Best Mig for Fab. in a Machine Shop

Are you planning on MIG welding aluminum? How heavy a material do you need to be able to weld? My off-the-cuff answer would be a Lincoln PowerMIG.

Hypertherm or Thermal Dynamics.

Thanks for your input Mike, The material for the most part will be 1/2" mild steel plate and angle iron, along with 3/16" ms plate to be cut from a sheet and then welding into a frame. I hope this is enough info, if not please ask me for any more you need. We will be welding the 3/16" plate to each other to form a box unless I can build a bender or buy one to get 4-90 degree corners leaving 1 seem to weld tight.

Again I want to thank you for your help,,,,,Chuck H.

OK Chuck I think I understand that you want one machine that does it all, but in truth that is a bad idea for a fab shop.

If one of them goes down the whole machine is in the shop for a week.

Hobbiests can use all in one machines without as much hazzard since they aren't going to be stressing the machine as much.

The only true all in one machine is the Miller Shopmaster 300. It is a CC/CV, AC/DC MIG, TIG, Stick welder. It is also large and expensive.

Miller designed them for schools that didn't have much roomn for extra machines.

They are kind of OK at all 3 processes, but not great at any of them.

You will be better served by a good MIG machine and a TIG machine. All TIG machines can also be used for Stick welding, but not necessarily vice versa.

At 1/2" steel you are in the heavy class of MIG machines. You could use a 250 amp MIG machine, but you will be pushing it. You may want to look into a separate powersupply and wire feeder.

Miller and Lincoln both sell wire feeders that can be hooked up to many different power sources depending on the scale of your work, and materials you end up using.

You could go with an inverter power source for size and convenience. The current generation of inverters are quite good.

The Miller Alt 304 is a nice machine with a wire feeder attached. If you need fancier stuff you can try one of the Miller Invision inverters.

Wire feeders are made in quite a range, from simple single roll feeders, to dual roll feeders with all digital controls and pulser settings.

For a TIG the Miller Syncrowave 250DX is the best in class for midrange AC/DC TIG machines. It is also an outstanding stick welder.

If you need to TIG a lot of heavier aluminum, then go for the Syncrowave 350DX

I agree on the XMT304. I know a welding shop owner in Ohio whose favorite machine out of 15 or so is his 304. Miller also makes a larger 3 phase version.

Lincoln Power MIG 300 is top of line $$ all in one pulse mig welder, stick welder and tig welder. Has nice push pull feeder option for aluminum mig welding. No AC output and no plasma cutting.

Trust me, I will finally get all my questions on here. The one I have now discovered I have left out is, what will be better for me to use, a 3 phase or single as I have both....

Chuck H.

If you are purchasing new then choosing some of the newer power supplies would answer all your needs except for plasma cutting. The Lincoln power wave units can gouge, stick weld, wire feed, and just about anything else. They are a power unit that customises the current to your needs. Lots of dollars and lots of accessories. There is a lot of older three phase welding machines around. Some outfits go that route but I have found that it is a constant battle patching them up. It is really frustrating to have a third of your machines down when you have a rush job. You can carry more power on three phase. That is why it is more common for any larger electrical devices. You are not going to get a single phase welder that can weld half inch plate all day long at a reasonable production rate. Randy

Chuck H.

The simple answer is that on 3-phase your machines will have a higher duty cycle. So they can weld longer without resting. Many of the high end inverters can use single or 3 phase.

The Powermig 300 is a really fancy MIG, but as a TIG welder it is not so good.

If you use a transformer machine, you won't be able to do AC welding with 3 ph, just DC. With an inverter machine, it won't matter since the inverter creates its own waveform.

Gary

I was mainly refering to inverters. My Maxstar 200DX has a higher duty cycle on 3 phase than single phase as do most of the Miller and Lincoln Inverters.

Ok, inverters that can run on either 1 ph or 3 ph benefit from 3 ph because they spread the rectification chore over more diodes when running 3 ph (one third of the diodes aren't used when running 1 ph), and because the filter capacitors don't have to supply as much make up current to fill in the valleys of the waveform (reducing ESR losses). But realize that this only applies to *the same machine*. It won't necessarily hold when comparing two different machines, ie one designed to run only on 1 ph and another designed to run only on 3 ph.

In the latter case, the diodes of the 3 ph *only* machine are usually sized smaller than those of an equivalent 1 ph machine, and the filter capacitors are sized smaller too. So the thermal benefit you're seeing with the combo machine won't be present. In other words, the smaller diodes and capacitors of the 3 ph only machine may get hotter than those of the combo machine, which have to be sized to permit 1 ph operation.

Gary