HF 90amp flux wire welder

I picked up one at a yard sale that shows no signs of use for $20. It plugs into a 110 house receptacle. Years ago I had a little buzz box that plugged into a regular 110 house receptacle but it was almost worthless. I sold it and got a 225amp AC Lincoln buzz box that uses 220 receptacle. I can do good with that but it's not good at thin stuff like muffler repair.

I'm hoping this will be better than that old buzz box and useful on thin metal.

I'm interested in hearing what y'all think about this type of welder as compared to the two buzz boxes I've mentioned.
 
If it came from Harbor Freight or Northern Tools, just be aware that the contact tip is hot all the time. Friend bought a used one and wanted me to try it out. Got arc flashed a couple of times before I figured out that the wire is hot all the time. Wouldn't have one.
 
I guess I'm not sure what you mean. I would think the wire that comes out of the welder should be hot so when it's touched to the work surface it starts welding? With my Lincoln the stick is hot all the time.
 
But normal MIG is dead until you pull trhe trigger to activate the current and feeding of the wire. The switch on the handle controls it.
 
Ok, but this isn't a MIG welder although it looks similar and I'm sure they like the fact that people confuse it with MIG. This doesn't use shielding gas, it uses a wire with a flux core. This is closer to the small buzz box I had, thus I'm concerned that like the small buzz box it will not be a good easy to use welder.
 
Chris: you're getting a $20 welder, and it doesn't take much welding to get $20 worth of use out of it, but don't be surprised if it isn't going to do what you want. Known issues with these are numerous--the hot tip for starters, VERY short duty cycles for another (be prepared to weld for a couple of minutes followed by half an hour or better until the welder cools down enough to reset), poor heat control (especially bad on really thin stuff--you'll either burn through or won't be able to keep an arc going), and jumpy, inconsistent drive wheels (and thus wire speed, and thus arc and weld consistency) for another. There's a reason you got it almost unused--it was probably almost unusable. Still, if you don't mind fiddling around with it, it's entirely possible you can get your money's worth out of it. I used a friend's when we were at his place as it was all we had on a repair that needed doing immediately, and while I able to cobble it together, it was certainly nothing like my little Hobart 135.
 
It's still a MIG welder. While MIG has a specific definition, everyone seems to call all wire-feed welders "MIG Welders" regardless of whether you use flux-core or solid-core wire.

For comparison, I use flux-core in my Hobart Handler 140 "MIG" welder and the wire does not have voltage on it until I pull the trigger.

Anyone who is used to working with a stick welder should be fine with the Harbor Freight units as they would already be familiar with proper handling when the electrode is hot the minute the unit is powered on.
 
I've got a 110 mig that I use on thin stuff. It will do an excellent job at that. I can get good penetration on things up to one inch iron pipe. After that the Lincoln big box comes out. Mine has four power settings (but it isn't a Harbor Freight) and those do a good job on automotive sheet metal, etc. At times I have used it to tack something that I later arc. I also feel like I can make much "prettier" welds as the tip stays stationary and the wire feeds into the weld. When I am honking away on the disk I want that big Lincoln and pretty isn't in my mind.

Your $20 investment was worth it.
 
Inside the rubber cable going from the unit to the gun, there is a conduit for the wire to run in, be it solid wire or flux core. On most mig units, this will be coiled steel,like a choke cable housing. On the HF unit I tried, this conduit was plastic poly tubing like you would find at the hardware store. Probably cheap to replace, but very easy for a sharp point on the wire (which you will get when you clip the wire with a pair of side cutters) to penetrate and then the wire will not feed through to the contact tip.
 
Give it a try, for small sheet metal projects I bet it will do just fine. If the wire feed rollers are plastic and tend to wear out fast, keep a few sets on hand, HF is usually pretty good about supplying wear parts like that for cheap.

I bought a little Century 105 amp 120V wire welder at a second hand store for $75. It looked new and looking back it likely had less than 10 minutes use where the disgusted owner dumped it..
It came with the gas kit installed and a roll of .030 solid wire installed. It worked, but struggled to burn that .030 wire unless the 120V circuit was short and heavy wire. We used it for welding light metal for years while a lincoln tomb stone AC /DC stick welder did the heavy work.

Finally we spent the money for a Miller 212, a great wire welder, so the little 120V Century just collected dust.

I finally decided to remove the gas kit and use flux core wire for those jobs like welding sheet metal 12 ft up on top of the combine on a windy day. Jobs that the big wire welder could not do.

It works great for that, and the cherry on top is that while it struggled to burn .030 solid wire with a good power source, it now burns .030 flux core like a champ, even at the end of a 50 ft 12 ga extension cord.
Flux core wire is about half flux, so is like burning only about a.015 solid wire.
Only gets used a few times per year, but does that well. :)
 
MIG is metallic inert gas

properly called
GMAW
gas metallic arc welding


without the gas it's
FCAW
flux core arc welding

the + and - are even reversed
 
I concur, well actually I generally hear metal vs metallic, but same difference. As I'd noted earlier I think of like stick welding w/o a stick.
 
It will work on exhaust, but you have to move fast with it. Only two heat ranges and they're both too hot for slow welds on thin sheet metal. It gets the job done. For the price that you paid you cant beat it.
 

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