Thread: MIG Welder - Gas/Gassless?

Hi again

My original post got moved to this the welding forum... I did not know there was a welding forum Before posting, I did do a forum search on MIG but got no results...

Anyway, I've now read through quite a few pages here and see that a few of my questions have already been asked and answered before. In particular, gasless wire seems to produce a fair bit of splatter that can be controlled with a spray, disposable bottles dont last very long, and bottle rental/refill varies quiet a bit in cost, depending on area.

Bunnings MIGs don't seem very popular, the Toolex has also attracted some pretty ordinary comments and Tokentools M200 MIG @ $899 seems to get a lot of positive feedback including good after sales service.

My budget could extend to $1000 odd and I'd rather buy quality and have peace of mind that the welder would be reliable and produce good results. I see that CIG's 175i is also an alternative, albeit a bit more expensive and there appears to be some teething problems with the early model.

I am in no hurry to buy so I'd apreciate all feedback on previously mentioned models and others.

Thanks in advance.

Blu

If you are not in a hurry - and are inclined that way - auctions can be a source of high quality brand equipment (esab, wia, lincoln, unimig, etc) at prices much much lower than when they were new.

Granted, most I guess will be 3-phase ... and maybe it is more of a WA thing to have welders so commonly at auction(?) You could also of course end up with some expensive or impossible to fix junk - just throwing ideas your way.

But even if you don't jump in and buy, lots of the guys attending auctions are willing to talk about what they think is good equipment and why ... just like in these forums. I find them a very friendly atmosphere in general.

Good hunting,

Paul McGee

Originally Posted by Blu_Rock

In particular, gasless wire seems to produce a fair bit of splatter that can be controlled with a spray, disposable bottles dont last very long, and bottle rental/refill varies quiet a bit in cost, depending on area.

Yep - used correctly (ie. correct joint prep, volts, feed & technique) gasless wire can produce a good-looking, high-quality weld, with the downside of excessive smoke and spatter compared to gas. Stories of "bird poo" and all that relate more to the cheap machines that use it, and the inexperienced welders using these cheap machines. In a half-decent machine, gasless can be excellent for the right application.

Apart from the brands you mentioned, UniMIG is worth looking at.

As for material thickness, I get the impression that a 160A machine is only good for about 4mm in a single pass. If you want to do 6mm in a single pass, I'm guessing you'd have to move into the 200A+ machines, which become a bit of a pain in terms of their hefty power requirements (dedicated circuits, 15A or greater sockets and all that).

Originally Posted by RustyArc

Yep - used correctly (ie. correct joint prep, volts, feed & technique) gasless wire can produce a good-looking, high-quality weld, with the downside of excessive smoke and spatter compared to gas. Stories of "bird poo" and all that relate more to the cheap machines that use it, and the inexperienced welders using these cheap machines. In a half-decent machine, gasless can be excellent for the right application.

Apart from the brands you mentioned, UniMIG is worth looking at.

As for material thickness, I get the impression that a 160A machine is only good for about 4mm in a single pass. If you want to do 6mm in a single pass, I'm guessing you'd have to move into the 200A+ machines, which become a bit of a pain in terms of their hefty power requirements (dedicated circuits, 15A or greater sockets and all that).

At the risk of appearing argumentative, comment needs to be passed regarding welding 6mm in a single pass. Forget it. If we are talking a quality weld with reliable penetration then 5mm+ is a single vee prep with root run and capping pass territory.
The single most common mistake made with the mig welding process is trying to lay too much metal in one pass. Granted 5-6mm may be achievable with perfect setup and very high amps using spray transfer, but such is really for production applications and a very specialised area. Even 4mm from one side is really deserving of a bit of a vee prep.
As has been said previously, gasless wire can perform reasonably well in the correct application although I have never been sufficiently impressed to become a convert I must confess.
Something to be aware of if your use is infrequent is that dampness in the air can cause rust to form on the wire during storage in the welder, (exposed to atmosphere), causing poor contact and compromised wire feeding. Both solid and flux core wire are potentially affected by this.
Any reputable welding supplier will allow you to trial a welder in their shop before purchase, if they baulk at this, walk out the door.

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated. I will keep an eye out for S/H machines and have a good look the brands you have suggested.

Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

As has been said previously, gasless wire can perform reasonably well in the correct application although I have never been sufficiently impressed to become a convert I must confess.

I'm not arguing that people should "convert" to it, just that it's a *far* more viable form of welding than you'd expect if you believed the reams of drivel posted on the Internet about how terrible it is. I now realise the people talking this crap have either never welded, are sh*t welders, never welded with gasless, use a welder at work where they don't actually pay for gas so can't imagine why you wouldn't weld with it or think that a MIG welder is only used for welding car panels, nothing else.

