Help me buy a welder

Quick backstory. Dad wants a mig welder for some bodywork, and projects around the farm for his birthday/fathers day.  He's got an arc welder, and oxy/act torch setup. He is looking at a ~$300 Lincoln setup off of that prime shopping place. or one of the cheap chicago electric ones from HF. While I've got no issues with buying that for him I know you get what you pay for in a welder to an extent. 

SSSOOO. Help me buy dad a welder. Hobbyist, farmer, occasional fabrication. 120v outlets currently wired in the shop, but It would only take an outlet and circuit breaker to add a 220 outlet. I know we ran the wiring for 220 when we buried the shop feed.

I've looked at the Hobart Handler 210MVP might as well be 1k, Eastwood Mig 180 $600ish with spool gun for the occasional aluminum weld. Lots of no-name unknown welders out there. Are the miller welders really worth double the money for an occasional welder?

Any opinions or options out there that I'm not seeing?

Thanks in advance

Anywhere else I should be looking

I've had the 220v $179 Chicago electric mig/flux for about 5 years as a hobbyist. It's been fine for what I do, but the settings adjustment is pretty rough. 4 current settings and a questionable potentiometer for wire speed.

I mostly weld 1/8" and up stuff and it does a good job. Beating with a hammer doesn't break the welds anyway. With practice it could probably do thin stuff, but I'd personally want something with less crude adjustments.

I've heard really good things about their newer lines but haven't used one yet.

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My main recommendation is that if warranty is a consideration, look for one that can be taken care of locally... Otherwise you're probably going to be paying for shipping both ways regardless of whether it gets covered under warranty or not.

Happy with my Hobart.  It was the cheapest unit that I felt I could roll the dice with.  It's done everything I've asked of it.

Honestly, I had one of the $100 H-F fluxcore welders before that, and while the Hobart makes a much prettier weld by virtue of it using gas, the H-F unit was good at sticking metal together.  It exceeded my expectations, which were admittedly quite low.

I replaced a Hobart Handler 140 with a Hitox 200 from Amazon. I do not regret that decision. The Hitbox is a better machine.

Is it better than a Miller? Probably not, but it was $1000+ cheaper and still does everything I need it to.

A 110v welder is not good for frame work, it is for sheet metal and light work.

Check the duty cycle on cut rate welders. The transformers are overloaded on the cheaper units and will not run longer duty cycles at high output levels.

For shop work I'd not look at less than a 200, you can always turn it down and load it with small wire for light work. You can't turn up a small one.....

Happy with the little Eastwood 135 for the sheet metal and know a few folks happy with their 175s as well. The 180 looks to be a bit upgraded version.

I also have the HF 170A welder that runs on 220v. Add a bottle of MIG gas, a $20 regulator off of Amazon and upgrade the ground clamp and it does perfectly fine. Yes the controls are crude but you can move the ground clamp further or closer to the weld for more control. It's done everything I've needed for 5 years, but if I was doing a lot of sheet metal I would probably spend for more control. 

The import inverter machines are quite good these days. Everlast, AHP, heck even PrimeWeld and the hilariously-named YesWelder sell very good products. I have an Everlast MIG 140 (seven years old), AHP AlphaTig 200x (4 years old) and a PrimeWeld Cut60 plasma; I'm very happy with all of them. 

As mentioned above, compare duty cycles. The Everlast MIG 140 I use advertises a 60% duty cycle at 90A (100% at 70A, and 35% at full 140A output) whereas the Lincoln 140 you might buy at a big box store only advertises 20% duty cycle at 90A (with no figures given for lower outputs). There's little reason in this day and age to buy a name-brand unit especially if you're shopping in the price point where the name-brand box is a transformer machine and not an inverter.

My Lincoln 140 will weld 1/4" but I will preheat it with AC or MAP first to get the weld going.  Once you start welding and you are putting more heat in to the metal you are good to go.  Great little machine.  I have had it for years.  I have welded trailer axle brackets, made control arms for Ford trucks and many many other things.

I'll put one concept here:  metal drive rollers.

There's that and this:  I used an Eastwood Mig 135 to start out with, and it worked fine for years--it probably still does, for whoever I gave it to when I last moved, so long as they figured out how to keep the drive assembly working with a Vice Grip.  Once I got a Miller 211 (older, bigger one, cuz I've had it for years now), it was like going from a Datsun to a Porsche.  I did not ever use the Eastwood again . . .

