Technical Anybody buy cheap mig for sheet metal?

I weld a bunch of different thicknesses of steel, from 20 gauge to 1/2" plate.

I have my lincoln 175 220v welder set up with, I believe. 035 and really don't want to keep changing back and forth to a thinner .023 wire so I've thought about buying one of the cheap 220v small gas migs on ebay for under 200 bucks just for thin sheet metal and just keep .023 wire in it.

My thought is being 16 to 20 gauge sheet metal it won't require a lot of amps so it won't be like I will be taxing the machine nor should I be running into its duty cycle all the time.

So I was curious if anyone else has bought a cheapy mig just to run .023 wire and just to weld sheet metal? If so how has it worked out? Which one did you buy?

Thanks gents


.

 

I have not bought or used a cheap welding machine but I'm going to follow this thread.
I see the Lotus and Vevor brands on eBay but it seems like most of the cheaper welders are Flux core welders.

 

I have a cheap Harbor Freight welder with .035 wire and I use it often and it does a pretty good job. I have a welder, but I'm not a welder!

 

I have used one of the cheap HF migs and it is not in the same league with a quality unit like Hobart, Lincoln or Miller. I would not buy one without trying one.

 

I don't know about the inexpensive units, but I have .023 wire on a Lincoln SP 100, that is 115 volt, welds up to 1/8" very good.

 

Friend of mine uses a HF machine.
He likes it.
I haven’t used it yet.

 

Only thing neg that I've heard,, sometimes the wire feed needs to be fussed with
If ever I get to rhe box of one in the garage ......

 

I'm the dumb ass that bought a expensive welder normally $1200 on clearance sale for $700.
Does stick, tig, mig,fluxcore. 115V/220V......A decent bottle for gas is another $400 .... to own the bottle.
I bought a used bottle, filled it a few times but now needs to be sent in for inspection to get re-certified.

So I taught myself to mig weld .... I prefer it over fluxcore.
Just cost a lot of money to purchase the bottle, then to get it filled there is a week turn around + my 1 hour drive into town.

Flux core is dirty, leaves little balls all over the place .... constantly have to follow through with a wire wheel to keep things clean as you weld.Kinda a pita.
I have .030 wire on it, smallest I have found .... is extra grinding .... I learn to control my weld better.
Is extra cleaning because of flux & not gas ...... does great on sheet metal.

Ive decided as often as I use my welder, flux core is good enough for me. I have made several butt & cut patches with it .... would be easier with mig/gas.
No hassles dealing with bottles & gas & driving to town ...... Just thinking a cheap $200 mig you still need to supply a bottle .... I wonder if it comes with hose & regulator?

 

Not cheap, but I stacked a small Miller over my big Miller. .023 in one, .035 in the other. Y fitting to a shared tank. Works great. Really enjoying not having to switch back and forth or compromise and have to run .030 wire.

 

@Los_Control I just rent bottles, they are only 2 blocks from where I work and we rent our shop bottles from them too so no hassle there. Also already have a bottle on my lincoln. It comes with hose but no regulator.

I have plenty of sheet metal welding in front of me on replacing panels, installing a metal roof filler on my 31 tudor etc so I thought if the cheap mig can do a good job that 200 dollars might pay for itself pretty quickly.

I haven't looked into the HF welders yet, I'll give them a look too.

 

You know over the years I have bought inexpensive tools for jobs I didn't do all the time. Then I found out that having the tool allowed me to do the job so I used it more often. Most of the time the inexpensive tools got the job done. However, when I finally replaced the tool with a quality one, I found out the job became much easier. It made me wonder why I didn't opt for the quality tool to start with.

 

You need to get a new supplier for your gas. I've got around ten bottles and never had to have one certified. I'll buy them at auctions and it doesn't matter what gas came in them. Take them to a large supplier like Air Gas, drop them off at the dock and go in and tell them what gas you want. They will stick their head out the door to see what size and take care of you. Don't beleive the BS about having to have the same gas as came in the bottle. They have to empty the tank completely and clean it before they can refill it. Most companies exchange the bottles and don't refill them using your own bottle.
Larger companies like Air Gas recertify their own bottles so it basically costs the nothing and they make extra bucks off the hicks that don't know better.

