Welding Tips and Tricks

I'd like to get a Sincere battle going over Red, White, and Blue against Green, and/or Black.
Real life experiences with them, customer service, horror stories, and best and worst buys etc etc etc....
Anyone?

~John

I'll share - my local Miller store does not care that my tig welder was made in the 60's - they still answer questions and sell me accessories and small parts for it that wore out even though they do not make much money doing it.

When I needed a replacement mig and bought a millermatic 210 in a hurry, it was loaded before I signed the check.

Lincoln electric emailed me specs for free so I could test and service an 80's model stick/tig welder at a local high school within 2hrs of asking for them.

My 1979 Dialarc still welds awesome. When I bought a miller maxstar 150 for portability I was impressed with its abilities.

My 120volt Lincoln mig is a nice little portable unit. It's at least 15 years old.

Tried a cheap china version 120volt inverter stick welder - junk.

Tried a Thermal Arc 95 stick/lift arc tig - nice unit.

Don't forget us 'Orange' guys. I love my MultiPlaz!
and I own the Red, Blue, Green machines as well...

AKweldshop wrote:I'd like to get a Sincere battle going over Red, White, and Blue against Green, and/or Black.
Real life experiences with them, customer service, horror stories, and best and worst buys etc etc etc....
Anyone? ~John

AKweldshop wrote:I'd like to get a Sincere battle going over Red, White, and Blue against Green, and/or Black.
Real life experiences with them, customer service, horror stories, and best and worst buys etc etc etc....
Anyone?

~John

I will jump in but John you might have opened a can of worms here. I was wondering when or if this subject would come up.
My experience is this. I say experience because I feel you might purchase the same machine but receive a different experience with who sold it to you or how your local repair shop may treat you.

I have both Lincolns and Millers and have had some cheap 110 Migs at home as well as Thermal Arc. I will get the fact that overall I like/love Miller the best out of the way.

At home I personally have a Miller Multimatic 252 and a Miller Diversion 180. I have had absolutely no problems with them at all. I have taken the Diversion to the shop for portability/AC and have had no problem at all their either.

At my shop we have Lincoln DC-600's and Lincoln Power Mig 350MP's. Will say that the 350MP is my personal (and the guys that use them) favorite. We mostly run the 350MPs and reserve the DC-600s for out very thick plates or for their 100% duty cycle. Here's where we get into trouble. As much as I like the Lincolns, our local district manager has left a bad taste in our mouths for his company. We have had some issues with the 600's and one 350MP. It was like pulling teeth to get him down to our shop to look at the 350. Turned out to be the factory regulator did not work correctly and they wanted us to purchase a new one instead of warranty replacement (machine was less than 1 year old). In that particular case is was a clash of the vendor we bought it from and Lincoln itself. I will not get into other specifics as I don't want to taint others from Lincoln but like I said this is my experience.

The drawback is I do not run my Millers enough to break them and have had no warranty claims or issues at all. This has made my opinion to favor Miller. However a former employer had all Millers and three of them were 350P's. When they were not in the shop having the boards replaced they ran great. That turned me off of the 350P and on to the 350MP. I have heard Miller has resolved this issue.

As far as other brands, I do not have much experience with them to give a good report. I know others with Thermal Arc Fabricators and they seem to like them a lot. I was asked to demo one when they first came out and for the little time I spent playing with is it seemed to run fine. The cheaper Mig machine I once had ran great using self shield flux core.

I guess for my business I wanted to use name brands for their reputation and appearances to others that would come into our shop. Before we purchased the Lincolns we were actually using my Millers and had great debate over which brands to use. In the end we (or I ) wanted the 350MP's and we received a excellent deal on all the Lincolns, so that's the direction we went.
I too would like to hear others experiences, especially on the Everlast brand.
Wow that got lengthy.

WerkSpace wrote:Don't forget us 'Orange' guys. I love my MultiPlaz!
and I own the Red, Blue, Green machines as well...

AKweldshop wrote:I'd like to get a Sincere battle going over Red, White, and Blue against Green, and/or Black.
Real life experiences with them, customer service, horror stories, and best and worst buys etc etc etc....
Anyone? ~John

Ok WerkSpace, lets hear it.
Over the years I've heard about these "things", aren't they 100% duty cycle on 115v and run off beer?
How do they work?
Can they replace mig, stick, tig, sub-arc, laser, electron-beam, O/A, carbon-arc, and plasma??
This is coming from a sarcastic guy, so let her rip....
What are they good for and what are the limitations?

~John

AKweldshop wrote:

WerkSpace wrote:Don't forget us 'Orange' guys. I love my MultiPlaz!
and I own the Red, Blue, Green machines as well...

