im looking to spend 200 or less on a welder. my current purpose is to do exhaust and eventually ic piping, and little jobs around the car and even house. i dont think ill need to exceed 1/4" or attempt to do a manifold just yet (but if i do, can a weaker welder do it if i a bunch of passes and do it slowly?)

heres what i know so far:

its for the home so it must be 115v and not 220v correct?

how many amps do i need? i read that for every 0.001" you need one amp. what would 16 gauge equate to?

i dont care for looks.

it looks like the top brands are miller, lincoln, century, hobart. mig models of these brands are way too pricey for me, unless i can find one used.

wire vs stick. wire is cleaner and can do thin metal, stick can do really thick but not thin. i noticed wire can go down to 24ga while stick min. is 20ga. doesnt seem like that much of a difference. stick takes skill while wire is just plain easier. i think i would be able to cope with either. ive done some stick back in autoshop class.

mig wire gas vs fluxcore- gas is cleaner, can do thin, and also aluminum. flux core can only do mild steel and is messier- again, looks dont matter to me.

as far as pricerange, it looks like a i have a much better chance of finding an arc welder for under 200, which means finding a name brand used one may be even easier.

i cant do aluminum with an arc welder, it must be mig? if so then i guess i can do the ic piping with thin steel exhaust pipes. with mig, how much does the regulator and tank and all that gas cost and where do i fill it? and how long does a tank last?

is it so bad to go with a lesser brand like chicago electric, cambell hausfield, or whatever they have at harbor freight? seeing an arc welder for 49-99 is very tempting even if its limited to just exhaust piping and some brackets here and there.

please correct any misconceptions i have. ive been absorbing a lot of info and it looks like a mig may be the best choice, but ill have to save up. i dont like the idea of spending around 300, but if i must then i will. im even holding back on getting a compressor to get a welder first.

 

mig welders are the most commonly used welders for cars, and it will work for jobs at home.

Arc welders are never used on cars(unless its the best thing you got).

Get a mig or save a little more money to get the shielding gas type migs.

 

Dont waist your money on a cheap welder...you will hate yourself!!!...I have a Lincoln SP-135T with a argon/CO2 gas bottle and I love it!!!...also just to let you know you will not be able to weld aluminum with a cheaper wire feed welder...I would even recomend trying it with my Lincoln unit....the aluminum wire is alot softer and has a hard time feeding through the cable...there are usually teflon liner kits that the manufactuers sell to run aluminum with to make it slide through the cable easier...the proper way would be a spool gun, but that $$$...besides you need more than a 135 machine to do aluminum right and a TIG unit will always do much better anyway....check out the link I posted below...Lots of great welding info on this board...they discuss lots more than just Hobart welders...just do a search...good luck!

http://www.hobartwelders.com/mboard/

 

Save the $$ for a Tig. Worth money and makes excellant welds.

Blaze

 

Bump for more opinions. I'm in a similar situation....

 

I use the Lincoln Arc Weld Pak-100 form Home Depot. Its a wire feed and I just recently converted it to the mig. Total setup was like $450. Its good for using around the farm and for building hybrids.

EDIT:
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=361491
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=324793
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=229780


[Modified by Jeff C, 12:14 PM 3/6/2003]


[Modified by Jeff C, 12:15 PM 3/6/2003]

 

Go for the lincoln 135 as said above. It is a real nice welder. The weld pac doesn't have enough punch for 3/16 and bigger. I have a miller 175 wire feed, 220 but you don't need that kind of juice for most car work.

 

ok a tig is out of my league. a brand name mig is still too much at 4-500$. a cheap mig is a no-no. how about just getting a used gas torch setup for around 100? afterall, i always see muffler shops using them. with hangers even haha. anyways, itll do exhaust flanges and join piping like i want, but what will i be limited to? if it can do that then doing brackets and joints should be fine right. will it be strong enough for suspension components like strut bars?

 

That's what I was going to suggest, because of your low price. You can gas weld/braze anything with the right rod and flux. All tube frame cars were welded before electric welding took over. And you can heat treat/anneal with a torch, not with a TIG.

