The advice I was given recently was, "Get something for which parts are readily available." The three names given were Miller, Chicago Electric, and CK Worldwide. My buddy is looking at a unit by Everlast. I follow Yeswelder on IG. Those two you buy ala cart. I think I am going to look at the CK before anything else.
One thing to ask about a multi-process unit is whether it will do the TIG start where you don't have to physically strike the arc - is that "high frequency"?
HF told me that if their welder breaks it goes out for repair and will take weeks. Make of that what you will.
Good thread. I gave away a Millermatic MIG when I thought I was done forever. Now I want to try TIG before I croak. Hopefully make a selection before this year is out.
I absolutely would stay away from green and black.
Everlast and Longevity
They are subs of the same company and people.
They probably have more colours and name brands now.
This is all from old discussions on welding forums.
You will not find that info now as they have created sponsored memberships and have control of deleting posts.
They have systemically and aggressively edited and deleted posts to create positive vs negative comments.
They have held customers hostage on warranty, only offering help if posts are first deleted.
They started by pre-selling almost all of the inventory.
They shipped all the welders, direct from china, no testing, no quality control.
But they had large failure rate.
A very high dead out of the box failure rate.
So they started playing tricks.
Troubleshooting over the phone, they might send you a board to install.
You pay shipping.
That doesn't work, send it back they will send you another, you pay shipping both ways, repeat
That doesn't work, you return your entire welder, they send you another entire welder.
You pay shipping both ways. repeat
Every attempt to contact is a failure, no phones answered or returned. Emails take a week to reply with multiple back and forths.
At least one person experienced 3 dead on arrival welders, one after the other.
He paid shipping and return shipping each way, each time. 6x shipping costs.
They had no working welders to replace the failures with.
They had no working cash to give refunds.
The only solution was to wait for the next shipment on a slow boat from china.
All units had to sell to afford the next batch.
All the back and forth email delays, all the failed welder games...it was all a stall to string out the transaction beyond the credit card refund time.
The next shipment of welders from china was "new and improved"
photos did show differences in design, maybe from different vendors.
The next shipment after that was again new and improved
That's the trend, new design, new vendor, no tech specs, no drawings, no schematics that you would need to do a proper repair or modification.
No experience troubleshooting, no parts inventory.
Certain power transistors would fail, maybe spec'ed correctly, but corruption and cost cutting at every step, you know how that is.
Accessories, mig guns, connectors were all DIN metric, or the chinese version of that.
You couldn't swap out a new gun without major surgery to switch it all to the American standard
The welders had electrical safety certification stickers.
They were found to be fraudulent stickers and UNcertified.
Insulation is cheaper than copper. Thin copper all around. Weak components and poor design all around.
Packaging insufficient to protect the product shipped individually to each customer.
connections and connectors broken in shipping.
People shared their frustrations.
They were threatened to never get any satisfaction unless they removed their threads.
The companies purchased manufacturer forums and controlled, deleted, edited threads from a negative post to a positive post
Distributors were Russian/jewish first language, so grammar and spelling errors were obvious
Posts were pushed down with hundreds of new posts and stickied threads so they will never be read.
Most all of those threads are deleted.
There were many people that were left 6 months to a year, or more having paid, with no working welder.
Others paid shipping over and over, others paid parts prices and shipping over and over.
Whatever they had actually spent, they could have paid for a brand name, used or even new welder.
Amazon sales
Someone sold many many returned units on amazon - as is no returns
people hoped to get a deal and they all got burned
those failed units should have been destroyed to prevent resale.
who sold them, a scrap dealer, or the original distributor ?
I know what I think.
Shady bastards.
maybe now they have made enough money they can afford to be reputable ?
I can't afford to take that risk.
Good quality machines
Stay away from the multi process ones that have plasma cutters inside.
Apparently they have problems.
If you go red and blue, Lincoln and Miller, you get consistency, dealer network, a network of service and parts.
100 years of history.
I can get 50 year old welders repaired because there are parts and info available.
Others in that category
Hobart - now owned by miller
Yellow ESAB -Sweden origin in 1904 world wide sales.
South Carolina manufacturing plant
Yes if you have a local support dealer
If millermatic 211 mig welder for a small mig machine
Yes HF high frequency start, with a foot pedal, not a thumbwheel
Lift arc only means no HF start.
www.harborfreight.com
