Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone, I have been working at a company for several years now and recently became the shop manager, I do a lot of welding with the company and have become quite proficient with several processes, but I was hoping the employ the minds on here to see if I'm on the right track for selecting some new equipment.

Basically the welding my company does is strictly heavy equipment repair and fabricating parts for them. We also do field repairs quite often.

as of right now the company has some very old transformer stick machines and a millermatic 251, the mig welder was basically unused for a long time and it was all painfully slow 7018, recently we have started using esab dual shield and I couldn't be happier with the ease of use and production bump, however we need a set up that will work outside and in the field.

So I have done a lot of research and found what I think will be suitable.

Miller suitcase 12rc
Innershield nr233 or coreshield 8 or Hobart xlr
Miller xmt power supply

We weld mainly mild steel, I have heard the 12rc is better to weld with than the vs also more versatile for solid wire ect
We also have a Lincoln engine drive I would probably have to run the xmt off of, is that possible? The engine drive has 8800 watt 230 plug

Does this set up seem suitable? It's a lot of money and we are a fairly small company so I want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

Thanks in advance! Tom.

You might be able to run the feed box right off the engine drive.

Well the problem is I am looking at the rc model not the vs model and from what i understand the rc uses the brain cable to power the feeder motor

I was also very curious about the wires themselves, im teaching the guys stick, would nr-233 be a big transition? Is there another wire thats much preferred? I dont think nr 232 or anything equivalent would fit well for us, need something manageable.

We weld anything from 1/8 inch all the way up to 8 inches thick so a multipass capable flux core is a must.

I’ve used my buddy’s 12VS hanging directly off his PipePro running dual shield and straight Flux Core. It is a beast of a machine and welds as pretty and reliably as you can ask. I have never heard anyone say they’ve had issues running FC through them. Sounds like they need to use the correct liner and rollers

I’d your Lincoln engine drive has CV on it, just get yourself a 12vs feeder, hook or directly to the engine drive and start wire welding.
The 12rc feeder is really only good for in shop work.