I was looking for any suggestions on the best welder to use on chassis mods at home. I used to work for DANA welding frames for the Ford F150 and Expedition frames. The mig welders we used were industrial welders. I was looking to buy a welder for my garage. Any suggestions on what welder I should buy.

i have a lincoln 110v mig that does everything i've ever needed. as a rule i prefer miller welders, but have lincoln at home.

I've got a Miller MIG. Works nice but make sure your electrical circuits can handle it. The lights go dim when I put mine on full power.

Yea ur best bet would be a Miller there very very good machines and i would use those over anything. but for now im goin to buy a linchon (sp) from homedepot soon. i think its the 110v

I bleed Miller blue.....

But for a nice at home MIG, I'd buy the Lincoln 175. It's the smallest 220 MIG they have. A 110 MIG just doesn't weld like a 220 does.

Steve

I got a lincoln SP135-T mig 110v last summer, it was around $400 new and i think another $120 for a gas tank. It has worked fine for everything I've used it for exhaust, sub frame connectors, and a snow blower which was probably 3/16" to a 1/2" solid shaft(impeller broke off).

Oh yeah definately get a mig welder and don't waste your money on the $100 stick welders.

Thats the unit I have with an Argon bottle. Also own a Speedglas 9000X helmet - worth every penny

One thing i hated when i was in school for welding for the past 3yrs and since my last name is Miller, my shop teachers last name is Miller and all the welding machines we had were Miller's. I hated one thing he told me , is since my last name is Miller is that he expected more from me then anyone else.

i did pretty good in those 3 yrs, took 2nd placein the state for the AWS weldin comp. 2nd and 3rd place in the VICA comp in the county.

But i have to say get a miller welder, u wont be disapointed. just wish i had the cash for one.

How well does flux core wire work? Is shielding gas the only way to go or is the flux core OK?

I think it is unanimous for Miller! Must be a good machine.

Anyone know about the Millermatic 135? Its in my price range.

flux core is okay but i prefure as over it and the fluxcore wire costs a bit more then just regular wire.

If you have a 220 circuit get the 220 or if you don't the Miller 135 would be alright. It will do subframe connectors, etc. no problem.

When buying a 110v mig welder, pay the extra price and find one with the highest duty cycle. My mig draws a lot of amps on it's highest setting. It's enough to pop all the 15 amp breakers. I need to use at least a 30 amp breaker to weld on the highest setting.

Most of my home welding is only light duty stuff using flux core wire so I don't need a gas bottle. Using flux core wire isn't as clean as gas shielded. Anything big, chassis, roll bar etc, I use the 220v migs at work.

Millermatic 135 is a great welder, We have those Migs at both my works, the bodyshop and the excavators, they work great, both are 220....i think that they do a better job the the snap-on welders we have a school, in fact there is a snap-on welder that is been sitting in a back room at the bodyshop for quite some time now, no one uses it.



EDIT, at the excavators, they weld upto 1/4 plate steel with that welder, granted you can run one big long giant bead or it clicks off but it works. and at the body shot they used it flawlessly on sheetmetal. It is a pretty useful welder. Again both where 220.

Eric86TA, you don't happen to work at the Dana plant in E-town? Near AP Technoglass, and those factories at the end of Ring Road do you?

Do those small home MIG welders like the Lincoln you can buy at home depot work good for exhaust systems?

buy the largest machine you can find or afford, like my wife says "bigger really is better". you can turn it down for small or thin stuff and crank it for heavier work. i wouldn't bother with flux core, i'd use mig, buy the gas kit for the machine. if i wanted something other than mig i'd use stick, which is what i do at home and run a tig torch off the ac/dc stick machine.

Yes I use to. I worked there for 4 years. Two as a welder, one in Quality, and one a Quality Co-ordinator. Middle Mngmnt sucks. I quick two years ago to go back to school and finish getting my Electrical Engineering degree at the University of Louisville. I'm no Card fan though. UK all the way. I work as a Design Engineer for GE Appliances now. Do I know you?

