Thread: Which welder?

Originally Posted by ozscott

Kidbeen which model was it?

Cheers

Tig Arc Inverter Welder - 200 Amps - Miniarc 200 STL

It is a Stick and Tig. No Mig.

Yes so DC TIG and unless you are a gun welder in perfect conditions you can't weld alli with that (i have seen it done...workable in a pinch but not pretty).

Cheers

I bought a small gasless mig welder about 10 years ago that is still working perfectly (the ones that take those small rolls of wire) and it has paid for itself 20x over fixing up exhausts and panels around the farm over the years But the blasted spools are expensive and they always seem to run out at the most inopportune times and being gasless it is pretty much impossible to weld in any sort of wind.
I recently bought an inverter stick welder to replace my aging old CIG stick welder and I simply love the thing, Light highly portable and it lays a nice weld

Golden rule for MIG wire, gasless or solid core, is the larger the spool, the better the cost per kilo.
Last I checked, a 0.5KG spool of Cigweld shield-cor 15 (E71T) wire was about $35.
You'd get a 5kg spool for approx $100 (10x more wire, for ~3x the price)
A full size 12.5KG spool is about the 200 mark...

So when you're burning lots of wire, don't shoot yourself in the foot with a machine that is limited by spool size (if you have the option).

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

Golden rule for MIG wire, gasless or solid core, is the larger the spool, the better the cost per kilo.
Last I checked, a 0.5KG spool of Cigweld shield-cor 15 (E71T) wire was about $35.
You'd get a 5kg spool for approx $100 (10x more wire, for ~3x the price)
A full size 12.5KG spool is about the 200 mark...

So when you're burning lots of wire, don't shoot yourself in the foot with a machine that is limited by spool size (if you have the option).

What! Thats way too much. I'll have to check our billing, but I'm pretty sure we're paying $50-60 per 15kg spool at BOC. It may be our account though. We pay $8-20 or bottle of the various gasses but get a monthly bottle charge also.

Originally Posted by Slunnie

What! Thats way too much. I'll have to check our billing, but I'm pretty sure we're paying $50-60 per 15kg spool at BOC. It may be our account though. We pay $8-20 or bottle of the various gasses but get a monthly bottle charge also.

$60 sounds about right for 15kg of solid wire, gasless would be much more, surely.

GASLESS MIG WELDING WIRE 0.8MM X 15KG SPOOL | eBay

Ahhh my applogies, I didn't read it properly and we do use solid core, not flux core.

Most of the Chinese made caddies seem ok. I have had good use out of trade tools and unimig caddies in ship repair work. I have a 'wsm 200' which I got from Grays about 10 years ago and it still going good. This is an early inverter stick,DC scratch tig. I have started repairing a defender bulkhead with the tig but it is very difficult to get clean enough to not get any porosity, pulling crap from the back of the welds that cannot be got to. I have gone back to a unimig mig unit which needs more grinding with a flapper to clean up but overall better. I have not done any ally with the mig but that is another advantage of having a inverter mig over DC tig.
Cheers