AKweldshop wrote:I'd like to get a Sincere battle going over Red, White, and Blue against Green, and/or Black.
Real life experiences with them, customer service, horror stories, and best and worst buys etc etc etc....
Anyone? ~John

Ok WerkSpace, lets hear it.
Over the years I've heard about these "things", aren't they 100% duty cycle on 115v and run off beer?
How do they work?
Can they replace mig, stick, tig, sub-arc, laser, electron-beam, O/A, carbon-arc, and plasma??
This is coming from a sarcastic guy, so let her rip....
What are they good for and what are the limitations?

~John

Hey John, here is the world's best 100% duty cycle 120 volt welder.
Doesn't even need a breaker it's so good
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqxtDC-VAg8&app=m

Enjoy

No, they won't replace all of my other welders and I have ten in total. Miller is my favorite.
Where they do shine, is welding mild steel. It replaces my oxy-acetylene torch and its much less expensive to operate.

The basic concept of how they work is pretty simple, once you've dismantled the beast and had a look inside.
Very similar to a kettle that boils water. It all starts with an internal arc, between the nozzle and cathode.
The heat from this arc travels down a copper tube into the 3oz water storage area that contains mineral wool. (I believe)
When the water heats up, the steam exits thru the nozzle as the unit is sealed. This steam has to pass thru the arc.
Plasma is the fourth state of matter. (solid, liquid, gas, super-heated gas=plasma)

The 3oz of water gets you 20 minutes of welding time. It is hotter than acetylene and burns clean.
I truly like this torch for its simplicity and the fact that it works well on water, (or water&alcohol for more heat.)
The fact that it gets so hot is probably its weakness as you can easily cook some metals. (14,400 degrees)
If you have learned how to gas weld, you can control that heat easily by moving the torch closer or farther away from your work piece.
Its not a welder for everyone, but it does have its place in the welding community.
It can be finicky to get going, if you are not familiar with it, but it does work well.

AKweldshop wrote:

WerkSpace wrote:Don't forget us 'Orange' guys. I love my MultiPlaz!
and I own the Red, Blue, Green machines as well...

AKweldshop wrote:I'd like to get a Sincere battle going over Red, White, and Blue against Green, and/or Black.
Real life experiences with them, customer service, horror stories, and best and worst buys etc etc etc....
Anyone? ~John

Ok WerkSpace, lets hear it.
Over the years I've heard about these "things", aren't they 100% duty cycle on 115v and run off beer?
How do they work?
Can they replace mig, stick, tig, sub-arc, laser, electron-beam, O/A, carbon-arc, and plasma??
This is coming from a sarcastic guy, so let her rip....
What are they good for and what are the limitations?~John

The MultiPlaz can also be used for heating up things,
such as casting small metal parts for my 1934 Chevy.

If you really want to get into metal fabrication, check here,
http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... =19&t=2448

MinnesotaDave wrote:Hey John, here is the world's best 100% duty cycle 120 volt welder.
Doesn't even need a breaker it's so good
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqxtDC-VAg8&app=m

Enjoy

Watching that video with the background music made me think I was back in an arcade room from the 80's.
Did you notice that the "Atom welding machine" had a synthesized computerized voice ....with a Filipino accent? Lmao. They also never showed any weld beads or welded joints on that commercial. Just a cut and hacked piece of pipe.

As far as AK's question, I like Red, Blue and .....Green (Forney). My buddy owns the Forney AC/DC-235 stick box. It cranks out 230 amps on AC and 185 on DC!!!! That 185 DC beats both a Lincoln buzzbox at 125A DC and both the Miller's Thunderbolt or Hobart's Stickman's 150A DC. Plus, I like the fact that the welding leads have Dinse connections for both simple storage and the option of adding longer leads with ease! Great welder.

For red and Blue, I love them both with the slight edge going to Miller.

I have to say I have ran mostly smaller portable migs and a lot of different stick welders of all brands. I'll start with red. I have never owned a Lincoln. I have ran a lot but never dealt with customer service or things like that. I ran a small Lincoln portable mig and hated the thing. I didn't weld worth a darn no matter what we tried. I ran Lincoln buzz boxes and larger migs and like them. I have done a lot of welding with the Lincoln Ranger gas powered welder and liked it until I ran the MIller Bobcat. I have ran the Bobcat less than the Ranger but like it a lot more. I have ran Miller migs of all sizes and love them. I have zero complaints about Miller except the fact that they are a little out of my budget. I currently own a Hobart Handler 140 and love the machine. It is a great machine with zero problems. I really like the Hobart Reps. I was a member of the FFA through high school and college and loved visiting the Hobart booth at national convention. They gave me a lot of free stuff and were very nice. I learned to tig weld on the Hobart Ez Tig and that is the only tig I have ran so I can't give a good review of them. I just bought an Everlast multi process machine and love it. They have good customer service and great little machines. The stick function has the smoothest arc of any stick machine I have ran yet, big or small. I can't wait to try the tig function out and compare it to Hobart. I'm sorry I have a tendency to write big post but that is my opinion of the machines I have ran. I rank them: Blue, White, Green, Red
Matt