 

I bought a 220 mig machine from Northern 15 years ago and been a great machine for an old oxy/acet guy. I used a 110v Lincoln I borrowed from work and learned on it. I found it great on thinner metal. Both were mixed gas and I would advise that for anything you buy. I have oxy/acet, 220 AC/DC stick, and a 220 Mig……an owner who’s not a welder but adequate for a home guy.

 

Used to be that you could pick up a little Miller, Lincoln or Hobart mig off Craigslist or FB marketplace but lately sellers think those are made of gold. You buy an inexpensive off shore unit and it is pretty well a disposable unit. On the other hand, if you are the only one who uses it and you don't abuse it it might last a lot longer than you plan to use it.

 

I hear ya & good for you. I live in a very old small town ..... No opportunities for gas here unless you want beans.
I drive 25 miles to the next town, they do not fill the bottles ..... They once a week drive up to Lubbock Texas and have the bottles filled. Is a 2.5 hour drive, they bring such a large truck load each week they need a motel room for the night & bring the bottles back the next day.

Every bottle has a date stamped on them, in Texas they need to be re-certified every 10 years .... I suspect that is nation wide.
My bottle is 11 years old & looks like new .... It will pass with no problems I'm confident.
Still a pita to get it re-filled.

 

My point was that were I live40 miles from Portland, Oregon and Las Vegas were I'm 6 months a year, they exchange bottles and you do not get your same bottle back. The bottle you took in may have 1 year left and the one you get back might have 5 years left. They just recertify them when it's due as part of their buisness.

 

The biggest problem with the cheap welders is the very short duty time they carry. My big Miller has a 100% duty cycle. That pretty much means it can run at max amps all day long without issues.

My buddy bought one of the upgrade HF welders. It has a 30% duty cycle. That pretty much means that for every 10 minutes the machine is running at max amps, you can weld with it for 3 minutes, and it has to cool off for the other 7 minutes. When you exceed that 3 minute weld time, it shortens the life of the machine. He thought I was feeding him a line, he would weld as long as he wanted to without concern about that cool down time, for about a year. After that, it would only give him a good weld for about the first 5 minutes, then the weld quality dropped fast. A few months later, he was down to about 3 minutes of weld time before it didn't weld very well. Then, every time he used it, the weld time dropped. Before it was 2 years old, it wouldn't weld more then a few spot welds. He blamed it as a crappy machine, and bought another one. It was the same story, but it didn't last as long as the 1st welder did. He is on machine #3. I asked him if he was paying any attention to the duty cycle of this welder. Nope! Guess what is going to happen to it? Its not if, its how long before it like the others?

Los...Control I believe if I was in your position, I would probably buy a small welding gas cylinder to go with your big cylinder. Then while one was being filled, you could be welding with the other. Flux core welding sucks, especially with sheet metal.
Of course, if you wait until both cylinders are empty, it wouldn't help much.

 

NO, kinda like a cheap whore

 

I wanted to save my Hobart Ironman for heavy welding. I use .035 wire in it. I bought an Ebay 110 Lincoln and run .023 for sheet metal. I installed a 'Y' valve so it's just a turn of the knob to switch gas between welders. Works great!

 

Years ago I bought a 110v Cebora and it worked great for sheet metal. But then I found out Princess Auto was clearing Century welders ( I was told they were made by Lincoln). So I bought two 220v units at $150 CDN each. Gave one to my nephew in appreciation for helping me out a few times. He is a body guy so he used the Century at home and said he liked it better than his Miller he used at his shop. I’m happy with mine as well.

 

I have a friend that has a 100% duty cycle Miller in his home shop. He admits that it is way overkill, and he is a journeyman welder. For anything he's working on at home, in a 10-minute stretch he's never going to be welding for 10 minutes straight. The same goes for most of us.

