250A BOC from BOC so you get their after sales support etc (there are BOC haters around but its mostly due to that insidious little suck BOC do with their Argonsheild rental - not their gear) and get an owner bottle from off here. Supagas and others cover most of the country either directly or indirectly through agents for refills. Then you will be set. More confidence building penetration than a 200A will give you and no more on going costs in the form of 1/4ly rental.
skin1235,
Mar 13, 6:53am
grab it, it will do all you want, not cost a fortune to buy or run agree re bottle from here if you want gas, the rental system is expensive for light home use there will be a learning curve for you, and that unit comes with 200 gr of wire, you'll immediately need another spool, gasless .9mm is approx $35 per spool gas wire is $approx 25
intrade,
Mar 13, 7:16am
i wouldrecommend to boycot boc if you can as they want to take your bx gas bottles off you and destroy them without any legal rights to do so. Also i dont recommend unknowen chinese stuff . i run a panther132 mig welder and they are cheap and good for any small job should use co2 or argon with mig , i use argon as thats what i got in my own bottle. supagas fill your DX oxy acetylen bottles by the way no problem dont ever take these to boc.
16feb08,
Mar 13, 7:49am
Thanks for the advice guys. Intrade, im not usually a fan of cheap chinese crap either, but I figure it'll only get used a few times a year so no point spending big $. Especially since I don't even know what I'm doing yet.
Which is better, gas or gassless! How much is the gas! Apart from wire, is there any other consumables I'll need!
trader_84,
Mar 13, 8:36am
Go gas and get a welder that will take the full sized spools. Its the old adage dude like all things in life - in for penny . in for a pound. If you want welds like you get from industry, welds that will go the whole hog re 6mm baseplates in a roll cage etc - then get a machine thats up to it with no fuss. The resale value is better on the name stuff too. BOC's maybe of chink origin but they stand by their stuff (well they do in Palmy North) When you start talking CO2 and or gassless combined with small machines that will need to be working at near warp to do the deed . then you can't moan when you struggle to get a half decent result. You are spending a chunk anyway . why not spend some extra and take dud or substandard equipment out of the equation. I've got welders and all of them are not my first (except for the TIG) - it would have been far cheaper for me to get a big one right from the get go. My 5c.
skin1235,
Mar 13, 9:36am
consumables are gas and wire, or just wire factor in a decent helmet and an occassional replacement lens for it, try to get one with a clear protector lens infront of the actual dark lens, the clears are about $1 each, and mig gasless tends to splatter enough to fek them after a while
I'd also add a dozen new tips to suit the wire learners tend to clog tips a lot,
on that note - when the fekkin thing doesn't want to feed properly and just won't play the game re a decent weld - change the tip
you could also get a few .9mm drill bitsm again about $1 each, then you can reclaim the tips for future use
when you look on here you'll find new feed motors, new tubes, new handpieces etc - generally for the chinese models but even an italian cigweld will give trouble
its not the country of origin thats the problem, its the guy on the end of the gun by the time you've got through a half a dozen tips and a couple of 900gr spools ( thats not a lot of wire) you'll be well staisfied with whichever machine you buy - until you've done the yards you'll be hacked off with it
re the larger spool mention above - use the smaller spools, they do cost a little more but they are not left exposed to ambient for so long, rust can be an issue with mig, gasless wire is not copper coated and will rust while sitting in the machine
cleanliness is critical with mig, it cannot be clean enough, most learner errors and inconsistenciesof welding will be caused by lack of cleaning - buy some more flapper disks for your grinder
16feb08,
Mar 13, 11:29am
Trader, I agree with you on buying quality 1st time, as they say you soon forget the price. BUT, I also agree with what skin says, I am a novice and I am going to f@ck up with whatever machine I have until I know what I'm doing. So, I'm still leaning towards the super cheap mig for now.
