HF Mig Welder???

I inherited an unused H/F wire feed welder that lists for $299 and always seems to be on sale for about $100 less. The person who left it to me had plenty of money but no free time to use the many H/F tools he bought so he didn't know how inadequate they were.

It took me about 15 minutes trying to get it going to realize that it was too cheaply made to ever work in any way that I would consider acceptable. I own some good quality welding equipment and have access to a lot more, but that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't have a basis of comparison is going to be satisfied trying to use H/F welders. A bad welder is likely to turn a new user against welding altogether, in my opinion. The other side of that coin, which is also just my opinion, is that only an expert operator has any chance of getting even minimally acceptable results from a low quality piece of welding equipment.

By the way, and not to open a whole can of worms for the umpteenth time, I consider H/F auto-darkening welding helmets to be one of a relatively few items they sell where you get good value for your money---IF you buy one on sale for $50.

All the best, Stan

A cheap welder is worse than none at all.

99 bucks will only buy you frustration and headaches.

A 90 amp welder is only good for very light sheet metal and with a very short duty cycle. Probably 20% which means you should weld 2 minutes out of every 10.

Replacement parts or consumables will be hard to find... probably even hard at H.F. I imagine that you"ll only be able to run flux core 028 wire.

Stick with a brand name... Miller, Hobart, Lincoln. Yes they are more money but yes, you will be pleased with it and yes, you will be able to make sound acceptable welds. Watch the classifieds or craigslist.com for used units. Check with your local welding supply and tell him what you want. Sure, he"ll try to sell you a new one, but lots of times they lease out machines and then sell them used when the lease expires.

I bought a Hobart handler and a Millermatic 200 that way and got a heck of a deal.

Hate to rain on you but the only thing I"ve bought from H.F. that hasn"t broken was a small anvil and that"s only cause I haven"t hit it hard yet... :-)

later
John

First, it's certainly not MIG-ready. Probably not even capable of conversion to MIG. Flux-core only.

If that's not enough, the electrode is always hot on these cheap welders. One of the nice features of a decent MIG welder is that you can stick the wire right where you want to start welding before you drop your helmet without getting flashed.