 

my cousin picked up quality tig form a local collage that was selling a lincon tig for 275. sure its been used alot but its in good condition,

Good Luck.

Blaze

 

i got 2 tigs oldies but goodies in the day when they were bought about 10 years or so ago they were like 1500 each i got a bunch of migs the better of these for small **** is a lincoln 135 the rest are enourmous work extremely well but take up too much room and way too powerful + way to expensive. and as for arc i wouldn't even look at them if i were you their for pipe and heavy steel nothing smaller

 

The best thing to do is to go and buy a new one. The warranty is worth it. I work on welders for a living and if they are that cheap then they have been well used. You really need to get something that has a gas hookup. If you want your weld to look good dont even mess with flux core. You should think about a lincoln or miller. Like a lincoln sp175 or around a 150. The 100 doesnt have a gas hookup. If you get a used one then it breakes the parts are very costly trust me. Good luck to you.

 

For everything you're doing, my suggestion would be a lincoln weldpak 100 (maybe called the weldpak 10 now, not sure). It will easily do your exhaust as well as a manifold if you want it to. You don't want to deal with stick welding if you can help it, it takes a lot of practice to get good at it. Flux core is fine for the exhaust and the manifold and steel ic piping, anything thinner than standard exhaust tubing (can't think of the gauge right now, maybe 18?) and you will generally burn through it with flux core. Flux core typically runs pretty hot, but as such it usually gets good penetration and strong welds if you know what you're doing. The weldpaks usually go for around $350 I believe, and you can upgrade to a mig kit later on for around $100. I would NOT get a cheapie campbell hausfield/chicago electric/etc welder, most of the ones that cost less than the lincoln weldpak have only two ranges hi and low, which is completely inadequate for welding, and would probably drive you nuts trying to get it to run decently. You really want some sort of dial/***** for adjusting wire speed and amperage, not a hi/low switch. The biggest thing you'll need to do when you get the welder is practice. It'll take a lot of practice to get good at laying beads, but keep trying and you should eventually get the hang of it, at least well enough to do an exhaust and a manifold. Flux core is also not really much messier than mig if you know what you're doing, there will be more spatter, but it brushes off with a wire brush. What can make flux core a bit harder is the gas that is expelled by it as well as the usually hotter burn making it easier to blow through thin metals. So again, my suggestion is to get a weldpak 100 and practice a lot with flux core, and maybe eventually get the mig kit later if you deceide you want it. Feel free to email me if you want more info or anything, I'm on g2ic.com too, assuming you are as well.

 

hmm. how about i go ahead and pickup a used torch setup for 100-150 (ive found a few) and practice off that, then get the weldpak if i find myself becoming more active. i read thats how a few people started as well.

from another thread:
is that true? they got some really cheap welders.

oh and whats the difference between arc and mig? isnt mig essentially arc?

 

I'm 99% sure the chicago electric welders are not rebadged millers. Millers and Hobarts are identical other than the name and the color (maybe warranty, don't remember), Miller and Hobart are owned by the same company, so go with whichever is cheaper (usually hobart, but a smaller selection of welders than the miller line). Chicago electric does have some really cheap welders, but I'd question the quality and capabilities of the machines as well as the parts availability (especially consumables, like tips, etc). But it's up to you if you want to take the risk. Just make sure if you get one to get one with more than two settings (ie hi and low).

Arc welding is any electrical welding involving an arc, so mig is arc welding, as is tig, stick and subarc. A lot of times though when people say arc welding they're referring to stick welding. Also heliarc is technically considered tig welding (due to sometimes using helium as a shielding gas), but I've heard people use heliarc to refer to all types of arc welding.

 

Seems like everyone is ignoring the $200 budget... but then again it isn't our money is it.

Anyway, those small TIGs have a problem with thin material. That is, the finese of having a controller that can work at less than 10amps is apparently hard to do. End result is that if you use one of the <$1400 (new) TIGs, I think you won't be happy with popping holes through thin material, like thinner than 18 or 20 ga. I know, I traded in my entry-level Miller for a Real Machine. If all you do is 16ga or thicker, you're all set, as long as you can find someone giving away one for $200... Like I said, a gas set up is very versatile, but not very high-tech.