Welders

[rossman]

I'm a beginner welder and I'm trying to decide between these three welders. Upcoming projects include Baddog Frame Rails, floor pans and 304 stainless mandrel bent exhaust - 3" dia, .062 wall. I don't currently have a 230 outlet wired in the garage but it's easy enough to install as the breaker box is in the same room.

 

Miller Millermatic 140 All-In-One Wire MIG Welder w/ Auto-Set, 115 V

 

Miller Millermatic 180 All-In-One MIG Welder w/ Auto Set, 230 V

 

Miller Millermatic 211 All-In-One MIG Welder w/ Auto Set and MVP Plug (120/230 V)

 

Are the 230v welders worth the extra money for the types of jobs I am planning? Is the 211 just a combination of the 140/180 or is there more to it?

 

Also, do the prices linked above seem reasonable for new Miller welders?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Regards,

Ross

Edited April 8, 2012 by rossman

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

Those are all nice welders. Can't go wrong with Miller.

 

The 140 would definitely suit all of your needs. And if you're looking for the pretty much an identical machine check out the Hobart Handler 140, it's a much better deal at $500 on Northern Tool (free shipping too I think)

 

I'd say though, that you would do be able to do anything you wanted to do on the car with a Hobart Handler/Miller 140, with a tank of 75/25 argon/co2 gas.

 

I don't think you would require a 230 machine for the types of jobs you are planning, even though the auto set capability is pretty nice, but not at ALL necessary.

 

Both of these welders are 110 units so you can plug them into any wall outlet and they still have the potential to crank out some serious amps if need be.

 

Get the best 110 machine you can find, and you will NEVER regret it.

Edited April 8, 2012 by OldAndyAndTheSea

[robbs70z]

I got the Hobart 210 handler in 230v and that thing welds anything I have put it to. Plus northern tool has a deal that is come w/ a spool gun. For about a $1000. The cool thing too is that Hobart is made by miller so consumables are easy to get.

Happy hunting.

[RTz]

Ross, I've been using a 110v Millermatic 130 for about 15 years. It's been a great machine. It welds the heck out of .0625. It'll do a pretty decent job on very light gauge metals with .023 wire. For corner welds it does a fine job up through 10ga, providing you keep the duty cycle down around 50%. But, it won't do a proper structural weld on lapped 10ga. For that type of work a 220v machine is needed.

[kaito]

Miller welders are all very nice. A few questions you should ask yourself is do you in the near or far future see yourself welding anything thicker than what's on your car? Also you might run out of gas at a critical time, can the welder handle flux core (some prefer it over gas)? One other thing, make sure you get infinite adjustment for wire and heat. My craftsman only has four heat settings and I regret it. It has done rails and rust patching no problem on 110v with both flux and gas.

[Perfect240z]

I just bought myself the lincoln 140 hd Pak from home depot, it was 525, I've never welded before and I was going to either try today on a extra piece of fire wall metal today. I'm not going to be doing anything to the Z before I'm good at it and I pick up some c25

[SHO-Z]

Buy the 140 and watch craiglist for a used Maxstar for Tig & stick. I perfer TIG on SS.

[letitsnow]

I've got a 135 miller, had it for 8 years or so and it's been great! I've built a ton of stuff for various cars. I recently picked up a used Diversion 180 TIG on craigslist for $1200, it's a 110v/220v unit, 110v is limited to 125 amps. The ability to weld aluminum is great.

[rossman]

Thanks for all the input guys. It sounds like the Millermatic 140 will suit my needs.

 

Cheers,

Ross

[grumpyvette]

Its most likely just my experience, but Ive rarely been happy with 110 volt welders.

110 volt welders are great on floor pans ,body sheet steel and exhaust pipe but not so great on frames and suspension brackets etc.

for the extra cost Id sure get the 211 welder, I got really tired of buying mig welders only to find out that the mig welder I bought won,t quite do the job and then having to sell the darn mig welder at a loss to upgrade later

youll forget about the extra money spent long before youll regret having a better welder.

buying a marginal welders a bit like buying a bullet resistant vest, a bit more capacity costs more but you don,t regret having it if you need to get involved in something unforeseen, but having less capacity can really get things screwed up fast.

