| Eric R Snow |
October 1st 07 07:09 PM |
Lincoln SP series mig welders versus a retail version?
On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:08:50 -0600, "SteveB"
wrote:
"Keith Marshall" wrote in message
...
You're welcome! But you do realize that my comparison was to the SP-175T
and not to the SP-175+ model I hope? The T is the tapped model meaning
you have a 5 position voltage selector that selects a tap on the
transformer. The + model has a continuously variable voltage and is quite
a bit more espensive. The MIG-Pak 15 is also a tapped machine.
But IMHO I prefer the tapped version for my own situation for the simple
reason that there's less to fail and it's cheaper to fix. The only time I
can imagine the variable voltage being all that important is for thin
sheetmetal and you have TIG for that.
And yes, they all have the plastic wirefeed setup but there is a gearbox
on the motor with a metal housing and all metal gears inside. I know
because I had to open mine up to replace the bearing. The true drive
portion is all metal. The plastic is the housing that holds it all
together, and the tension arm which has a roller bearing in it. The
plastic is in great shape on mine. It's just the bearing that died and it
was a US-made brand-name bearing. The bearing most likely died because my
son thinks that the way to adjust wire tension is to tighten the wingnut
until you can't tighten it any more so the shaft coming out of the gearbox
eventually started to sag to the point that you couldn't put enough
tension on the wire for it to feed properly. :-/
That's not to say that it's the quality of Miller's wirefeed unit. Theirs
is all metal and is obviously built more solidly but mine has held up
quite well over the years.
Best Regards,
Keith Marshall
Your response is spot on. I have used my 175SP+ to make several things from
paint lock sheet metal. One was a catch pan for my washing machine, which
needed to be an odd size. I don't know if one of the "steps" would have
done it, or the old, "one's too hot and one's too cold" thing. The use of
the machine has a lot to do with its selection in the first place, and as I
never know what I'm going to run into, I like to buy for all situations.
But that's just me.
Steve
As regards the wirefeed unit, I have the SP125 Plus so it's pretty
old. I bought the welder used and it looked pretty well used. There
was lots of bondo dust inside so I think it probably spent a lot of
time in a body shop. The guy I bought it from was using it in a
shipyard. The plastic wirefeed parts are still working perfectly. In
fact, everything works perfectly in this machine.
ERS
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