I just want to warn you all to never buy a "Handy-Mig" Lincoln welder. I made the mistake of buying one and it's the biggest piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune of using.


Unlike most Lincoln MIGs, the gun on my "Handy-Mig" is not removeable. Also, instead of having a solenoid inside the welder that opens the gas valve, my Crappy-Mig has a mechanical valve inside the gun that opens when you squeeze the trigger.


I bought the welder about a year ago. After the first hour of using it, the gas cut out and my welds instantly turned to ****. I couldn't figure out why the gas wasn't flowing, so I took it to get repaired (under the Lincoln warranty). Well, that turned into a two month ordeal. I refused to pay for the repair myself, and it took some coaxing to get Lincoln to pay for the repairs.

So I finally got it back, turned it on, and got about an other hour of welding out of it before the exact same thing happened again - the gas cut out. So I said "fuckit" and it's been sitting in my garage until now. So now I finally went out today and decided to tackle the repair myself. Well, long story short, nothing was actually broken inside the trigger - the reason it doesn't work is because it's the most poorly designed piece of crap valve I've ever seen. I was able to get it working by replacing the internal springs (which were too small) and o-rings (which were too big). But even so, the valve is a joke. Looking at the design, I don't see how it can get a positive seal when the trigger isn't depressed (i.e. it's going to leak and waste gas).


So overall, I feel like a sucker. I always heard things like "There's no such thing as a bad Lincoln" but now I know otherwise. This was obviously done to save money and avoid having to use a real solenoid, but I can't believe what they resorted to. I'm going to sell it and buy a 135.

 

Lincoln has a few crap models. Their Invertec 205 is a $3000 piece of junk too.

I'm assuming you're talking about the Lincoln SP135, right? That's a good welder. It's a bit underpowered, but it's good. If you can spare another $100, get the 175.

 

I've got an inherited piece of poop Century welder, but it's doing well for me when it comes to welding steel. That suck bro, thanks for the info.

 

I've got the sp135 taking much abuse for the last year. If I ever had problems like that with my welder I'd throw it through the front window of sears in broad daylight.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to ebay this one and buy an sp-135. All I ever weld is exhaust/charge pipes, so I don't think I'll spring for the 175.

 

I just bought a SP135 new from ebay and have no complaints