Looking to get a welder for the house

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If you are doing cage work I would suggest a Tig. I have a Miller 180 at home it does fine for what I need it to do, but I am not building cages. Thermal Arc makes a mig / tig / stick setup that I have seen good reviews on, but I prefer Millers...
 
Thermal Arc got bought by ESAB and is now Tweco.

Miller makes a good welder; however you are paying a premium for the name and dealer network. That network is important if you're doing this commercially and time=money. Everything breaks and getting a rental unit delivered can be a lifesaver on a job site. S/F....Ken M
 
Fst73_410 said:
Remember guys, I wanna weld cages, .075 wall and will be getting a tank too to clean welds up
Click to expand...

If your welding cages, your going to be welding .135 or .125 wall. Cages can be made from .085 wall Chrome moly but you cannot mig weld Chrome moly to pass cert.

I would recommend a miller or lincoln 180 from an actual weld supplier, they are a different than what you can pick up at Lowes and the come in around $800-900 range.
 
Also, if you decide to go the tig route, there's been great reviews about these machines. I picked this up brand new for $710 shipped and is been awesome, ac/dc and runs off 110 or 220. I've been welding/fabricating every day for 15 years and this thing so far is just as good as the miller's at work.

 
I'm no expert but get by pretty well and I have been using the Eastwood 110v MIG with CO2/Ar mix for over 3 years with no problems. Feels a little cheap but performs well for the price. Also have their plasma cutter and after changing the flat tip out to a coned one, it's fine. I have used it for mostly sheetmetal panel repair but also for general farm repairs and angle iron projects. I was looking at the Hobart as well prior to this one. Hobarts get really good reviews.
 
I also have a miller 211 and love it. I bought the 50ft cord which is very nice
 
I have my choice narrowed down to either a Miller 211 or a Lincoln 180 Dual. Lincoln has a $100 rebate now which means I can get one for $835 locally. The Miller 211 is selling for $1200. Any thoughts?
 
MY Harbor Frieight 135 works just fine, but I don't try to do things that it's not supposed to be doing!
 
If you're just doing automotive and hobby work, I don't think you'll see any advantage to the Miller 211 over the Lincoln. If you are planning on doing a lot of welding on higher outputs, the Miller will be an advantage. S/F....Ken M
 
This year I bought a 211 and a diversion 180 tig. Miller had a 400 dollar rebate on the 211 so both machines cost me 2657.00 A pretty good deal on two high quality brand name machines.

They work awesome I would recommend them. I don't know if I would consider much from HF

Cyberweld sells the 211 for 1138 Doc
 
I have a Lincoln PowerMIG 180. It's been great so far, but I don't do cages. I would go bigger if I were you.

Seems like Miller is more popular these days, but I got a really good show special deal at the Winternationals one year + the Lincoln Money Matters rebate offer on my welder. It probably came out to 775 bucks at the time. It's not a dual voltage model since Lincoln didn't have that back when I bought it.

I would suggest something around 220 amps so you can weld thick materials with a decent duty cycle for what you're doing. When I was buying a welder people told me "Just pick a color, red or blue. Either way, you can't go wrong."
 
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