Which welder would you buy?

Need some help here, Im going to buy my x-mas present early and get a new welder. My final 2 choices are a miller 140 with auto-set, or the hobart 140. Both are 110v units with gas and are small enough for my tiny garage. The hobart is 150-200 cheaper than the miller, but Ive heard they are similar. I am on budget, but I want something that will last. I am very inexperienced with a welder,but willing to learn, so please help a brother out. Any thoughts would be great. BTW, do you prefer the standard mask or an outdark? Thanks

Brad

 

I'd recommend the miller... My old boss has one, He used the bejesus out of his first one building frames, tow trucks, and all kinds of stuff, then it went out. He had it for like 16 years. It has better control than a hobart, (I have used both) and I swear by the miller myself.. Spend a couple extra bucks, get something good. Plus the resale is not too bad on a miller... If you ever decided to get rid of it.

 

Put down the Hobart and walk away!!! I currently have a Miller, Lincoln, and a Hobart in my shop. The Lincoln (MIG) is getting close to 20 years old and after a million miles of wire it still work as good as the day I bought it. The Miller (TIG) is about 5 years old and is the best machine I have ever used, The Hobart (MIG) is less than 1 year old and it is the biggest slobbering piece of shit I have ever wasted shop space on. The first step to quality welding is a good machine and I can say from comparison you get what you pay for!!!

 

Miller now owns Hobart. I recently purchased a 210 amp Hobart mig and it was $300. less than the Miller 210 mig. The gun on my Hobart has Miller cast into the plastic? go figure. I've used both the Hobart and Miller and both work equally.

 

BUY THE DUAL VOLTAGE MODEL!!! or a 220 unit. Cheaper now than to buy another one down the line.

The extra power from a 220 units is needed in this hobby.

 

You might want to try the search function, since these questions have been answered about 1M times.

 

Hobart and Miller (current models) are the same horses of a different color.......I have a Hobart 180 I bought at Tractor Supply, and it works great.....welds perfect......I would buy a 220v and a good auto dark lid.

 

One word...."Miller"

 

if you have 220 available buy a 220 unit if you are going to do frame and suspension mods, 110 models are great for sheetmetal and light structural. most welding shops will let you try any unit they sell.the lincoln ones at home depot are good ones, i set one of the 220 models up a few weeks ago for a friend and it works great.

 

Check out these: www.henrobwelder.com

I have mig, tigs, 110s, 220s, plasmas, etc...
If you have a limited budget, space, money, or power (no 220), get one of these henrobs.
You can do anything with those little suckers. No I am not affiliated with them, but have seen them, really cool. That is what I would get if I didn't have a fortune in everything else.

If you have, or can get 220v, get a 220 welder if you are going to do anything but sheet metal.

TRICK: If you get a 110 b/c no 220 (or already have a 110), get a set of oxy acc torches. Be careful/get qualified instruction , you can get hurt quick with them, or get blown up. Use the torch in one hand to preheat the metal in front of the welder gun which you have in the other hand. It lays down and melts in insanely beautiful and structural if you do it right. On second thought, get a friend to do the torch while you follow with the welder. Practice on a bunch of scrap and master that before you weld on any real pieces.
Be careful.
Have fun.
Wil
www.sakowskimotors.com

 

My 110v welder is a Lincoln SP 135. Im really happy with it. So happy that I bought a bigger Lincoln (215 i think) 220v one as well for heavier work...

-scott noteboom

 

the hobarts are good machines but will have some plastic internally where a miller will be metal. i have only miller machines but have used tons of hobarts and have never had a problem.

 

get the miller in 220 specialy if your going to be doing frame work of any kind

 

Go blue.... but like was suggested if you can get 220 or the dual voltage do it..

 

Henrobs are tons more expensive (bottles and regulators included) than the most expensive mig welder you can find. You could probably find a 3-phase 100% duty cycle MIG cheaper than a henrob and bottle settup.

Not anything against oxy-accetylene welding, but it has its place.
For body panels that you generally tack in place before you stitch weld, and then finish weld, the mig is the invention your grandfather wished he had.

Turning a gas welder on and off, or just letting it run while you adjust the panel for the next tack is just dumb and expensive, when a mig can be used today.

Until you've seen undercoating on fire, you will want to use a mig welder to fix body panels already on a car or truck.

