Welder Buying Advice Help

[Not Steve]

Can you more seasoned welder pros help us out?

Our Harbor Freight Easy-Flux 125 died. Looking for a company who are confident their stuff lasts longer than 90 days.

Should we say YES to this YesWelder? We're doing general blade-making stuff.

I like that there's a TIG upgrade path. And the one-year warranty. Going 220v is good for us.

What's your fav $500 welder?

Thanks!

 

[Bühlmann]

I have a Primeweld tig machine that I am very happy with. Excellent 3 year warranty, US-based support (haven't needed), outstanding technical documentation and instruction manual. If I was looking for a mig machine in the sub-1K range I would look real hard at what they have to offer. That said, I have not used one.

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[OpossumSherick]

For what it's worth, I've owned the HF Titanium 125 flux core machine for about a year. It has been better than expected, especially at the price. Today its listed at $209, and in my opinion is worth every penny. I don't work it to death, and I try to keep the duty cycle in mind and let it breath a little, taking frequent short breaks. That said, I have run beads around 3' long with no issues whatsoever. To put my work load in perspective, in 11 months I have gone thru a roll and 2/3 of .30 wire. I don't know if thats a light work load or heavy, just trying to give you some perspective. Maybe the aspect that gets over looked most often with this little machine is the weight. It uses an inverter rather than a transformer, and the entire unit, cables and all is around 15#. It comes with a nylon purse strap and I may be the only guy who has ever actually attached it and used it. That wouldn't be feasible with any normal welder. I actually mounted mine in an old heavy plastic milk crate and attached the strap diagonally. This setup allows me to tote it around my house/yard/shed easily while keeping the cable connections and everything wrapped up safely in the crate.
The warranty is 90 days I believe, but I'm sure that you could extend that at the register or by joining the inside track club.
Oh, the quality of weld that this little machine can lay down exceeds my ability, and I am positive that a better hand could really make this girl hum.
Hope this helps.

Opossum

 

[weo]

What's your fav $500 welder?

Not a pro who's used a number of different machines, but I picked up an Amico 160A multi-process unit (Tig/Stick/Plasma cutter) for about $500 from home despot a little over a year ago and have been satisfied so far. But I never really learned wire feed welding, so that wasn't something I was looking for.

 

[Taz]

I just picked up the YesWelder Tig 205DS. It does pretty well on 240V for stick and Tig. It did OK on 110V, but I kept tripping my breaker constantly, so I couldn't get much power out of it. Night and day running it on 240V though! Many others have good success on 110V with it, but with my outlets, it didn't do as well. Learning how to stick and tig weld and getting better at both!