another 15 miles on the new setup. No major issues this ride.
I bought a new welder. I have a huge hulking beast of a 220 volt mig welder. It must be from the 80s and over 200 AMP for sure. I've been having some wire feed problems and the thing is just major overkill for the little bit of welding I do anyway. I did a bunch of research and decided I wanted a 110 volt welder. I'm not the type of person to by disposable tools, so I was looking at the major brands, Miller, Lincoln, and Hobat.
The millermatic 140 is about $700 and would be great, but that was just more than I wanted to spend.
The lincoln pro mig 140 seems to be a good machine and I could get it locally for $529 at lowes and probably get a 10% coupon on top of that. The only thing that worried me about this is that there were several reviews with DOA units and poor customer service.
The hobart handler 140 had some of the most positive reviews I'd ever seen on anything. As near to 5/5 stars as you could get and something like 576 people our of 579 would recommend it to a friend. the price was $499 at northern tools.
Hobart and lincoln make some smaller welders as well. IN particular the hobart handler 125 and the autoarc 130 seem like good units. By the time you added the hose kit and 8 inch spool adapter to it thought it was approching $380. For the money and the most power out of a 110 volt welder I finally decided to get the hobart handler 140. I bought a $50 coupon off of ebay for $7 and got the hobart for $449 shipped.
pretty happy and I'm excited to have a welder that is so portable and I can save some space in my garage. It will weld 3/16" steel on mig wire and 1/4" with flux core. It can also handle .035 wire, while the smaller units could only use .030. I think it will be a great fit. Really the best part is that with a heavy extension cord I can go anywhere with this thing. It is not that easy to drag a 220 volt cord heavy enough to not have a ton of voltage drop.
You can see it here: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...6073_200306073
It comes with a free helmet, beanie, and gloves. I'm sure the helmet is worthless, but it'll be useful if I want to teach someone how to weld and just need an observer helment. A extra beanie and gloves never hurts either.
