On Tue, 23 May 2006 23:05:00 +0100, Tim S wrote:

Terry Cano wrote:

It has been many years since I have welded - remember the 1/8 rod?
I need to do some light duty welding and have considered a wire feed
welder, it needs to run on 120, no 220 available but I know little about
them - - - the work will be 1/8 or less in thickness

Terry

Wire feed, also known as MIG (at least over here), are very easy to use and
produce a most satisfying smooth weld - taught myself welding in a couple
of days (I had mates who could weld to watch). Never got the hang of rod
welding.

Being in the UK, I have no idea of 120V units, apart from they're probably
going to need 20A (perhaps as much as 25A) to be much use based on the
rating of the 240V unit I had.

The unit I bought was made by Cebora - very good for a cheap end unit.

I would recommend googling for some reviews. Poor MIGs have erratic wire
feed (real pain), poor duty cycle (cuts out after 6" of welding), poor
controls. Good wire feed and decent duty cycle are a must. You should be
able to control the wire speed and current consistently.

Don't bother with the silly disposable CO2 bottles - rent a proper gas
bottle if you can (you'll need to buy a valve with gauges too, so that's a
bit extra on top of the welder) - a small bottle (2' tall or so) will last
a fair time before refilling. There are fancy gas mixes available, but I
found plain CO2 worked fine on a range of mild steel jobs.

The beauty of MIGs is that they work very well on thin sheet, like car
panels, without blowing holes. If you are planning to go upto 1/8" it would
be advisable to check the specs carefully, some small units might struggle.

HTH

Tim (in the UK)

I'm just the opposite. I can stick weld most anything. When I tried
to use a wirefeed welder all I did was make a mess. The trick to
stick welding is using the proper rod type and adjusting the power.
The disadvantage of stick welding is that it's near impossible to weld
thin sheet steel. I should mention, the one time I tried the wirefeed
welder, I was welding 3/16 thick angle iron. Much too thick for that
welder, if you ask me. It was a small 120V model, and the wire seemed
to come out either too fast or too slow. I suppose practice helps,
but the welder seemed to not want to cooperate. For that thick of
steel, a stick welder would have been much better, not to mention the
cost. I could have done that job with 5 welding rods (a cost of 75
cents). Instead I used half of a $15 roll of flux core welding wire.
(7.50). So, it appears that it costs about 10 times as much to use a
wirefeed welder. Maybe it's better on thin materials for cost, but I
was not impressed with the cost or the weld quality of the wire feed
on that thicker steel.

Mark