No, but your the first person that is from the same area, give or take 50 miles. I worked at AP Technoglass in computer support till the middle of last year, but now I drive to Louisville and work at the Naval Ordinance center up there. Do you still live in E-town, or did you move to Louisville?

Miller are great machines. Can't go wrong with one of those. Hobart's are also good machines. I have a Campbell Hausfeld 110v Mig Welder. It works outstanding on sheetmetal and exhaust or on heavier stuff like sub-frame connectors.:rockon:

Thanks, I was looking at the Campbell-Hausfield and Lincoln's MIGS at Home Depot and they range from $280-$450.

I still live in E-town. I almost co-op'd with Naval Surface Warfare. The guy wanted me to go through 20,000 lines of C code that ru one of the big guns and translate it into laymans terms for him so he could understand it. I told them "no thanks"

The little Millers and Lincoln's are all good, i bought amillermatic 175 from a good local welding supply. I would reccomend that you get a true MIG setup as this is much cleaner and easier to use than flux cored, not that flux is hard but its sloppy compared to MIG and harder to do on thin metal. I would also reccomend that you go with Argon/CO2 mixed gas as opposed to the chaeper CO2. CO2 spatters badly and requires more power than argon/co2. I've used both flux and MIG as well as CO2 vs CO2/Argon. I can tellyou that it workes much better and more easily with co2/argon MIG than the rest. I also wouldn't get the Home Depot unit. I used one for several years without any problems but the quality is lower than the "regular" units, they don't show up in Lincoln's catalog!!. Besides by the time you buy the "MIG Conversion Kit" ( the others come setup alrerady) you will pay almost as much. lastly, go for the 220 unit if you can. 110 is very limited vs a 220. You can do exhaust and the like just fine on 110 but for anything heavier you will be glad you got the 220.

I think I will go with shielding gas. I am very familiar with welding with shielding gas anyway. I don't have 220 run to my garage. In your opinion, is it worth paying someone to come out and run a 220 line for me. I don't think I will be welding on anything more than some SFC's and some body work. I want to lower my TA and I've seen where everyone recomends the LCA relocation brackets. They seem to be some thick steel. Is a 110 welder sufficient to weld those?

i would say barely, but somebody might have a different opinion, i borrowed a friends weldpak 135 ( home depot special) to weld up a bike stand out of 16 or 14 gauge square tubing and it kept shutting down on me. if I were you i would get a 220 unit. How far is your work area from your breaker panel? You could get by with some 10 gauge SJO cord as an extension. might be easier to put a 220 outlet at you breaker panel and use the extension instead, but that depends on your situation. I used at one job aweldpak 155 ( 220 unit ) to go as thick as 1/4 and 5/16 with no problems. You should keep in mind the duty cycle is given at a certain output . The welder might be capeable of 135 amps but the duty cycle might be less than 10 percent, and if the wiring is old or the run is long you might not get by. For the added expense, in my opinion, you will be much happier with a 220 unit that actually exists in the manufacturers catalog.

oh yeah, the weldpak 155 was run off of a 250 Ft 6 gauge extension cord, big difference 220 makes!!!

Thanks for the info. I'm the kind of guy that likes to do it right the first time instead of settling for something I didn't really want. I think I will just wait a little while and have the 220 run and get a welder that I am happy with instead of just getting by with something I don't want. Thanks again for all the input.

I bought a Miller 135, and it is a wonderful little welder. Personally, I would stay away from the Home Depot stuff, and the ones that you can buy from the tool guys. They are all decent for little jobs, but when they break, or if you need replacement parts, it can be darn near impossible to get them going again. Parts aren't easily available for that imported stuff.

I disagree with the "parts are hard to find statement." My little Lowes special ( Campbell Hausfeld) 110v mig welder uses readily available nozzles and tips. Wire is easy to find, anywhere, and it will, in my experience, do alot that a big unit will. I, of course, have a 220v stick welder to handle big jobs. Just my .02 cents.:rockon:

Well I should of clarified, I meant big parts. I had a gun go out on one of those and could not get a replacement. I did not mean standard stuff like tips...