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Good brands of mig welders not named miller or Lincoln

Honky Lips

Honky Lips

Welcome to the shit show.
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
876
Messages
371
Loc
Omaha, Ne “ish”
Need a welder for the house garage. 220 and powerful enough to weld anything on a Wheeling rig or buggy.

Any of the other brands worth owning to save a few bucks?
 
Friend has an ESAB and swears by it.

I have a HH187 and HH230 with no complaints. Only bought the 230 for thicker (.25+) steel.
 
Miller, Lincoln, Esab, Hobart, HTP, Everlast, Eastwood...there's lots out there but I'll stick with Miller.
 
HF some Vulcan welders Ive heard good things about.

ESAB and Everlast are very legit.
 
Have a linde from 40 years ago.
 
Just buy whatever you can find used for cheap. Anything old enough to use an inverter is stupid simple to repair if/when it does break. No matter what you get you will eventually need to work on it because liners, rollers, drive motors, all that shit wears out eventually.

It's probably cheaper to pick up an inverter stick box and fill in the missing capability on the low end with a cheapo 120v import welder than it is to pick up a mig welder that can come close to matching the stick welder on the high end.
 
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My Hobart must be 20 years old now. Has never let me down.
 
I have a stick 120/240V Everlast (PowerArc 200STi) and have been very happy with it, I have heard very good things about their MIG welders as well, they reportedly do meet their output ratings and duty cycles vs many "cheaper" ones that don't.

Aaron Z
 
Another vote for Hobart. If you have a Tractor Supply nearby they have machines and consumables on the shelf.
 
Look for a Dana/Dyna/Daytona mig. Don’t remember which one it is. They are decent as well.
What’s your budget
 
Hobart. I had an issue with my welder just out of warranty. Called Hobart,they sent me a new board free of charge ,welder has worked great for several years since then.
 
Hobart x69 or whatever number we're on.

I've heard that Esab is also good.
 
boy lots of Hobart people here

My Shop
Lincoln square wave 355
Miller 251
Miller 251
Panasonic DP500
Miller Bobcat
and the old original Lincoln dedicated AC/DC stick machine

I don't buy the machines unless I can get parts easily, and so far red/blue have never failed me unless I am flat mistreating them, 99% of the time it is a thermal timeout in the summer time
 
Very happy with my Hobart 230. Have run about 50lbs of wire through it over the last few years, with no issues.
 
Hobart; as mentioned above, parts are easy to get and they're just older model Miller machines. I've got plenty of experience with a Hobart 140 and a Hobart 230 and they never let me down. The 140 became a "float around amongst friends with 110" machine, and the 230 was replaced with a Miller 255 just for more amperage. I have some friends with ESABs and they like them and can get parts for them through Fastenal I believe. One friend has been through 3 Everlast machines now, 2 MIGs and 1 plasma; they keep just shutting down and not turning back on.
 
Well I decided to go with the everlast. Mig rig stick combo. Couple buddies have em and like them. Hopefully I have better luck than your friend.
 
Honky Lips said:
Well I decided to go with the everlast. Mig rig stick combo. Couple buddies have em and like them. Hopefully I have better luck than your friend.
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After posting this I thought about how he has poor luck with many machines and its most likely a "him" thing. He's been known to push stuff past duty cycle and get frustrated pushing reset buttons because he is impatient. Odds are you will have better luck.
 
Curious...what the heck are people welding at home that they're hitting the duty cycles of these machines? I just can't picture a situation where I'm laying that much weld without repositioning or doing setup or whatnot between welds that it would hit duty cycle. Sure, maybe on a 110v machine doing a lot of 1/4" plate...but with any normal 240v machine, I just can't see it.

(I have a Miller Multimatic 215, so 200a at 20% or 150a at 40%)
 
SomeGuyFromOlympia said:
boy lots of Hobart people here
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In stock at Coastal, got a good discount on it, works well enough for my hack DIY skills, and I have always bought Miller for work so it seemed like a good budget option. So far I can't complain.
 
SomeGuy said:
Curious...what the heck are people welding at home that they're hitting the duty cycles of these machines? I just can't picture a situation where I'm laying that much weld without repositioning or doing setup or whatnot between welds that it would hit duty cycle. Sure, maybe on a 110v machine doing a lot of 1/4" plate...but with any normal 240v machine, I just can't see it.

(I have a Miller Multimatic 215, so 200a at 20% or 150a at 40%)
Click to expand...

Killdozer.

I've only ran into it once on my hh210 and that was doing a ton of 1/4 plate for a set of stairs.
 
SomeGuy said:
Curious...what the heck are people welding at home that they're hitting the duty cycles of these machines? I just can't picture a situation where I'm laying that much weld without repositioning or doing setup or whatnot between welds that it would hit duty cycle. Sure, maybe on a 110v machine doing a lot of 1/4" plate...but with any normal 240v machine, I just can't see it.

(I have a Miller Multimatic 215, so 200a at 20% or 150a at 40%)
Click to expand...

Smaller 240V home-gamer machine plus welding out a tacked-together plate bumper or tube cage will easily hit the duty cycle.
 
SomeGuy said:
Curious...what the heck are people welding at home that they're hitting the duty cycles of these machines? I just can't picture a situation where I'm laying that much weld without repositioning or doing setup or whatnot between welds that it would hit duty cycle. Sure, maybe on a 110v machine doing a lot of 1/4" plate...but with any normal 240v machine, I just can't see it.
Click to expand...
A joint where you have to fill a big bevel with a lot of material like repairing an equipment bucket.

Or they have some big assembly tacked up and they are just gonna fill it all in.

A decently large base plate for a structural steel column will hit duty cycle on most machines since you're laying bead after bead to build up a properly sized weld.
 
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