russianvr4

bought one last week, it came in yesterday. first impression: looks cheap (it is at 1550 shipped new) but i started hooking it up anyway. it comes with a short 8ft ( i think) power cord, yanked that first and bought 25 ft of 10/3 wire from home depot. hooked it up, hooked up the flimsy push on style gas hose(with clamps), then came the torch (ergo is TERRIBLE, plan on buying a nice torch asap) and the pedal (has a 'clicky' feel to it but works just fine).

anyway, fired it up and started tinkering with it. some controls are a bit awkward until you know what they are but once you figure it out its pretty straight forward. tried AC welding at 200 amps, worked great.
then welded a 4" sch 5 coupon with backpurge on 40 amps. turned out pretty good.

overall the 'feel' is nowhere near the same as my dynasty 350 but it does what its supposed to do and as long as it lasts without **** disintegrating i think its a pretty decent choice for a garage/hobby/semi professional machine. for a production shop i'd still pick a miller dynasty series though.

oh, its LOUD too...

RO_SUNNY

It's awesome ....I have a 315 amp chinese welder and I am very pleased with it!

Enjoy.

Lee G

There is a very very similar machine available over here and I have the 160 amp one. (highest output possible on our domestic 230v 13 amp supply)
The torch is nasty but I have replaced mine with a flexi wp26 from my old machine.
Overall I like it but I find setting it up for alum is a pain and it ***** the tungsten a lot if you set the ac balance above 50/50 and run high frequency and I have had to change how I sharpen the tungsten because of this.

For the money its a good machine.

DC2_117

iTrader: (2)

Welds look good man! I have the Everlast 185 Mirco, I am pleased with it thus far with how much I have invested into it. I was going to go with the Diversion 180 but choice the Everlast due to funds, and if I decide against it. I hear you on the tig torch man, mine is probably the same as yours. Very BULKY.

atutt

I think your expectations were to high. You're comparing it to a Dynasty 350. These two aren't even closely related for comparisson.

I have a 250ex. For what I paid, it surpasses my expectations.
There's nothing wrong with the torch that I find. I actually haven't used my pedal since I bought it. And for 95% of my welding career I refused to use a trigger on a torch.

For the most part, these are fantastic units if you're expecting an import at an import price and not a domestic for an import price.

roller3804

I agree with your post I was gonna say this also.

You can't compare a $5,500 350 amp welder to a $1500 250 amp welder. I think these things are really good welders..If you compare the everlast to 250ex to a Miller of the same category some people have said to prefer the everlast.


Thanks to the OP for taking the time to do a review and show some pics!

roller3804

If you go to weldingtipsandtricks youtube channel there is some good info on how to setup a machine for aluminum. It might help you.

atutt

I have used a number of different inverters over the years. Millers, Lincolns, Therm's etc. I will say that in the same category it CAN be hard to distinguish the WELD quality from the Blue or Red brands vs the Green. BUT! I've only had my 250ex for just under a year so I cannot claim anything to the reliability to Everlast in the long-haul. Mine unit however, has performed flawlessly since the day I bought it.

roller3804

Awesome

Getting a Everlast 200dx soon Definitely will post a review

russianvr4

nah, i didnt really have any expectations from it, was actually pleasantly surprised that it works well, not happy with the accessories but i wasnt happy with the stock torch on the dynasty either.

for the $ its a great machine for sure.

turbojeesx

For now it's a decent machine for the money. Once it breaks you will be singing a different tune. The support is absolute garbage. If you send your welder in for repairs (which will be often) then it will more than likely come back broken, or they will send you someone else's machine. They also send incomplete loaners and promise to refund shipping $ and never follow through after being asked multiple times. The company in general is extremely shady and tries to bribe unhappy customers with more garbage from their lineup.

I won't even get into the quality of repairs in detail but imagine resistors and diodes soldered to old leads left dangling off the boards. Junk junk junk... stay far away.

roller3804

You are the first person I have come across to say anything along these lines..Most everyone else gives everlast a good review..Do you even own one personally? If so which model? and how long ago did you buy it?

welfarepc

i also have a chinese welder (mine just a mig) and the soldering was sub par on the control board. after 5-6 years of lugging it around in my car and doing odd jobs, i had to reflow the solders on the controller board. been good since!

i say if it breaks, fix it yourself.

Race Egr

There is plenty of bad reviews on www.weldingweb.com. Just don't look in there sponsor section because they like to delete all the negative post. Just get a miller or Lincoln and save yourself the hassle and frustration. I wouldn't put my money on a neverlast.

turbojeesx

Don't mind all the typos and bad grammar.

I thought my message was clear. Yes I own a 250ex and a water cooler.
99% of the people that say they are fantastic haven't used a real welder before. Many of these users troll the everlast forums and other forums toting how great the machine is but then you look at some of their work and it is ****ing terrible.

Almost every single everlast that is shipped arrives broken because they can't even package an item correctly.

They blame UPS for all of the damaged welders. However, not one of the boxes I have received appeared to be damaged. Everlast should just package them better or put them on a pallet and have the customer pickup the extra expense.

The water cooler is entirely too loud, as well as the 250ex itself. The fans run 100% of the time. Total waste.

The fit and finish of the machine is junk. They use cheap screws that strip out easily and are quite often stripped out from the factory. The bezels are made of brittle plastic that cracks easily.

The pedal is absolute crap. It's made of painted thin gauge sheet metal and held together with the same type of cheap screws they use on the machine itself. In every single version of craptastic foot pedals they have "released" they have yet to include any type of non-slip material where your foot is. The first foot pedal I had just quit working and was 6" off the ground and had junk movement. The next pedal I was sent used a belt and gear and often times slipped. Again, terrible modulation.