I have been in the welding industry for a while now and have run quite a few machines in all kinds of processes. My opinion is, if it plugs in to an electrical outlet its blue and if it has an engine its red/gray (better off gray). I despise the arc characteristics of millers engine drives and yes all of them. My SA200 is by far my favorite for 7018 6010 7010 and scratch start tig.

You all have bought the cool-aid. They're all junk ! Built in obsolescence with their cutesy little arc-force(farce) adjustments,L.E.D. pinball lights, overload shutdown( because it's a P.O.S.), plastic crap everywhere. OOOOOOOOOOOOOO but it weighs only XXX. Pussies.
There's a mountain called Mount Trashmore in Miami. Someday I'll buy it and build a welding shop on top of all that throwaway shit.Blue Red, Yellow, Green and Black. The main machine will look like a 500 lb. AM radio from the 1930's, covered with "patina" ( RUST).I'll adjust the arc force upwards by selection a stronger bourbon.
Now go plug in your M12 FUEL computer heated jacket, have some Organic Cheerioz and watch "Lady" GagGags latest adventure.
I gotta throw on an army jacket and go braze a couple bullet holes in the gate.

Antorcha wrote:You all have bought the cool-aid. They're all junk ! Built in obsolescence with their cutesy little arc-force(farce) adjustments,L.E.D. pinball lights, overload shutdown( because it's a P.O.S.), plastic crap everywhere. OOOOOOOOOOOOOO but it weighs only XXX. Pussies.
There's a mountain called Mount Trashmore in Miami. Someday I'll buy it and build a welding shop on top of all that throwaway shit.Blue Red, Yellow, Green and Black. The main machine will look like a 500 lb. AM radio from the 1930's, covered with "patina" ( RUST).I'll adjust the arc force upwards by selection a stronger bourbon.
Now go plug in your M12 FUEL computer heated jacket, have some Organic Cheerioz and watch "Lady" GagGags latest adventure.
I gotta throw on an army jacket and go braze a couple bullet holes in the gate.

Very helpful to the discussion, well reasoned and extremely informative - new welders should read this as a helpful resource so they can make informed decisions. You talk like Burpee from weldingweb.

By the way, 500 lbs? My favorite welders start about 900 lbs - and yes, it was made in the USA. Some great welders are made here and elsewhere in the world as well.

900 lbs of 1963 awesomeness right here

Two brothers who's weld shop I frequent when I am back in Pittsburgh have an ooolllllllldddd Linde UFF-305 (not exact on model number, its normally the middle of the night when I'm there, and its been a week or two ) We were talking about the limitations of the Dialarc 250HF on low amp starts and they both point over in the corner and go "Check out that old green battleaxe." Needless to say, the starting amps on the HIGH range were much, much lower than the Miller.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

WerkSpace wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf0VA83suYM

You push those things like you have stock in the company.

Ya, I know. I'm fascinated by new technology and when this welder that uses water and electricity came along,
it kind of freaked me out. I didn't believe it. I'm not affiliated with MultiPlaz, nor do I ever plan on selling them.

My friend Garnet bought one, and he insisted that I come over and try it. I tried it and really liked it.
When someone asked about it on this forum, I told them what I saw.

Then, Otto started with his rant and I decided to buy one for myself.
http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... plaz#p8886

The torch is quite amazing and it outperforms my oxy-acetylene which I tend to use the most. It's not the perfect welder, and it has it's shortcomings, but I like it just the same. Every welder that I own has something that it does well and other things that it can't do at all.

My gas torches include a Victor, Henrob and Meco Midget.
My two mig machines are Millermatic 210. (one with a spool gun)
My AC stick is a Lincoln 225 buzz box.
My DC stick/tig is a Lincoln V100-s invertec.
I have an old transformer based plasma cutter.
My multi-process machine is an Everlast PowerPro205 stick/tig/plasma cutter.
The MultiPlaz is my tenth machine and it uses water/steam to create a plasma torch. (and it is cool!)

Soon, I will put together a 16hp Ruggerini air-cooled diesel with 200amp aircraft generator as a portable DC welder.
The portable diesel welder is a necessity for my new acreage and CASE 2470 tractor.

MinnesotaDave wrote:

WerkSpace wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf0VA83suYM

You push those things like you have stock in the company.