered. Now that small MIG machines have been on the market for years, you may be able to find a deal on a used one. I would stick to the three (actually 2) name brands machines, for repair/parts/tech support reasons and ease in welding.

Reply to
Zorro

Life changes every day.

About six months ago, I bought a Lincoln 175SP+, and just loved it. It is a

220 machine. I used to own a MillerMatic 200, which is about eight times the size of the 175. Best machine I ever owned but big and heavy, plus a large cylinder.

I was going to use my new welder to make a lot of wrought iron, so I got the

175 with its 220 volts. I have made about 60' of fence, a 21' wide gate, a welding table, a cart, and many other things. When I weld all day, I am glad I have the 175.

Fast forward to yesterday. A friend wanted me to bring my equipment to a ladie's house to repair an antique baker's rack. I did so, but we had to wire the 220 line into a panel, and run a 50' extension to the piece, which had a 115v. outlet three feet away. It worked great, but much more work than if I had a 115v. machine. BUT, I don't know if the 115v. machine would have welded the 3/8 angle for my table, the 3" channel on my trailer, or the hours of welding to make the wrought iron.

Bottom line, one size does not fit all. You can try to buy one machine that will do most everything you want, but you will run into situations where one has an advantage over the other. There comes a time of cost effectiveness when you have to decide if you are doing enough work to buy another machine to justify the cost. I am a gear head, and would buy one just for the three or four times a year I need one. Not everyone is a gear head or can afford to do that. In my case, the lady was so happy, she gave me $100 for what amounted to eight tack welds. But dragging it all in and dragging it all out took much longer.

To answer your question, I, me, personally, would stick with the 220v. machine because the 115v. would be marginal on a lot of MY work, and the duty cycle is lower. But that is only me. You have to analyze the intended use AND FUTURE NEEDS and buy accordingly. I hear guys all the time who swear by their 115 v. machines. For what they do, it is what they need. And they like the portability.

No sense using an 18" crescent on a 9/16" nut.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

the answer to your question is... how much $$$$ do you have. there are machines that are dual voltage 110V or 220V, thermadyne if I recall it correctly, (have to add !!! I e-mailed those people to send me their catalog with prices , they never did )

what are you planning to use the Welder for ? home projects ? a 115 V will do mostly anything around the house, and you have 115 V sockets readily available, .... 220 V may in 1 place in the house Laundry or kitchen, or both , but you may not want to weld there. witht he 110 V wire feed , using flux core you are good to go to 3/16 single or 1/4 material with multipass, that is plenty heavy for home projects.

in its flux core form you can put it in your car and take it anywhere ... no sweat....an start welding. PORTABLE. at home you can hook it to shielding gas and make clean good looking beautiful welds. i like mine and use it all the time, and really enjoy having the shielding gas feature. I purchased a used AC/DC stick welder for heavy stuff which I rarely use.

It would also be nice to have a 220V MIG because it is so easy to use and makes nice and clean welds using shielding gas. but it cost $$$ again you would rarely need it for home projects.

my bottom line in thinking is. for home use 110 MIG for thin stuff

220V stick for heavy.

if you do any production work a 220 V mig is a must.

for farm .....well , if you got a farm you got mone, buy all 3.

Reply to
acrobat-ants

When i first got into mig welding,i almost gave up on it.It's very difficult to find MIG'S that need welding.I wrote to Russia,but they didn't have any spares for me to practice on. Good luck..

Reply to
Jon Howard

I just bought a Millermatic 170 last week from the local welding supply for $625. $800 by the time I bought a tank of gas and an 8" spool of wire, tax, etc. I'm new to welding so I had friend help set it up and give me a crash course on how to weld and I'm having a blast with it. I just made a welding table and an atv trailer will be next.

Reply to
Mark

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but was there no electric range (and hence a 220V/40A range plug) near this baker's rack? ;-)

Cheers, Paul

Reply to
Paul Keating

Hay, could you give me the phone number where I can get me one of them there Russian MIGS to weld on. I, to have a welding machine and can't find any used MIGS here in Alabama to weld on

Reply to
Jerrymediccs2

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