MIG Welders - which one?!

I think gasless wire is fine for the DIY / Home handyman type.

I have a little SIP 150N that gives great results on anything upto 5mm (with good penetration). I use gasless wire all the time because most of the welding I do is outdoors. I've just made new barn doors out of box section, butt welded 6mm structural steel, and made racking out of 90x90x5 RSA.

The only problem I see with gasless is the cost of the wire and the extra spatter generated which makes it a little harder to see the weld pool. The upside is you don't have to cart a bottle around with you (or hire one). For example, just today I had to weld 2 pieces of box section together in my wood shed, I just hand carried the unit over, plugged it in, mask & gloves on, re-tension wire feed mechanism and off I went, no gas, no bottles and hand portable. :)

Of course it helps if you can weld in the first place - my first job was as a structural steel fabricator / welder, albeit that was "stick" welding, but once you can weld it's like riding a bike! ;) Plus MIG welding is easier once you get the wire speed sorted.

The only thing I now regret (given the amount of welding I've been doing lately) is spending $600 on a SIP welder when I should have spent a bit more ($1000) on a Lincoln with a better wire feed, replaceable Euro torch, etc.

Still, can't complain it's never let me down or been troublesome yet, I just know that when the torch lead gets twisted / bent / trodden on too much, I will wish it had a standard Euro torch on it.

Jon

I havn't read everyones responses so sorry if I'm repeating myself here.

I weld for a living so you can take what I say hovever you feel.

The small portable welder scene are all much of a muchness, most of them even come out of the same factory eg. unimig and cig. But if it's a good quality portable welder you are after then spend the extra mula and get the Kempi 180. It's my choice for remote areas ie. no 15amp, and when run on decent gasless wire will give you excellent results.

It sounds like some of the guy's have had bad expeariences with gasless, remember to reverse the polatiry, this helps emensly. And get the welding shop to help you set it up, thats what you are paying them for!
Gasless is brilliant if you know how to use it properly, all my call out work is done with gasless wire.

As for later on the track welding alloy, don't bother. To weld ally with Tig you need Hi feq AC inverter, and for a mig unless you are planning on spending more than 5-6k you really wont get a welder that will give satisfactory results. Ally welding takes ALOT of hard earned skill and a machine that can back it all up.

My personal welder at my workshop is a CIG twin pulse machine worth nearly 10 000 clams. However it dose do a good job.

Don't look too much into it for a hobbie welder, LR chassis are only a couple of mm thick and you'll find you won't need to turn the machine up beyond 130-140amps. Most of these small machines have a very small duty cycle as well so look at those figures when making your selection.

Good luck

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Originally Posted by Larns

As for later on the track welding alloy, don't bother. To weld ally with Tig you need Hi feq AC inverter, and for a mig unless you are planning on spending more than 5-6k you really wont get a welder that will give satisfactory results. Ally welding takes ALOT of hard earned skill and a machine that can back it all up.


Good luck

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The Migomag 260 dose a top job on alloy its had more work on alloy than steel in the last 12months and i get great results with 1mm wire on 1.6 and up thicknesses dose a top job on 10mm alloy to tho like you mentioned it all comes down to experience and i think i have my fair share of that :D:D

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Originally Posted by mcrover

First thing is stay away from Gasless MIG's, they are really only for light weight stuff and the wire is pretty exy.

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Agreed!
Found out the hard way..

hi

i have a unimig 240 have built camper trailer repaired tractor bits and pieces as well as general work around the shed and on the cars have found it perfect for most jobs 15amp plug needed takes 1kg and 15kg spools I use gas only and do find the hiring charge for the bottle a pain but for $1400.00 I think its a good buy

cheers mark

Personally I really like the ESAB equipment. We run BOC gear also and they're probably excellent for home stuff, but I'm not yet convinced at all that they're a long term proposition for heavy use as the niggle at times. Unimig does seem to be good. All of our gear is 3 phase so I can't comment too much on the power outputs, though 3 phase has enough grunt.

I find that we use a lot of MIG and it is the welder of choice. If you're into steel then there really is no substitute, especially if you're not a flash welder and you need to put down structural welds. The MIG is a lot more flexible and the learning curve a lot smaller than Stick. We do have Stick/TIG and Stick machines though they are seldom used. Oxy is picked up well before any of these machines, though I wouldn't be doing any chassis work with oxy personally.

I have a SIP Migmate 150 and I've found it a tricky thing to set up.

I've been running gasless wire in it and the lack of smooth proportional control on wire speed for the 6 different power settings limits it on some jobs.

However, for small fiddly jobs with mild steel it still CREAMS using arc. I've used the arc once since getting the mig, and that was enough to convince me to spend the time playing with the mig on different thicknesses to work out what it could do.

Lots of users complain about spatter with gasless wire. It's there but it's not hard to remove. When compared to mild steel wire with gas it is messy, but compared to arc it's much better and easier to weld thin material. The other benefit with gasless wire is that it is not quite as fussy about wind. You MUST have some ventilation if using gasless in the shed, just as with arc - you'll feel crook very quickly and it lingers!


Would I like a better welder? Sure, but this one does what I need and at the price it was too good to refuse.

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Originally Posted by lokka

As for gas try work a deal with your local supplyer to get a beta rate i did and im happy to pay the $120 per year for rental on tha large bottle and $60 per fill up :D:D:D

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I couldn't work out what a beta rate was, I was thinking along the lines of alpha, beta, gamma, delta, therefore the second best rate. :confused:

5 hours later it has clicked. It's "better"! :D

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Originally Posted by mcrover

First thing is stay away from Gasless MIG's, they are really only for light weight stuff and the wire is pretty exy.

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Originally Posted by RonMcGr

Agreed!
Found out the hard way..

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Interesting that at least two professional welders in this thread disagree.

I'm a good speller but a lousy welder (I can't see what I'm welding anymore due, I suspect, to cataracts in both eyes - in recent years my son has done my welding but those days are now gone).

However, when I could weld, I found my WIA gasless MIG would weld quite heavy steel - even outdoors. The continuous control if wire speed is good.

The biggest disadvantage I've found is that the welds aren't as clean as gasless. I've got some uncored wire so I may try reversing the polarity and giving it a go as suggested by Lokka.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Interesting that at least two professional welders in this thread disagree.

I'm a good speller but a lousy welder (I can't see what I'm welding anymore due, I suspect, to cataracts in both eyes - in recent years my son has done my welding but those days are now gone).

However, when I could weld, I found my WIA gasless MIG would weld quite heavy steel - even outdoors. The continuous control if wire speed is good.

The biggest disadvantage I've found is that the welds aren't as clean as gasless. I've got some uncored wire so I may try reversing the polarity and giving it a go as suggested by Lokka.

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NOOOOO ron (hope i spell't that right)

To run gas less you need a flux cored wire solid wire for using with gas is no good this wont work well at all mate sorry ....

I have some flux cored stainless wire here and its used with gas and it is top stuff the slag chips it self off as ya lay the weld as it cools the slag just curls up and cracks off its funny to watch and looks cool and the welds it lays are like they were done by a robot :D:D:D