Finally I was sent the current pedal that is "low" profile. Still sits twice the height of any lincoln or miller pedal and is takes about 2-3 times as much pressure to modulate in comparison to name brand pedals.

The torch is garbage. Too big to do anything with it. Along with impossible to bend lines.

The regulator is garbage. It doesn't regulate correctly. The initial burst of gas indicates its a junky piece. You put it together yourself with cheapo supplied worm clamps and hose that is rated for water.

The machine itself has oddball connections. Be prepared to drop another $100 in misc. fittings and adapters to get a standard water-cooled wp20 torch to work.

Onto the machine itself; the features are very nice for the price. But the precision of every everlast machine I've had in my hands (probably 5 or so) was all over the place. Turn the amperage **** all the way up on your 250 and it reads 242. Next one reads 252. All the way down and it'll read 8, etc etc.

My machine had issues with some stupid chip, however the production date was after the supposed revised chip. Go figure. It was sent in, promises were made by everlast and it took 10 times longer than they said it would. In the end they knowingly sent back some machine that wasn't even mine and had the most terrible repair job done on it by some guy in florida that has been soldering for the FBI or some bullshit. They continued to give me the run around and continued to send me loaners that didn't work and machines that were just complete junk. I still haven't seen the money I was promised for shipping this junk across the country and I probably never will. I have it all documented with videos and pictures if I ever feel like having some fun on youtube .

Re-sale value on them is junk if you ever plan to upgrade to a real machine.

Only time will tell how long this thing will last.

Did I mention I have an everlast 250ex for sale real cheap ?

roller3804

I promise I am not trying to troll haha..But it just sounds like you have a had a pretty bad experience with Everlast in general. I agree the torches are a little large for most people and the foot pedal is not the greatest but most everything you just said has nothing to do with the actual weld quality IMO..I am still getting one but not a 250ex a 200dx. Ill post a detailed review with pics and videos when i get it all set up. I don't weld in a shop setting so I think it will be great for hobby use and an occasional sidework job.

atutt

I've used plenty of "real" welders... Blue, red, purple.... Etc
In my 8 or so years I've had more problems with Lincolns than I have had with any other tool. Fried boards. Missing components. Premature parts failure on new machines (well just one)... So in all honesty you argument is really moot as EVERY WELDING MANUFATUCRER has bad units, customer service reps who have shitty days, and **** getting damaged in shipping (had a syncrowave damaged in shipping. Looked like it was thrown off a balcony)

My 250ex arrived in perfect condition. Performs flawlessly, and has every time I've used it. Yeah the fan is loud. That's about it.

Agtronic

To start, I really hate to take sides or say anything negative about others work or products. Also, I am not biased towards any company, but there is one thing that pisses me off, and it's cheap equipment.

I have a close personal friend who bought one of these for his home garage, and he brought it over to the shop when he first got it so that we can take a look at it. The first thing I noticed when it came out of the box was the quality of the accessories. The regulator, torch, hoses etc ... all had that really cheap Chinese feeling, with the mold joint flash and all ...

I didn't get to test it out so I'm not going to bash the power supply without knowing how it feels.

My friend went through a medium size bottle of argon and then the machine just took a crap. He's had a hard time figuring out what to do with it because he has to ship it back to them at his cost to get it fixed, and it's not exactly like shipping back a small appliance. So it's basically just sitting in his shop collecting dust. He also mentioned it was hard to get in touch with the company to accept a return.

Just thought I'd put it out there so that people are aware. I won't say it's a piece of garbage without trying it, but you should definitely be aware of issues before buying one. Probably an OK machine for someone who wants to weld at home on the weekends. I don't see the sense in getting a Dynasty at $5000+ for home use.

intense4thgen

I recently got the 185 micro and I could not be happier with the performance of the unit, the only thing is I wish I went with the 200 for the post flow adjustmnets but meh. I had a issue with my 185 going into protect I called up my sales office and a new unit was sent with a return tag no questions asked!

turbojeesx

Firstly, I wasn't trying to make an "argument". Just stating facts. The pedals are crap, the torches are crap as well as the cables. The regulator is crap. The consumables are crap. The machines often go bad; more so than EVERY WELDING MANUFACTURER. The company tries to bribe people not to post bad reviews.

Yes, the fan is loud as hell. That wasn't my point. It's on ALL the time--absolutely no point to that, it's not a buzz box from 1970.

Just because someone is a hobbyist, doesn't mean they should invest almost 2k into a welder that is going to be DOA or have a short shelf life.

I suggest you look into their previous lineups and "older" (think yellow, not green) machines and see how many of them are still running.

A hobbyist doesn't need to plunk down 5g's on a new dynasty. Just look on craigslist and pickup a lincoln 225 or 185 for around a grand and enjoy a great machine with great resale value. Or pickup a used miller, there are TONS of good deals out there.

Also just to keep things clear. I've OWNED all of the above mentioned brands and have used them as well. Big difference between pickup up a torch and using a machine and actually owning it and putting tons of hours on it.

Snow Trooper

I have had a 185 micro for over a year. Bought as a backup and became the primary unit of choice for me due to size and portability. I upgraded basically everything so in regards to them as a power supply I cant complain. I have a lot of hours on it with sch 10 ss and 6061.

TinyT

Maybe i missed it, but why would you buy one of these when you have a dynasty?

EJAYATE

Most things I have heard about these are just like turbojeesx is saying. Terrible customer support, crap torch/pedal, and when it does break good luck. Stop buying chinese.