I can,t think of a single time I'VE regretted buying a better quality tool

 

http://www.bakersgas.com/MIL907422.html#5291

 

after trying several welders friends owned and having owed several personally , Id strongly suggest having a long talk with a local miller or Lincoln welder dealer and asking a great deal of questions, now theres zero doubt that the 180 amp welder will do most auto related welding, but the 211 has advantages if you get into heavier applications like frames and suspensions, and keep in mind you might never need its full capacity but its a total P.I.T.A. to have a welding job that you can,t do correctly with the equipment at hand, I found that to be the case with a 180 amp miller I owned. while it would do 95% of the jobs welding rear differential brackets was marginal as there was just not enough amps available for single pass welds, so I just said (#$%$%^ it) and bought the miller 252, which does a great job.

 

 

http://www.welders-direct.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=WD&Product_Code=907321&Category_Code=m-mig

 

heres the MIG I purchased and no your very unlikely to need something like this unless you do custom frames, shortening rear differentials and build roll cages Like I occasionally do, and you might want to ask yourself if you want a MIG at all?

the longer I work on cars the more I tend to use my 330 AMP TIG WELDER I bought USED for under $1000

Edited April 9, 2012 by grumpyvette

[Xnke]

There is definitely a good place for a 110v MIG welder in an auto shop. There is very little that will do bodywork and thin sheetmetal so well as a little MIG welder! Not even an excellent TIG welder can do the job so efficiently. Uses more gas, uses more power, inputs far more heat into the weld zone, and is a lot slower. Also will warp your panels quite beautifully, due to the hotter, but more localized heat.

 

MIG welding the same 20ga sheet steel properly will result in a clean, much lower distortion weld, with less power, less gas, and less overall heat input, AND will do the job faster. But when it comes time to work on the frame or bracketry, make sure you have a welder that can produce the penetration you need for the job at hand.

[JMortensen]

There is no piece of metal on a Z that is thicker than about .100, MM140 will do fine.

 

You can weld non stainless wire to your stainless exhaust, so if you had a muffler you wanted to use but you didn't want to buy a tig you could just weld it up with the regular wire. Won't resist rust like stainless, but you can attach it just fine.

Edited April 9, 2012 by JMortensen

[rossman]

You can weld non stainless wire to your stainless exhaust, so if you had a muffler you wanted to use but you didn't want to buy a tig you could just weld it up with the regular wire. Won't resist rust like stainless, but you can attach it just fine.

 

Jon - Are you saying that the 140 won't weld stainless tube with stainless wire?

 

I have a 10+ year old Century 130 welder that will not penetrate .062 wall 304 stainless tube at full heat using .030 stainless wire and tri-gas shielding. It gives me nothing but cold welds.

[JMortensen]

Not sure about the heat issues.

 

My point was that you can weld stainless with regular wire. I was totally unaware that you could do that until my bro-in-law bought what amounts to a Z junkyard about 5 or 6 years ago. I went down to help him move all the stuff, and part of the deal was that he got these huge steel racks that the doors were stored on (pretty sure they were Home Depot racks). We loaded them into the truck and one of them started to fold. The guy who sold us all the stuff had a big 220V miller and a nice welding table with a bunch of scrap under it. I grabbed a piece of scrap and welded a brace on to hold the thing together, and he came back a while later and said "Why did you brace it with stainless?" I said I had no idea it was stainless and that I didn't even know you could weld stainless with regular wire. He said he didn't know that either, but there it was, and it held up just fine.

[RTz]

I'll second Jon's post. I've done it quite a bit for both personal projects and in industry.

 

As far as heat, the 140 should do fine with a S.S. 16ga. butt weld. My 130 struggles a little on fully lapped 16ga. S.S., though.

[EMWHYR0HEN]

I agree with the above that a 110V welder is the most suitable welder for almost all jobs on a Z car.

 

I've properly welded 5/8 multiple times with my 110V miller 135. Get to know your welder and pre-heat as needed.

 

I too have no problems welding SS with steel wire.

[letitsnow]

SS wire isn't that expensive, if you're going to use SS, buy the correct wire.