Bert wrote:

I'm thinking of picking up a cheap welder to use for a little
home-brewed electrochemical machining (aka electro-etching). Has
anyone tried this? Which would be more appropriate for this
application, a CC or a CV machine?

I believe that a transformer-based CV machine is basically a transformer with a
big capacitor bank. At any rate, my wirefeed has a bunch of honkers in it. CC
stick machines I believe have transformers that are wound to maximize
inductance. But either would work fine if you aren't suddenly varying the load.
The reason stick machines are CC is that if the weldor varies the arc the
current will try to stay as much as possible the same so the weld doesn't vary
as much. For a fairly constant load, I'd imagine either would work OK. What kind
of current and voltage are you looking for?

GWE