recommend a MIG welder

So, based on this criteria, tell me what brands and models I need to look at. Thanks!

In your first two sentences you have given two reasons for not buying a mig welder .You say you are not a welder , good reason to learn to weld with a torch and then progress to a stick machine. You are doing repair welding
and not production , good reason to have a stick
machine as there are many more speciality rods
available for stick than mig . Having been in the repair business for the last
35 years and having a lincoln idealarc 250 ,there
has not been much that came in the door that I
couldn't fix.I also have a high frequency unit
on the 250 so that I can tig weld, and I do have a small mig welder . But after using it some ,I
don't even buy gas for any longer. If I was doing sheet metal or car bodies , then a mig would would be useful. I highly recomend a good ac/dc stick welder.
And by the way I still use a torch for many of the jobs. I do quite a lot of cast iron
repair and you WILL do that with a torch if
you want a good repair.Much of the cast repair
that I do is manifold repair. Below is something that you cannot do with a mig .

george

baffle and cover in pieces

As for stick welders...well, they are what they are and that's why I want a MIG welder! After I watched my son in law use his MIG, I thought..there ain't no looking back...especially for what I have in mind.

All very good advice so far. I work at a Community College welding shop where we have a good variety of Lincoln and Miller wire feed welders. There were a few ESABs there several years ago, but they got taken out of service before I ever got around to trying them. The department head told me they were always having wire feeding problems. Oh, there's one Pow-Con inverter welder there too. I don't know anything about it.

With the choice of using any of more than a dozen wire-feed welders, including four big Miller 3-phase monsters that are currently set up for dual shield and will put out 600 amps, our three little Lincoln 175 Plus single-phase machines get about as much use as any. They're the most portable welders in the shop for one thing, and they're not intimidating at all, for another. The way you describe how you expect to use a welder makes me think that you would be very happy with one of these Lincolns.

New Lincoln 175's sell on e-Bay all the time for about $500-$600, including shipping, but most of them are Pro-Mig 175's, not 175 Plus's. The Pro-Mig 175 is a cheaper welder; for instance, amperage settings are fixed, not infinitely adjustable. It's not that big a deal, but there may be other "cost cutting" features as well.

I'm in favor of sticking with the major brands, for the most part. For instance, I was interested in the Panasonic Gunslinger that someone mentioned earlier, but decided that it may lack support in the near future. A large West Coast dealer that I check out on e-bay recently dropped it from their line. That said, there is one unfamiliar source that might be worth taking a look. HTP America has been selling Hungarian made welders in the U.S. for more than 20 years. Find them online and have them send you a free catalog. I've been intrigued by their equipment for several years now. Their MIG welders seem kind of clunky, kind of yesterday's technology, but very solid and well-constructed. Only copper windings in the transformers, only metal wire-feed wheels---that kind of thing. It wouldn't cost you anything to take a look.

All the best, Stan

Grub