Anyone have any experience with them? http://www.longevity-inc.com/mig/migweld-140 it's looking like i might be in the market for a new small mig and funds are kinda tight. they came suggested on another board as a good lower cost alternative with a 5 year warranty. theres a coupla youtube videos with testing between it and a Hobart 140. i know most will say buy Hobart, Miller, Lincoln,etc but recently coming out of the retail world i saw my fair share of 140's returned not working in short amount of time and have heard the same on some of the new lincolns to. miller is very much stretching the budget for even the cheapest unit. looking at used local to and it's pretty thin right now.. just wanted to see if anyone had experince with the Longevity units..........ken....
For a small mig machine, look at Century, maybe others, that have a variable heat and wire feed setting. This is much better than the 4 settings on most some machine. I have a Longevity Tig/Plasma machine that has given me good service.
I bought a cheap one to start with and it caused untold grief . Finally bought a miller , some of the best money I ever spent.lets see, that's a total of about $1,200. Spent to have a good $700. Welder. But I'm learning
I bought the best I could afford in 1982 . I'm still using it . It was a great investment. On the other side of the coin, I have Very cheap drill press that I bought at the same time . That piece of crap was on it's last leg the day I bought it. I hate it every time I use it. But I'm stuck with it. It is the reason I won't buy from H F that cheap crap will probably last and screw up parts for ever lol
Bought a new Miller 140 in 2010 with 80 lb. tank full of argon mix, 10# roll of wire, cart, and paid $708 back then. Was more than I wanted to spend, but seemed like a good price. I've never regretted the expenditure since. My main concern was quality, but also service if needed. Miller has service centers in a lot of places, so if it breaks I can get it going quickly.
the Longevity linked does have variable heat and wire feed reostats. thats actually one of the things i liked about it. i know the buy once cry once on BRAND machines but as said i just left the retail world working for Tractor Supply for the last coupla years and in that time personal sold and took returns on half a dozen or so Hobart 140s(i remember at least 3 woth bad curcuit boards less than 6 months old). i had an old Lincoln SP 100 that a buddy left at my place years ago and i loved that little guys performance. theres on on ebay right now that i'm watching. with any luck this thread is useless as i'm gonna drop my old TSC mig that i got on here as a hamb auction years ago off a a buddy's house that can fix damn near anything if it's fixable so maybe my output is only gonna be buying he and his wife dinner and some beers as a thanks for getting it going next time we go out. fingers crossed there...ken....
I had a secretary one time who told me something I have never forgotten. She said her Mom taught her to buy one good/more expensive piece of clothing rather than 5 cheap items. It will last longer and look better. Same goes for tools and equipment. The car hobbyists today are much better equipped than ever before. When we were young if you had an arc welder you were in hog heaven. A torch set was only something we could dream about. Most of us even rented an engine lift when we needed one. I would suggest you save up and buy one of the name brand welders, and if you can swing it get a 220 volt model. We have Millers, a 210 and 212 mig, and a 200 sychrowave tig. They have never let us down and the 210 is probably 8 or so years old now with miles of welding under it's belt. Don
miller could last forever in a home shop---bought mine after years of industrial use ,still works fine...
I don't know anything about the longevity, they might well be good machines. I wouldn't put something down just because it's not brand [xyz]. I seriously looked at the invertec's when I was in the market for a TIG. I ended up saving up for another couple of months and bought a used lincoln 355 square wave tig. Had to drive 3hr each way to get it. I'm so glad I did that...It took some discipline, it's a lot easier to click that Buy It Now button on ebay, break out the plastic, and have a brand new machine show up on your doorstep.. Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone
These days you never know where things are made. As companies are taken over, production can be moved off shore at any time. The company they hire to build it can copy it, put a different name on it and sell it cheaper.
Agreed, even if something is labeled made in usa a lot of the components can still come from china, and that doesn't necessarily mean it is not good. A lot of stuff is ONLY made in china.. like those fluorescent lightbulbs Congress is forcing us to buy.. Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone
I would ask about the 5 year warranty. that's a lot more warranty than the big brands offer.. Sort of like Honda marine engines,,,3X warranty of the competition..Is the machine going to be repaired locally or do you have to pay shipping to hong kong? Easy questions as the reviews on the machine are good. I've had an Air Liquide M130 for 15 years,,great machine that serves my purposes..
I saw the Longevity model when I was shopping around for my first welder. I didn't personally feel like the price was significantly less than the Hobart 140 to actually sway me in its direction.... That's not like Harbor Freight pricing or anything. You're talking about 150 bucks difference at most. For me, when I get into that pricerange, it's beyond the point where I can just tell myself "this'll do for now", because by then it's basically become a future investment for me. I'll defend my usage of dime-a-dozen Horrible Fright combo wrenches all day, but if I'm gonna start shelling out that kind of cash for something, it'd better be from a brand I know is gonna exist ten years down the road. And I see a LOT of fledgling companies right now that I might put trust in their product, but maybe not their... erm... longevity? Also... maybe this is more of a question than an answer, but is the highly-variable heat control even all that important on such a (comparatively) low-power machine? I just never encountered a situation where I felt limited by the 4 settings, but I'm by no means an accomplished welder. In any case, I can at least say with confidence that my Handler 140 is the ONE high-dollar tool I own in my garage that I have absolutely zero regrets about buying. I can't say that for a lot of tools I own, even significantly less expensive ones. As a novice welder, it was incredibly comforting to know that if I was having any problems with my welds, it sure as hell wasn't my equipment's fault.
big name brand welders that are sold via home depot , lowes and other large retail outlets are cheaper versions of there line, the quality versions are sold through welding supply house
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