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| Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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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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