130 amp mig welder good enough?

harry76

harry76

Well-Known Member
GDay..... Well im sick and tired of not having a welder and having to wait until i can get to a friends to do some welding. So im going to buy one. There are 130amp welders really cheap and im considering buying one. Will this be enough or should i get the 175 amp or 200 amp welder. Any advice would be appreciated....... then again by the time you read this i may have just bought one..... my brother has a gas mig welder so i can always use his to do final welding but i need something for tacking and small odd jobs.
 
I have a ole Craftsman I bought in 1975, still runs fine. It's a dual 40-230A and a 30-140A..I very seldom use the 40-230A, unless I deal with thick metal (above 1/4") and I need continuous output.
 
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Like everything it depends what you want to do with it. I have cheap 90 amp fluxcore MIG that does everything I want it to. Welds are ugly, but that is probably as much me as anything. Up side to a "low amp" welder is the fact that they are usually 110 and you don't need any special wiring for them. That may not matter "down under" though. If you are just going to make bike frames a 130 is fine, if you are gonna make horse trailers or armor plate your bike with 1/2 steel, you may want to look into the 200 amp model.
 
The thickest id plan to weld would be 1/8 steel, but mainly tacking . So i may just get that one. Its a gasless mig and my brother has a good gas mig welder so i would probably use his to final weld but need something to get everything tacked up, its such a pain to load my stuff up just to tack something up. My projects will move a LOT quicker with one so i may as well stop putting it off...... Thanks guys, much appreciated.
 
For the purpose you have described, it should work just fine.
rc

Of course you could go with scratch start TIG...
 
harry76 said:
GDay..... Well im sick and tired of not having a welder and having to wait until i can get to a friends to do some welding. So im going to buy one. There are 130amp welders really cheap and im considering buying one. Will this be enough or should i get the 175 amp or 200 amp welder. Any advice would be appreciated....... then again by the time you read this i may have just bought one..... my brother has a gas mig welder so i can always use his to do final welding but i need something for tacking and small odd jobs.
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I use a HARBOR FREIGHT $89 gas-less mig all day long! working on my fourth, and most radical build yet using a HF 200cc engine and have complete confidence in the fact that it's not gonna fly apart @speed!
AND THIS THING'S SOO DINKY THAT ALL IT HAS IS "HIGH-LOW" NO ADJUSTMENT TO AMPERAGE OR ANYTHING!
 
halfevil333 said:
I use a HARBOR FREIGHT $89 gas-less mig all day long! working on my fourth, and most radical build yet using a HF 200cc engine and have complete confidence in the fact that it's not gonna fly apart @speed!
AND THIS THING'S SOO DINKY THAT ALL IT HAS IS "HIGH-LOW" NO ADJUSTMENT TO AMPERAGE OR ANYTHING!
Click to expand...


Unfortunately im from Australia so i may have to pay a little more, if i could get my hands on an $89 welder id already have one in my garage and we wouldnt be having this conversation. Damn thats cheap. I think im going to end up paying about $150
 
halfevil333 said:
I use a HARBOR FREIGHT $89 gas-less mig all day long! working on my fourth, and most radical build yet using a HF 200cc engine and have complete confidence in the fact that it's not gonna fly apart @speed!
AND THIS THING'S SOO DINKY THAT ALL IT HAS IS "HIGH-LOW" NO ADJUSTMENT TO AMPERAGE OR ANYTHING!
Click to expand...

Yes I have the $89 dollar HF MIG as well. For the money and what I use it for it is great. I have never hit the duty cycle and the welds hold just fine. I am sure there are better rigs for more money, but I am not disappointed with mine yet.
 
I just bought a 200 amp mig welder off EBay, not because i thought the 130 amp wasnt sufficient, but because i got the 200 amp for nearly rhe same price and i was sick of waiting. Thanks guys for the advice.
 
Gosh Harry, you are a man of action... You drop the hammer quickly!

I posted a pic over in your Villiers thread...
rc
 
Just had to do it lol

Hopefully its ok

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It's not just the quality of equipment ,It's the quality of training of the operator!
I have decades of welding experince (in navy shipyard) were we had every type of welding process known ,and still saw crapie work...prep,prep,prep then stare at it then prep some more. Good mech fit ,well ground filletts, and strong root passes are what most fellows lack . You seem to be on the right track ,tack together for mock up then take project to your brothers and use gas mig for weld out.
Just my two cents...good luck and don't mess around with flash burn wear glasses please!
 
Thanks, sounds like good advice. I have some welding experience, many many moons ago. This was my first weld with this machine.... no laughing please....lol

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And i have no intention of getting wleders flash. The machine came with a hand held shield, but i went and bought a full helmet with th flip down tinted glass, and when i can afford it ill buy one of those automatic tinting helmets. They make life so much easier to do fast, neat work.

Thanks again
 
Keep the old standard flip down helmet. If you don't have the one with the large tinted glass buy it instead of the auto helmet...get a shade 9, shade 10,11,and a12...you will be able to see the weld area better...even the best automatic helmets have a lot of distortion when looking through them...folks that weld all day for a living don't use them
 
Yea each type of helmet has it's gotcha and something it does better then the other...good thing they have come down in cost . I have to crawl into weird places alot (cuz they pay better;)) and it's just a short bead I'll go auto.
If doing production work on a fixture I know well then its time for my old krusty plastic fantastic hood from the 70's.
We used 6011 alot on OLD cason walls and when running beads that are a foot long the old helmet w a 12 was the only way to go.
So you may end up with both types ,but thats how this trade goes ,you gota find what works for you. Just be glad that no ones life is on the line with what your making, thats when even the biggest goofoff in the yard gets real serious!

That weld looks ok for a first run . A tech I use with mig is called "horseshoeing" once you have a good puddle forming on the thicker matt. You cycle back and forth along the root makeing little ccc or horseshoes . Not circles just sort of washing back and forth (a tiny little bit ) . With pratice this works really well and looks nice too ,prob works best with flux core however.
People get to jumpie and hurry into the welding phase and don't give mock up and prep the full attention they diserve. I always tell my buddies who want to learn the "secrect" of welding well ....SLOW DOWN... Youll get there.

Now your gona start looking at every hunk of metal around going "hummm" what can i make with that " :)
 
Thanks guys sounds like good advice. I always prep and was taught to do that by my brother who is a panel beater. And by what you guys are saying its key, so i should get there with my welds eventually.


"Now your gona start looking at every hunk of metal around going "hummm" what can i make with that "

Haha youre reading my mind. I raided the steel bin at work....

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