I use gas now, but started with gasless as I couldn't justify gas rental for the amount of welding I was doing. I still run in gassless wire if I'm working outdoors in the wind, and particularly if I need to move the unit around a bit and don't want to lug a bottle as well.

You mentioned that you can already weld using stick, have you thought of the new generation inverter welders?

In the right hands they can weld just as good, if not better than a MIG. I must profess I am a 'stick' man as opposed to MIG. Where I work it's stick and/or wire feed, MIG if ever only in the workshop and very rarely. It's a bit of a 'man-up' thingy with the usual 'p1ss-take' if ever seen welding with MIG.

Hi, I have used an inverter welder and agree that stick welders have come a long way in terms of current/arc control etc. The main reason I want to get a different welder is for use with metal sculpture where I need to tack small pieces of relatively thin mild steel and stainless while holding the pieces in place by hand or with relatively low-rigidity clamping fixtures. I figure that MIG and TIG will allow less opportunity to bump the peices out of alignment when striking an arc, I suppose this is especialy the case with TIG.

I can stick weld reasonably well, but anything thinner than 2mm I go MIG, and anything out of postion I go MIG, and as sugested it's much easier for fiddly bits - you can hold the bit being welded on by hand, touch the wire to the join, pull the trigger and you've got a weld.

Dear Blu_Rock, google "Everlast." I recently bought one of their machines - 160 amp mig/stick inverter with a 5 year [yes, 5!] extended warranty for about $700. Miller-spool-gun-capable, solid metal [not plastic] wire drive.

After only 1 hour welding experience I managed to weld two strips of approx. half-mm gal. iron with 35 thou/.9 mm flux core. This should require .6 mm wire, I believe. Not pretty, but you CAN'T break it. Says a lot for this machine, I think.

The local distributors are pretty helpful too. Hope that's of some use.

Originally Posted by weldinggrump

Dear Blu_Rock, google "Everlast." I recently bought one of their machines - 160 amp mig/stick inverter with a 5 year [yes, 5!] extended warranty for about $700. Miller-spool-gun-capable, solid metal [not plastic] wire drive.

After only 1 hour welding experience I managed to weld two strips of approx. half-mm gal. iron with 35 thou/.9 mm flux core. This should require .6 mm wire, I believe. Not pretty, but you CAN'T break it. Says a lot for this machine, I think.

The local distributors are pretty helpful too. Hope that's of some use.

It seems whenever I read a post on this forum mentioning everlast it is always from a brand new member. everlast have been involved in many dubious marketing techniques in order to pedle their wares and kicked from many forum boards as a result. I am not knocking them but when they treat us like we are stoopid consumers....well, I think I'll stop.

John

Yeah there are times and circumstances where the different processes are more useful than another and to choose gas or gasless is just a matter of how you feel about the task. I only do bits and pieces at home and rent two bottles because I just can't deal with the smoke and spatter from gasless wire compared to solid wire and if I couldn't use gas I would probably prefer to use stick or TIG. Mind you I can get a good weld result with the gasless, just more cleaning up. I use whatever suits the job but really prefer MIG with gas.
I have a WIA transformer style MIG, a Kemppi pulse MIG and an Everlast TIG, plus my old AC stick machine.
Just with the Everlast comments, I know a couple of other Everlast owners who are happy with their machines who also have higher end machines in their workshops like Miller, Castolin etc so they seem to be decent enough machines and offer a 5 year warranty. I have had the Everlast for a year or so now and several projects later it is still a nice welder to use and no complaints.
Because these machines are a lot more affordable than some of the big names newbies will buy them and should be free to air their experience on a forum such as this I think without fear of being shot down.
Anyway from what I have seen and heard around here, the TT 200A machine may suit what you want and closer to your budget, and just use it within it's capacity. Wouldn't hurt to start with gasless wire and if you are happy with that so be it, if not it's easy enough to set it up for gas and solid wire later and the spool of fluxcore may be handy at times.
I would be reluctant to buy the cheapies from Bunnings and the like.
good luck with your decision.

I had a similar budget when purchasing my MIG, ended up buying a second hand CIG195 for under $500. They are some still around if you look for em Some joker had installed a 10amp plug on mine but no biggie. With the spare change i got, I spent it on some argosheild

If you want to do flux core aswell make sure you can reverse the polarity on the machine. Also look for the specific rollers you'll need to run the flux core

Some good tips and food for thought there. Thanks for the comments.