Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm currently in school and looking for a machine so I can do somethings at home. I have a Lincoln 225 Tombstone buzzbox but want a dc machine and possibly a SMAW/GMAW combination machine. I have only taken SMAW classes but I start mig next semester and would to do it at home as well. I use a Miller at school and really like it/prefer it to a Lincoln but Miller is just way more then I want to spend for one at home. Any advice or recommendations on a good quality but relatively reasonably priced combonation machine?

An SMAW/GMAW machine will almost certainly be an inverter, and just as a heads up some inverters do not handle 6010 rods well. So please keep that in mind if you expect it will be part of your future.

I have an Everlast iMIG 200 that I've been pleased with for both SMAW and GMAW, but I'm pretty sure I've seen more competitively priced machines since I bought mine.

Ok, I have seen all kinds of reasonably priced machines, guess what I'm really wondering is what are some of the companies that are really good and some that maybe not so good. I'm still green when it comes to the welding world but I imagine like every other product on the market there are some companies that people should be weary of.

I have a Tweco Fabricator 211i that I really like. Great arc on GMAW and SMAW. Haven't tried the lift arc TIG yet, since I haven't needed it. Don't know how it does on 6010, but AKWeldshop has one and may have burned some 6010. One of the things I like about the machine is that it takes 12" spools of wire.

If you are in school and on a budget, I would get this Miller Dialarc : http://macon.craigslist.org/tls/5432154915.html

you ought to be able to talk him down some.

Another bargain that I spotted would be this Squarewave 175 TIG/Stick machine. http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/tls/5495227891.html

Tweco 211 or Lincoln 210.

Mig/stick and dc tig.

Only the tweco will burn 6010....