 

i have been wanting a bigger mig for a few years now, unfortunately my garage only gets tighter and tighter, i have been researching the hell out of it and last year or maybe the year before hobart came out with the 187, i was sold on it, i didnt hear one single bad thing about it, and the price is pretty good, you can almost always find a deal online or at TSC anytime. well last month i was on the hobart forum and realized they came out with the 210 in the small case, its spool gun capable for aluminum, and it was on sale last weekend at tsc 100 bucks off and came with about 100 bucks in accesories, needless to sat i bought it for an early xm,as present. i am a certified welder and do not favor any one brand over the other. ive been welding since 16 and realized most of the big companies have a product in the line up that is in some way better than any of the other companies. hobart and miller are owned by the same company, made here in the usa. they are using the same internals in a lot of the machines, they keep the cost down on the hobart by using taps for the voltage instead of infinite adjustable on most mig models, that is the only difference. you do not need infinite adjustable voltage control, you make up for it with travel speed and wire speed. the taps take the guesswork out of it too, providing a more positive setting. ive also heard of the infinite controls not lasting as long as taps. if you wan to save a few bucks from lincoln and miller buy a hobart. lincoln, a lot of thier stuff is going over seas, not necesarily to bad places but not made in america anymore. i have a 110v lincoln mig it is 10-12 years old, trouble free, i have a lincoln 205 invetec tig, i think it was made in italy. i forget. i thought for sure id be buying one of the new lincoln migs when they came out, but i read a few bad things about them. id also recomend a 220v model, you cant have too much welder.

 

If you wanna metal-finish your work, an O/A is better than MIG, because it leaves a nice, soft bead that can be hammered flat without the cracking that a MIG does. As far as turning one on and off for positioning, you need a $40 gas-saver (http://store.weldingdepot.com/cgi/weldingdepot/22100QFY.html), which shuts it off automatically while you hammer the bead flat or reposition and then allows you to relight it without having to readjust your flame everyime, it even has a built-in pilot light. I've got a MIG and an O/A setup and mostly use the MIG on floors and other areas where my weld showing isn't an issue and where I don't care about spending the time to get the better fitup necessary for gas welding. I've set plenty of undercoating on fire with the MIG though, heat is heat....

 

Wow, so much mis-information here I dont know where to start........

 

I had no experience welding at all. After comparing welders and knowing MY expectations, this year I bought the Miller 140 with Auto Set at the GoodGuys in Columbus, they were on sale and shipping was free. Additionally, I purchased a good quality Miller autodarkening helmet (I'm not taking any chances with my eyes). I have no plans to do any heavy duty welding, I'll leave that to the Pro's, so this welder is perfect for me. Whatever welder you choose, get a book and practice, practice, practice...........The Miller 140 is surprisingly simple to use and grow with.

 

All good points.

 

I have the Hobart 140, like stated pretty much the same machine with a few different parts.

On a side note, my Hobart did leak gas when the bottle was on through the end of the nozzle; all the time, trigger pulled or not. I called tech. and they responded quickly with the repair, common I guess, my friends last year model did the same thing. When they are assembled at the factory the feed line on the inside of the machine shaves off a small sliver of the plastic line and blocks the shut-off valve and therefore lets it flow anytime the bottle is cracked open. I can go into detail to repair if others have this problem - burned through my first bottle in a day after just welding up a fuel tank bracket and driveline tunnel.

 

I would stick to Lincoln, at least thats what i have been using so far. No problems with any of em.

 

I love my Miller syncwave 180 TIG...... It's so dreamy!

 

Miller 220v

 

If You Have The Miller 140 Or Any Other 110 Machine Check Out J.w.harris 20 Gauge Welding Wire Made To Weld Up To 28 Gauge Sheetmetal With No Burn Through Sure Makes It Easier For Us New Guys

 

i have a miller 252 now, i have had a miller 110 sidekick and a 220 sidekick XL in the past, i liked the 110 sidekick for welding body metal as it just seemed smother, useing OA for welding body metal has a learning curve that not everyone can get the hang of, my vote is for the 110 machine if your only planing on welding 1/8" or less, miller and hobart are the same machine as far as i can tell.

 

i'd pass on the one in hotcargo thread.

 

Miller, Lincoln, Hobart all make good machines. We primarily use Miller and Lincoln at work. I would stick with a name brand machine you will be able to get parts for. A dual voltage set up would be nice if you wanted to go to thicker material (like frames) in the future. I think selecting a machine with good adjustibility on the controls is probably one of the more important things to look for. I would buy from a local weld shop and make sure you test weld the machine you are looking at buying. I wouldn't gas weld a frame myself, I'm sure you could but it seems the heat affected zone would be huge, and like all welding I would want to make sure I was getting penetration into the base metal and not just laying down cake frosting welds. I would save the Oxy,Acet setup for cutting, heating or maybe sheet metal welding.

 

Miller 220V a model 175 or model 180 very versitile and compact

 

take a look at 2nd hand pro welders mostly they are build with a better quality internal component like 4 wheel wire feed .
and get a longer torch most are sold with a 9 or 10 ft torch 15 ft torch give's you a lot more room to move around without dragging the welder behind you.
Remco