Thread: Advice on Cheap MIG?

Hey mate

My advice would be to buy a second hand unit off ebay rather than spend money on one of these machines... In my experience these machines are just awful....Re productions of models that major manufacturers even discontinued due to poor results... As for italian made units.....give me chinese anyday over italian. Even high price italian machines like essetti are pretty ordinary in my opinion... Try ring wess and see if the have any 2nd hand units??

Sorry....just not worth it in my opinion.

Cheers Rappy

Hi,

For many applications these machines are fine, just bear in mind they have a plastic wire feeder gearbox with nylon gears so you must avoid over tension on the drive roller in order to avoid a jam up which can strip the gears.

The BBT and ROSSI are the same machine just rebadged

One thing to look out for is that of the three ebay sellers you showed links to, one operated via a mobile phone number, the other two did not show a phone number. None of the three have an address so hide behind an ebay firewall.

Large sellers of this type are popular due to their cheap prices but should you need support after the purchase, it is only at that moment most realise contact details are non existent.

John

Originally Posted by Lawrst

Has anyone tried any of these welders?

ROSSI NEW MIG 195 AMP GAS / GASLESS WELDER 15 AMP PLUG (eBay item 160498006232 end time 22-Feb-11 15:53:03 AEDST) : Industrial
(looks simmilar as below)
BBT MIG MAG Welder Gas and Gasless 200amp Industrial (eBay item 350397576529 end time 22-Feb-11 15:36:40 AEDST) : Industrial

Mig Welder 180amp Italian made gas & gasless (eBay item 110634888352 end time 12-Mar-11 21:33:33 AEDST) : Industrial

Im looking for a cheap welder to do a few jobs around the house and I dont really like using ARC, im much more comfortable with MIG.

Willing to pay upto 500 for the welder itself, so if you have any other suggestions it would be appresiated. Also im around the Adelaide area in SA.

Thanks.

I'll only note that the seller of the "Rossi" machine - AGR Machinery - does not have a terribly good name around the nets. The high Ebay feedback rating is based on some pretty dubious practices.

Machines such as this will give trouble.
And here is why.


Pic 1 Straight from their blurb which says Stepless Wire speed-newsflash -all rotary dial wirefeeds are stepless.

Pic 2 check the pic -Dials marked MIN Max & 1 &2.
Four voltage steps-across a wire range btween .6 and 1.6mm - pathetic

Pic 3 Wire feeder unit made from plastic peanut paste-what will happen when the oils dry out of the plastic- it will fracture! And ! You will go nanas trying to change a liner which you should do if you going back and forward between.6 and 1.6mm wire diameters.

Pic 4 You will be really fortunate if you can buy standard nozzle,contact tip, gas diffuser and an insulator.The spring in the gun trigger will fritz out after a while.

It neeeds a little soaking.


In very deep water

$299 is a nice deposit on something decent.

Have a nice day
Grahame

Thanks for the opinions guys, and thanks alot for the detailed explanation of why you think this things are no good Grahame.

Im no welding expert by far, I guess ill keep saving and get something decent, or just try and get better with an Arc welder!! haha.

Yeah, I'd continue with the arc welder and save up for a decent machine.
I've got one of the Italian machines that the big green giant sells, and I really don't like it (Gift horse in the mouth though). The 4 voltage choices is painful, the speed control is a mystery (It has no pointer, and the dial can be spun around and around and around and around and you get the idea), and even though it claims it can take 0.9mm wire, there aren't any rollers available that I've been able to find, so I'm dodging it by putting it through the 0.8mm wire and suffering.

Another problem with the cheap units is the wire quantity. If I'm not mistaken, they can't be setup to take anything more than those tiny hobby rolls, so if you pick up a 15kg roll (such as I did, for the same price as said 0.9kg roll), you'll be having to wind it onto the smaller spool by hand.

Soon I'll be starting a kitty for a better machine. When I get a smooth run with the machine, it's great. When it has a hiccup, there goes many minutes, and much frustration. And I much prefer to getting that deep sense of satisfaction of a clean run without having to worry about whether the machine is going to swallow the proverbial monkey wrench.