You will most likely get what you pay for with a welder.

I had a Chicago Electric, getting parts is a challenge.  Wire and gas feed tube kept puking, they  just tried to upsell me.

Another vote for Primeweld.  Their customer service is world class.  A few years ago I bought one of their plasma cutters for the company I worked for and we received the wrong model.  I called and they shipped the right one... and told me to keep the other (translated, I have a free plasma cutter).  When it was time for me to buy a MIG for myself, I bought their MIG 180.  It's been an awesome welder and Primeweld was very responsive when I had setup questions.

I have a Hobart handler 180 I bought nearly 15 years ago.  I'm not a "heavy user" but it has done everything I've needed it to do.  It would be nicer if it had infinite power control instead of just infinite feed adjustment but you can get it dialed in for most work.  I have some  thin wire for sheet metal work.  

It's not cheap, but the Lincoln 180 Dual(120V & 208/230V) is AWESOME, but $1400!

Thanks guys. Keep it coming. Lots of reading and researching going on. 

I've had an Eastwood 175 (220v) for 8 years.  Has done a lot of jobs for me.  Bought it during one of their promo sales.  Have never used the Al spool gun. Variable adjustable.  So far so good.

I have a beautiful Miller Millermatic 130 XP (110v) i need to sell.  Just spent $445 having it completely rebuilt.

lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) said:

It's not cheap, but the Lincoln 180 Dual(120V & 208/230V) is AWESOME, but $1400!

That's Millermaric 211 priced too.  

Good to hear Primeweld is a good choice. Does anyone have experience with Lotos? They're another cheapy amazon brand.

I own a Chinese 200A mig.  Can't even remember what brand it is, but I haven't had any real issues with it.  The voltage read out only displays to the nearest 1 V, which is kind of annoying, but once it is set for the job, I just leave it alone anyway.  The drive motor is noisy.  The supplied ground cable is comically short.  I haven't set it up with .025" wire to do any sheet metal yet, but I don't expect to have any issues.  I've used it on tractor loader components that see a lot of abuse, and they are going strong.

I've worked in a couple shops filled with top of the line welders, and I appreciate them for what they are.  If it's paying your bills, spend the money on something nicer.  For occasional use, there is no reason to buy a name brand machine.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I picked up a Lotos MIG140 110v a couple years back after looking for something cheap for occasional home use. It's OK. I got it super cheap (like $250 from Home Depot of all places) but it had a big dent on it right out of the box, and not from shipping. I tried exchanging it but they couldn't get another one, so I ended up keeping it since it worked and it was cheaper than buying a used HF welder at the time (they did give me a service plan though). Construction is kinda chintzy, but it works.

It welds alright. I have used it mostly for flux, and it does that well enough. I've welded in floors on my Trans Am with it without a problem and done a few other small projects. On MIG, it seems to blow through gas really fast; could be me though, since I am basically self-taught with welding and that was the first and only time I ever used MIG on the setup. It also loves balling up wire and clogging the gun; I think I've spent more time messing with the spool and getting it to feed right than actual welding! Again, that could be me. I've had friends use it and they say it does a decent job.

If I had to do it again, I'd look at the mid-level HF Titanium stuff. That looks pretty decent for the money.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Huh, okay. I was looking at something like the this thing (or likely the one that has pulse) that literally gives me every tool I could need for cutting and welding for dumb home projects off 220v, but hearing that Primeweld just seems firmer and has such great support is interesting.

So sorry if I'm jacking this thread for my own interests.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

All the cool kids say you need a TIG machine. So I bought one. 

I honestly never use it. When I'm building, I'm not building art. I just want to stick two pieces of metal together and have them stay. MIG is so much faster, easier, and more than strong enough for anythig I will ever build. 

The TIG machine has been relegated to stick duty when I'm working with thicker steel or just don't want to haul the gas bottle around. 

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

I worry about that. Like I'd love to have the ability to deal with aluminum welding easily and in exchange for a little guap not have to worry... but I have to seriously look at myself and say "When the BERK have you even had the CHANCE to do that?".

I have a Hobart 140 and have been very happy with it for all kinds of jobs. It's been flawless for the 6-7 years. Price point is in between the big-box/HF welder and the 220 ones.