I deserve a new welder...what to buy?

I dont consider myself a welder, but I do a fair bit of tin joining and the Lincoln 185 is now 10 years old. Might soldier on for another 10 or 20 who knows. There is nothing wrong with it if truth be told, just a cheap welder with  lot of miles and I am not emotionally tied to it.

What I am thinking is that there was a MAJOR difference between my old SIP 175 and the Lincoln 185 so with technology moving as it does, my 10 year old welder is leaving stuff on the table.

Who here knows what is a better welder for doing this car hobby stuff? Bargain basement is not a criteria....I hear "Inverter" used a lot in welder propaganda but have not researched how it really makes a difference to us.

Love to hear from those in the know.

Pete

Honestly, after being trained by my dad(who was certified in damn near every kind of welding other than underwater) and welding for the last 27 years, i'd go to the new model of your Lincoln.  I see people online praising the chinese boxes, and HF's new stuff, but if you weld seriously you go red or blue, and I'm a Lincoln guy.  
 

I don't trust i will be able to get parts for chinese boxes 5-10 years out.  Full transparency I have an AlphaTIG, because for needing to weld aluminum or tig steel twice a year I couldn't justify the cost of a big name domestic company's machine.

What's yer budget?  What are you gonna use it for?

Patrick said:

 

I don't trust i will be able to get parts for chinese boxes 5-10 years out.

Sadly, I have two 7 year old Lincolns that are unrepairable because parts are either not available or cost more than replacing the unit. I was also told by the welder repair guy that my workhorse Millermatic 210 was in the same boat. IE if anything other than the switches on the front panel or gas solenoid went out that I should be prepared to replace the whole thing. He did say that my synchrowave 250 could be repaired forever while our awesome new Miller Dynasty InverTIG machine was essentially disposable.

I guess what I am saying is the old adage that you will always be able to get parts for red and blue isn't quite accurate or cost effective according to the guy who repairs them for a living.

I am not sure if I have any particular loyalty to either Miller or Lincoln. I currently use Miller exclusively but have fond memories of Lincolns I have used in the past.

You can usually turn a bigger machine down to do light work.  Can't turn up a little one.  So, what are you going to need?

Smaller machine will have a solid state wire feed, bigger machine will have mechanical contactors, which sound like they won't last as long doing spot welds on sheet metal, but my Lincoln 215 has been going at it for almost 20 years, and still seems to be fine.

I say Lincoln, Miller, Esab or another real name.  

I have a Lincoln 120v welder at the shop with gas.  I purchased a Northern Tool 220v welder with gas for myself.

I find that I use the Lincoln a lot more unless I really need the extra juice for some thick stuff.  The NT is great, but finnicky.  The wire feed mechanism is unpredictable and hard to get the tension right.  It almost seems like the feed wheel is not concentric.  It feeds inconsistently, so I just have to crank up the tension and make sure I have the speed and amperage just right.  I would go Lincoln or Miller if I had to do it again.

TSC has the Hobart Handler 140 on sale if you're looking for a good yet inexpensive 120-volt MIG.

In reply to Jumper K Balls (Trent) :

That is really sad to hear.  

I guess what I am fishing around for is if any groundbreaking advances have been made in the lightweight 220 volt industrial MIG machines.

Both the MIG and the TIG in my shop are Lincoln an I cant say that I am unhappy with the brand. I have driven a Millermatic and it was a sweet machine, but it was also brand new ( 3 years ago) and it started this train of thought.

What is surprising to me is how useless the welding supply shop is when asked to participate in this discussion. Better off asking the cat.

Pete

I have a Lincoln 180c, it's the commercial version of the 180HD (home depot).  It has been good to me for a few years now.  Purchased from a local welding supply for 1/2 price as a repackaged demo model.  The story is Lincoln gives these to race teams and such for a year then sends a pile of them to be resold at a discount with full warranty. 

The one I wanted is the 210 dual, it can run on 110 or 220.

I also just picked up a 260 power mig, it's pretty sweet, and $2500.  It is pretty fool proof though, select type of wire, gas, thickness of material and it sets voltage and wire speed for you with two graphs of a range for both that may work for you.  Recommended range in green then red for not recommended but will let you set it anywhere.

A 260 Mig will run on any voltage single phase, mine is running 460 single right now.  

Watch a demo on one of these, even the power up is cool.

Bought my Lincoln in 1998 brand new.  Biggest 110 VAC unit they sold at the time.  Still using it today.  I think the only thing I've replaced was the cable the wire runs through, because I was stupid and let it get wet and it corroded.  If I had to replace it I'd go red again in a heartbeat.  

Pretty much everything becomes obsolete eventually, so being able to perform major repairs cost effectively 20 years out shouldn't really be that big of a consideration in my opinion. However, if you care in any way shape or form about the warranty, or mid-term repairability, red or blue as sold and serviced by your local welding shop...Unless you want to pay (at your expense) to ship a bulky and heavy welder half way across the country (BOTH ways) just to find out whether or not they'll even repair it under warranty, and consider it disposable (if not DIY-able) once it's out of warranty. Warranties for (especially large/heavy) products that do not have local service support are simply not typically worth the paper they're written on.

In my opinion, the dual power thing is the only innovation over the last decade. 

Buy a liner, new tips,and sweeten up your old one. Spend savings on beer. Enjoy winning at life.

In reply to akylekoz :

I think this is what I might be looking for.

Pete

I just replaced my Hobart 140 with a Unitweld 200. The Hobart was acting tired and I couldn't get consistent quality welds. The Unitweld machine works perfectly.

A lot of the new import MIG setups are inverter based. They usually have a far better duty cycle than old school transformer based units. 

For example, the Lincoln PRO-MIG 140 that you might find at a big box store has a 20% duty cycle at 90 amps. Even lower if you need to crank it to max output.

Compare that to an Everlast i-MIG 140 which specifies a 100% duty cycle at 70A, 60% duty cycle at 90A, and 25% duty cycle at 140A. 

1988RedT2 said:

TSC has the Hobart Handler 140 on sale if you're looking for a good yet inexpensive 120-volt MIG.

This is what I have and I've been really happy with it, and use it relatively often. No issues in 3-4 years of ownership. 

I bought an ESAB EMP 215ic machine a few months ago.  MIG, stick, and DC tig, 240 amps max output.  Runs on 120 or 230, 100% duty cycle up to 110 amps, and 25% duty cycle at 205 amps.  It's a great machine.

I really love the "sMIG" automatic mode, where you set the wire feed speed (or material thickness), and it twiddles the voltage on the fly to do the right thing.  It will weld mostly normally with like 3/4" of stickout which I find crazy.

edit: As for inverter vs. transformer, it does make a difference.  Inverter machines are more flexible on input/output voltage, and generally weld smoother.  They also typically have a better duty cycle, and are more efficient, which means you get more welding power out of the same wall outlet's worth of power.

Quite happy with my Miller 211. (Replaced an old underpowered Miller 135 after 8 years or so)

Runs 120/240

Can also run a spool gun for aluminum

You have a MIG that works fine?

Buy yourself a TIG.

Keep both.

Profit!

In reply to SkinnyG :

Got a TIG Lincoln 180. Poor thing has not been used much since I got the Lincoln 185 Mig. While very capable of doing the work in the right hands, I could not make any $$$ doing tig based rustorations because of the amount of time it takes to join metal with the tig process. You are easy an hour into a TIG weld that can be done with the MIG in 15 minutes.

Pete