A problem with many mig welders for the home shop is that they need a 20 amp outlet. Welders that only use 15 amps may not be heavy enough for anything but the smallest of jobs. Dunno...never seen one of those little fellers at work.

Many homes only have 15 amp outlets. I only had 15 amp outlets and got about a half-inch of weld before it tripped the breaker. I wound up getting a generator (wanted one anyway) to make my welds. Plus, I can take it around the house/yard/anywhere and use it now. And I have a generator for emergencies.

If you KNOW you want a welder that uses a 20 amp feed you may want to invest in a generator/welder. It has the generator built-in.

Looking at the Home Depot web site I see that the Lincoln Model K2189-1 only needs a 15 amp ckt.

Many cheap welders don't allow for, and you can't get an upgrade kit for, using gas eventually. If you think someday you may want that option, you might want to spring now for a unit that can add that capability.

But, as with any decision that costs $$$, RESEARCH and pay attention to your own needs.

 

keep this in mind:

1. heavier materials (only about 3/16 or 1/8" and up) will usually requre a heavier machine on 220v and cost in the 1k+ region. *usually*
2. aluminum, stainless, titanium, exotics are 99% of the time done with TIG and an expensive machine on top of that. they have migs that can weld aluminum for the home-use application but they are sometimes looked down upon and are sorta ghetto aluminum welders.

the biggest problem for you will be the weight of the material. if your doing stainless or alumium sheet or plate then your talking about a 2000$ TIG machine.

the home depot stuff is nice. if your doing steel 3/16" plate.

all depends on what your using it for and how often. keep in mind duty cycle (how long the machine will make a constant weld before pausing for a few seconds to recoop).

goodluck.
t

 

FWIW, I agree with statement #1 to a degree. For CONTINUOUS welding at greater than 3/16 you may need a bigger machine. For SOME welding at that thickness or above you can use the cheaper machines. Look for their advertised capacities.

#2, though, I've done some mighty pretty aluminum welds with mig. It takes some practice, but it can be done. Certainly it isn't as controllable and absolutely gorgeous as TIG, but very serviceable. Then again, it was pretty thick material.

 

If you are wanting to do roll cages or suspension work on your car get a 220v machine. the samlleer ones are fine for sheetmetal but would you want to trust your life with a weld that was welded with a machine maxed out of its capacity? Aluminum and stainless can be welded with most mig welders but require a different shielding gas and are nothing compared to Tig welds on the same materials. The tinnest my millermatic would weld aluminum is like 3/16" and IMO you wouldnt generally use on an automotive application. If you get a small welder i would HIGHLY recomend getting a MIG that uses a argon to shield the weld. Flux core welder is ok for outdoor welding where there is alot of wind but for inside a shop and on a car or other projects you are not going to want to have to clean splatter and slag off a weld that is generally formed when using flux core wire. Buy the biggest welder that you can afford in your price range because you will always want to weld thicker materials and to have a longer duty cycle on what your welding most often.

 

Well, the "IG" part comes from argon (the most common gas to use for welding or in a blend for welding) being in the noble gases column (farthest right on the periodic table, non-reactive gasses). As for the metal part, I think it has to do with the wire actively being fed into the weld (as opposed to tig, tungsten inert gas - which uses the same gas but a tungsten that doesn't actively get consumed or fed into the weld)

Currently I have a Lincoln Ranger 10-LX which is a 250 Amp multiprocess machine, powered by a kubota diesel it will happily weld 3/8-1/2" plate in a single pass. I have a miller HF arc starter for it, a weldcraft 150A argon-cooled torch and a 250A water-cooled torch (that I need to build a cooler for), as well as a bernard "shortstub" stick holder, and a lincoln LN-8 wire feeder. I also have a lincoln weld-pak 100 that I converted over to gas and a lincoln Pro-Cut plasma cutter. I am very happy with this setup, I can do everything from 1/2" steel plate to thin aluminum, tho I haven't yet played with any exotic metals like titanium or stainless (I'd eventually like to try).

Some observations:
1) My lincoln Weld-Pak lost all its steam when it wasn't plugged directly into the wall - lots of cheap electrical cords have such a great voltage drop that they make the welder lose a lot of capacity by the time the power gets to the weld puddle.
2) Lincoln's flux-core wire (gasless) is crap. Get the hobart stuff, it leaves a much cleaner looking bead
3) Don't shop at home depot, menards, harbor freight sears etc for a welder. Go to a descent welding shop where people actually know their **** - discount retail chains are fine for consumables (wire, sticks, ground clamps and chippers etc) but for the actual box you'll want to talk to someone who knows their stuff through and through
4) buy as much welder as you can possibly afford, you won't regret it, especially if you use it much
5) Some of the smaller lincoln/clark/hobart welders "gas conversion kits" just feed argon into the weld without a valve to shut off the argon flow when you let go of the trigger. This gets expensive, fast.
6) The difference between filling a 20 cu. ft. bottle with argon and an 80 cu. ft. bottle is about $5 at my local welding shop (actually some napas are even welding supply distributors). In the long run you'll rather have an 80 cuft bottle and you'll pay less for a greater amount of argon.
7) A lot of small 120/220V stick machines advertised on ebay claim to be great for tig. This is a lie for a couple of reasons - A) they are usually AC-only, worthless for anything but steel. B) they don't have a high frequency arc starter for metals that don't like being struck with the tig tungsten (like aluminum) C) they don't have gas control valves to stop the flow of argon into the torch body when you're done welding (see 5) D) no remote amperage control E) no afterflow timer
8) If you don't have 220 into your garage, get it. Don't bother trying to do any serious fab with a 120V machine - a generator would help for mobility but not at 1 AM when you're going to annoy the neighbors
9) Miller/Esab is the Snap-On of the welding world. Wonderful products at a horrendously large price tag.
10) Ebay is your friend