 

I don't know about the newer cheap welders but many years ago a buddy was telling me about his problems he was having with welding and how hard it is to fill in small holes. One day when I was over we took a look, after a little time I noticed that his welder did not have a contactor that would disconnect the current from the stinger. When you let go of the trigger it just turned off the feed motor and the end of the wire would burn off stopping the weld. You know how to fill a hole right, lots of short blasts around the edges working your way to the center. Well with his welder every time his welder stopped welding, the larger arc form the last bit of wire burning off would blow the metal away that you just installed.
The low priced welders now days may not do this but I have never tried to buy a cheap welder because of this issue.

 

I have 2 good MIG welders in my shop that I use constantly. But I often go to friend's houses that have MIGs, to do a bit of work. I find it difficult to dial in the right settings to do thin metal on them. They often don't have good controls, or if they have "click in" settings, sometimes I want to use a setting in between. Had a cheap HF one at the shop that belonged to an employee, and it worked well, (except for the thin metal) until it broke... circuit board went bad, and no replacements available. My Snap On and Miller ones, I can always get replacement parts.
Oh...if you rent gas cylinders, you don't pay for certification/hydro testing. If you OWN them (even if you exchange them at the store), you do! My store keeps strict track of when "my" tanks are due for hydro testing. Not really expensive, either, cheaper than renting them, if you already own a tank.

 

I have used some of the HF and E-Bay cheapie machines. While most did OK with current control, wire feed consistency was the biggest issue, especially with .023-.024 wire. I agree with the try before buy policy. Spending $200-300 for a machine that bird nests often is frustrating. I spent a little more for a Hobart Handler 140 (made by Miller) that does .023 well, and I can keep .035 on my PowCon.

 

I have an off brand cheap 110 volt gas mig for anything lite weight. I bought one of Eastwood’s 220 volt gas mig for everything else. A friend of mine found a reel of easy grind .023 wire for the little mig. I love them both for the product I am working

 

I have a 110 Lincoln converted to gas and .023 wire. Was not happy with the welds. Saw a note on the machine to switch polarity when converting from flux core to gas. Made all the difference in the world. Just my experience!

 

Good discussion. Good input. Helps a guy get a handle on the parameters of these machines.

 

@evintho I run the same exact valve on my setup, but I just leave both valves wide open. The solenoid on the welder that's not being used is closed anyways, so it's the same as manually closing the valve. As long as you purge both welders at the same time when you swap a tank you are good to go.

To the OP, one option you could consider is a second tank as a spare. Especially works good if you stack the welders and have them share a tank. I spent the money and got a second tank of the same size so I always have a spare on hand. Expensive for sure, but it beats running out of gas Friday night and having to wait till Monday morning to get more. The theory of this hobby being a money saver went out the window a long time ago, so whatever tools makes it more enjoyable / easy is usually the route I go.

On cheap welders, I rad a cheap Clarke for years. Beat the daylights out of it and it always came back for more until the one day it didn't. I got really good at grinding from it too. Part because of my lack of skill and part from the inconsistent speed of it's drive system.

My second welder was a Miller. Ran that for years and sold it for what I paid for it. Not counting inflation that welder was essentially free.

Many welders have gone inverter based now, so if something fries they are usually junk. I bought 2 transformer based machines for MIG, but do have a cheap inverter TIG.

 

I do 90% of my welding with a 120v HTP mig machine, with .o23 wire. I bought it in about 1981. I later bought a well used Miller 240v mig set up for .035 wire, but rarely have occasion to use it. Along the way I picked up a HTP inverter tig and a Miller Plasma cutter.

Last winter I bought a Primeweld tig machine for use at our Az. winter escape house, mostly to develop my ac skills.. It seems like a solid machine, and was inexpensive for an ac/dc tig/ stick machine. Less than $800 on Black Friday.

If I needed a mig machine down there, I would probably go with Primeweld.

Prior to this I was solidly in the HTP / Miller camp, but feel they have priced themselves out of the hobby market. Most of the non name brand welders have a pretty short warranty and require you to ship the machine in on your dollar. Primeweld has a three year warranty and they cover shipping both ways. They have a rabid fan base on their Facebook page. It looks like a lot of their customers are using their machines commercially.