Welder choice

All motor parts are expensive. All small gas engines wear out after what

What guys were saying was that Onan parts are expensive, and to avoid newer Onan motors.

Grant

Guess I had a good one. All I did was change oil and spark plugs and air filters. About '88 IIRC. Put an ad in the local rag for a used one, and am going to look at the dealers and talk to them re: new ones. Just wondering if anyone had any preferences. Would like one that burns 1/8" rod without heating up too much. But most of the work would be light welding, and power for tools. Portable repair type of thing.

Steve

Steve:

Trailblazer, hands down. Bobcat second choice. Ranger 250 last but not least.

You'll get the best bang for the buck, and if you are already considering the price of the Bobcat, for a little bit more you get a huge jump in machine. It will do anything you need short of running 3/8 gouging rods. I have an older bobcat (no problems at all, and I have punished it hard) that was my main portable machine and upgraded to/added the Trailblazer. One thing that I looked at was price (heavily influenced by the fact that another friend of mine/competitor runs six of them for his portable business) The other was warranty (also influenced by aforementioned friend). If you can't make it pay for itself in the warranty time, then the chance is, if your machine "lasts 2500 hours", then it may well outlast you.

I only say Ranger last but not least because I just seem to prefer the blue to the red for a portable welder. Some guys are vice versa, but really for the best money see above paragraph. Don't get me wrong, I also run lincolns in my fab shop. There are some things that I do prefer red to blue for and some of thier wire machines are unbeatable. They just leave something to be desired unless you move up the model ladder to a Vantage Diesel and those are as mentioned before....... "huge dollars"

Just my $.02 worth. Drew

I picked up a cherry Miller AEAD200LE a little over a year ago. It was made in '86, but has seen little use, mainly as a generator for a mountain cabin.

It runs smooth as glass. I just had to do some cosmetic cleanup and replace some old wires inside. It has an Onan engine, but I have yet to have any trouble from it.

I paid $650 and count myself lucky for being the first to respond to the Craigslist ad.

There are some new small import diesels from China. They seem to be OK.