Welder advice needed

[Rickertsen2]

Our team has limited money but we would like to buy a welder for use with aluminum and steel. We don't have the money for a TIG or anything like that. I have seen a few MIG packages in the $4-500 area which look decent. What kind of quality can be expected from this sort of setup? Will it work for FIRST purposes?

[Greg Needel]

yes you can get a nice MIG for $400-$500 but most will have little or no aluminum ability. I personally own a Miller 135 which i bought for $445 and have been extremely happy with it. As for applications in FIRST your team needs to decide if you are willing to limit your building materials to match you welder.

There were two excellent threads a while ago talking about welding.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=38730

and

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=30679

[sanddrag]

Whatever you do, do not buy a Harbor Freight welder. They pretty junky and quite unsafe in some ways.

I've been looking at this Lincoln welder on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/LINCOLN-SP135T-M...cmdZViewIt em

and this aluminum kit for it http://cgi.ebay.com/LINCOLN-K664-2-A...cmdZView Item

This seems to be the cheapest way to go. For how well it'll work, you can bet it'll be better than a Harbor Freight, but I don't know just how good it will be. It seems to be a pretty nice little setup. For doing aluminum, I've never tried but everyone says you should do it with a TIG, but it can be done with a MIG. As for actual experiences with the MIG and aluminum, I haven't heard much beyond "it can be done"

I've also seen rods made for stick/arc welding aluminum, but I've never tried it and haven't heard anything about them. The same goes for oxy-acetylene welding aluminum.

This may be obvious but try to get the highest current welder you can with the money you have. You will always have a welding job that could use more current, especially when it's aluminum.

[kevin.li.rit]

I don't think you're gonna be able to weld aluminum with a MIG Welder. And I believe that you need an inert gas when welding aluminum.

[Jay H 237]

Keep in mind that you'll also have to pay for the tank of gas in addition to the welder. You can either rent them for a monthly fee or buy the tank outright.
I own my tank outright and I bought the largest one I could get. Running out of gas in the middle of welding is no fun. The tank cost me $160 filled, and refills are $25 where I go. Since I may not use the welder for a few months at a time this was the best route for me. Smaller tanks are cheaper to buy but the cost of getting them filled isn't much cheaper.

If you're going to be welding aluminum and steel you'll need two different tanks. You'll need straight argon for aluminum and a mix (usually 75-25) for steel. I would not do flux cored welding since it isn't as neat.

You'll need a cart or something to secure the tank also. I elected to buy a cart but with the welder you could easily make one yourself.

[rees2001]

You may consider contacting a local welding supply company to see if you can borrow or rent a TIG welder. (Have them list the expense as a donation & put them down as a sponsor). For FIRST a tig welder is really the way to go. We borowed a welder for the 6 week build period for 4 years before we had enough money to buy the one we wanted. A Miller Dynasty 200. It is a very nice machine for FIRST purposes, easy to setup, easy to use. We have 2 small tanks and try to keep both filled. When one runs out we swap tanks & get the other refilled. A few years ago we ran out of gas in the middle of the night and had to wait until morning to get a refill.

good luck

[Henry_Mareck]

so whats the difference between a TIG and a MIG ?

[sanddrag]

A google search is a great way to find out but simply speaking, a MIG welder has a spool of wire that it feeds through a hose and out the tip of a "gun" when the trigger is pulled. The wire is made electrically "hot" so it arcs and melts away as it is being fed out of the gun. It requires one hand to operate. The wire is very small diameter (about .030") A TIG welder has an electrode that makes the arc. Then with the other hand, a relatively larger rod is fed into the arc by hand.

[John Gutmann]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Whatever you do, do not buy a Harbor Freight welder. They pretty junky and quite unsafe in some ways.

That is deffinately not true. I have one I got form Harbor Freight and it works awesomely.(if that is a word)

It is the 100$ flux cored welder.

I get beautiful welds and great penetration.

[sanddrag]

Okay, I'll partially take that back and say I have never used one. But I have tried out there helmet and the shade is not uniform darkness and that scares me, a lot. Inside the welder, all the drive parts are plastic, not aluminm like a Hobart or something. Getting parts for them I've heards is very hard. The wire is always live whether you are pulling the trigger or not: very dangerous and difficult to get close to the workpiece before starting unless you use an autodarkening. But, they are affordable. BTW, ever tried aluminum wire with an HF welder? Just curious. I want to see what's the cheapest way to effectively weld aluminum without borrowing equipment or having someone else do it.

[John Gutmann]

I've never had problems with it breaking or needing parts. Yes the wire is always live which I hate too.

Nope never tryed akuminum wire on it. Don't have the money or will to.

I have one of their helmets too and it works fine, I use it for both tig and mig and I have never had a problem. Bad lense maybe?

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by sparksandtabs

I've never had problems with it breaking or needing parts. Yes the wire is always live which I hate too.

Nope never tryed akuminum wire on it. Don't have the money or will to.

It would be safe to say that if that $100 welder isn't able to be set up or converted to run shielding gas then it's not able to weld aluminum. The lack of heat control with welders in that price range would also be another factor when dealing with aluminum.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by sparksandtabs

I've never had problems with it breaking or needing parts. Yes the wire is always live which I hate too.

Nope never tryed akuminum wire on it. Don't have the money or will to.

I have one of their helmets too and it works fine, I use it for both tig and mig and I have never had a problem. Bad lense maybe?

No offence but how much is your eye sight worth to you? Because Ipersonally wouldn't feel comfortable in a 40 dollar piece of plastic made in china, my sight is worth far more then that to me. Remember you get what you paid for.

As for the wire welder, i am sure it would work fine on small stuff but try something with some thickness and i think you will find that it leaves much to be desired.

Remember folks MIG welding is just sending dc current through metal, the place where the circuit connects is the point of most resistance which is wear the heat comes from, it is a very simple process.

[Ellery]

Also to follow up on Greg's note - In order to use a TIG welder on Aluminum it needs to be AC - The HarborFreight Tig welder is only DC and does only Steel applications anyways.

I recently tried TIG welding and it takes alot of practice to do it correctly. also The Miller 200 Jason mentioned rocks. I was going to buy one myself but ended up buying en enclosed trailer to haul robot stuff (and other things) instead.

It's not quite a wise investment if you're only using it less than 6 weeks a year.

Ellery

[John Gutmann]

Well the helmet may have cost 40$ but that doesn't mean it isn't good. When i say i haven't have any problems with it I mean What i said pretty much. When i am welding with it it has a fast reaction time and I almost always have it on the darkest shade which is around 14 on it, and I haven't had any problems. S o i guess your right i do get what I paid for; a good welding helmet.

The welder that Rees mentioned earlier is the one we have at school and we use it for everything. It has never failed us and is really versatile, you can hook it up to 120V, 240V or 208V(one or the other), then 408V or 440V(same thing).
Though the price is around the mid 2500$ range I would say it is a must buy if your gonna do alot of welding.