So with that in mind can you guys steer me in the direction of a gas and bottle supplier! Also how much does that stuff cost!
trader_84,
Mar 13, 1:32pm
I copied this from another post of mine from last year about this topic. Read on . The BOC charge is insidous . its something that does not seem too bad until you consider how much you have paid over the years. If you own a welder and are not in business (like most welder owners) then do yourself a favour and get your own bottle. I hired bottles for years and in hindsight (a great thing but still .) could have paid for an owner bottle a couple of times. This said . its only become clear to the majority or welder owners these last couple of years re bottle ownership/Lab test requirements and the ability of Supagas to service most of the country directly or through an agent. I paid $1140 for each of my G sized bottles delivered to my shed door from Auckers. I got one of Argon and one of Argosheild for the same cost. The only note I would make (its fark all though, but still) is that BOC probably put a little bit more gas in their tanks than Supagas puts in yours - dunno. But I always noted that BOC's ones came in at 20,000kpa (or whatever its measured in) and these new G sized bottles arrived with 19,800kpa. Nothing more to add except that my bottles wink at me when I walk past them in the shed now, and are not these insidious bloody things that suck near on $50 a quarter outta you each and every quarter. 16feb08, i got my bottles from NZweld(!) or someone from off here. G size bottles stand near as tall as you do.
skin1235,
Mar 13, 1:41pm
boc will supply gas in bottle ( and a mortgage notice ) if it does not come with a regulator you have to decide which gas you want to use ( I suggest argoshield or equiv ) and buy a reg to suit that machine you linked to is suitable for gas or gasless but in the blurp they do not say it comes with regulator so assume not aire liquide also fill their own or your own bottles ( boc don't fill owner bottles generally - cos they make their mega bucks off the rentals for their own bottles) there are a couple of others that do bottle fills, can't remember the names at the moment though that SCA mig although maybe sold as gas or gasless may be constant feed gas ( the cheap ones often are), means gas is bleeding down at 1lt per minute from the time you crack the bottle open - more expensive units have solenoids to control the gas, as you pull the trigger the arc power comes on, the feed starts, and the gas starts, even more expensive ones have a very small delay, gas first, then arc and feed later don't forget to turn the gas off while you are not welding, a $50 plus bottle won't last long if it's polluting the land while you have a coffee lol
16feb08,
Mar 13, 2:47pm
top advice guys, much appreciated
gtrb26,
Mar 13, 3:42pm
Trader_84 is spot on with his advise, I wouldn't bother with anything under 200amp, A better quality welder will be easier to use and learn on than the POS SCA welder.
intrade,
Mar 13, 6:20pm
i got small rolls on the welder for what i weld the small rolls are ok i had a big roll welder in europe the welding wire was all rusty in the end. I also used to own a telwin mig once with gasless wireyou could not weld with the crap, swapped it for the hilux engine 10 years ago or so the panther is a top welder for a cheap one and they sell cheap as on here secoundhand.
beast9,
Mar 13, 6:27pm
and if you buy that supecheap welder i would only run .6mm wire as it won't have the grunt to get a good strong weld out of .9mm have found that with several light weight welders
austingtir,
Mar 13, 6:46pm
For welding the go cart chassis which might be chromo if its a decent one and the roll cage you need a decent machine with the usual ar/co2 gas mix.Just wait for a second hand boc 250 to come up on here.
I hate boc but they are a reliable and decent enough machine for someone at home only thing with them is the rubbish plastic geared wire feeders and replacing dodgy grounds and cables on used ones.They run like a crap if those things arent kept upto scratch.Also the biggest sing phase weldwell machines are good enough as well.
If it was me id spend a bit (o.k alot) more and import an esab caddy 200i mig.Awesome little machines even a cabage could weld with one.
Kemppi do the minimig evo 200 aswell which is basically the same but its drop dead expensive.
kecal,
Mar 13, 8:54pm
from a novice welder , I broughta cheap welder from mitre ten about 2 years ago , the old adage appliesbuy cheap get cheapalso said run gasless but what a disasterfinally got argo sheild and self taught my self. ' for what its worth i wish i spent that cheap money on something decent as the welder is sitting in bits and crapped out .too expensive to warrant spendingbig $$ to get it fixed . iam going to buy something decent. so this thread is a good read
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