Mig welder

zmnewzealand, Sep 27, 10:14pm
can anyone recommend a welder for light/diy use, budget is about $400. cheers
zmnewzealand, Sep 28, 1:28am
ok I'll keep an eye on this, I'monly want to do light welding upto about 2mm cheers
vic008, Sep 28, 3:42am
Bollocks, my $400 welder has lasted me 10yr of fulltime use. Take advantage of the cheap imports, they're great. There is very little that can go wrong.
cabrio1, Sep 28, 4:30am
That image looks like an arc welder.
What sort of welding do you want to do.
Big difference between mig and arc.
Garden gates or car body panels?
aj.2., Sep 28, 4:36am
You may do better with Oxy / acetylene plant and a panel hand piece with the right tips,
A bigger hand piece and tips will let you heat and bend , or weld up to 12 mm , no worries.
would give you so much more control on heat control.
cabrio1, Sep 28, 4:39am
A good mig is perfect for 2 mm. Arc will blow holes all over the place.
aj.2., Sep 28, 4:39am
Also OP, will add, with oxy / acetylene you can braise , or even work with copper joins, all things that mig or electric welding will not do.
gsimpson, Sep 28, 4:58am
With oxy/acetylene you will have bottle rental though. Not really suitable for cooking food mind.

A cheap MIG should be fine. I have a basic MIG that has done 20 years regular use. Upgraded with a CO2 bottle.
aj.2., Sep 28, 5:06am
Yes , but depends on what a person is doing .
If needing to bend steel , then gas works well .
If welding copper pipes then also its great.
If just welding mild steel then yes mig , is good.
If welding stainless steel then mig is better than gas and a filler rod at times.
Needs to be sorted on Budget , plus the knowledge of the operator, or at least what they want to learn.
Any way OP, all the best on you search and use of what you buy,
Cheers.
aj.2., Sep 28, 5:15am
What does it cost for the rental on your bottle these days.
I had owners gas bottles , oxy / act, for a while, number of years ago , still have the gas reg's and welding hand pieces , both the big hand piece, heating tip , and welding tips, plus a small light weight panel torch, with welding tips.
All just sitting here, must sell them off soon.
butterfly05, Sep 28, 8:44am
That may be true but I weld for a living so I probably have higher standards than most. Im sorry but unless I was welding on a ford or holden a $400 welder would likely get a sledgy through it right quick if it came into my shed.

And the reason I recommend the Lincoln is iv always liked the way they build the power supplys in Lincolns they tend to have alot of capacitors and good inductance settings that weld really nice for how basic the machines are if you know what your doing.
2sheddies, Sep 28, 9:11am
As a learner attempting to teach myself to mig weld, I found the cheaper ones perfectly okay. If I had any criticism, the only thing I would have preferred as a beginner, would be having finer control over heat settings and wire feed, as you do on some dearer ones. With only two switches (Min/Max 1&2 ) and no clear instruction I was never quite sure which setting to put it on for different materials to get things sizzling along nicely with the right penetration etc. One seemed too hot, the other not enough. Could have been pure operator error though lol!
rob_man, Sep 28, 9:26am
I have a Cebora 160amp MIG which I bought second hand on TM for $400. Works fine for panel steel with .6 wire and is fine on heavier steel as well.
aj.2., Sep 28, 9:34am
Thin metal is always hard to weld for the beginner , also setting the right GAP, is an art, too small and no penetration, and needs more heat to burn into it, then it blows holes.
Too big and it burns away , needing a weave to fill, but in doing that , Too much heat, then it burns away.
Speed control is important.
Good welding should sound like bacon being cooked, if you watch and listen to good welders you will hear that sound, none of this Stop Start stuff.
The same with gas cutting.
budgel, Sep 28, 9:53am
I have a cheapie import gas/gasless and it works fine for home handyman stuff, which is all I need.
beast9, Sep 28, 11:02am
agree don't buy cheap Chinese stuff i have a MIG from mega 10 it lasted a year before the main circuit transistor blew and cooked the feed motor i picked up an old steady MIG 160 for $300 haven't looked back Lincoln is a good brand cebora still make a good welder
2sheddies, Apr 22, 1:24am
Great info there, cheers! You're dead right about that speed control! It's such a useful thing to learn though, cos ya can do heaps of little projects around the place if you can manage a half decent weld. but I made the silly mistake of parting with mine just when I was starting to get the hang of it, because it sat there most of the time and I reckoned I never used it enough to warrant keeping it and carrying on learning. now talking about it makes me wish I still bloody had it! Havta add another to that long workshop wish list.