Best Mig Welder

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

I’m looking to buy a Mig welder, I’ve had experience years ago at welding. A hobby welder that will not be used every day. So many on the market that any recommendations would be appreciated.

Many thanks for any information.

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

Having not much luck with welding using cheap welders, I went on a beginners welding course at a local college.

After that, I bought a Parweld XTM161i welder. It is a MIG , lift TIG and MMA welder, though it comes with a mig torch. You have to buy the tig or mma torch as an extra if you want to do that.

I have been very pleased with it and have used it for both mig and tig. It was not the cheapest at £720 , but has a 3 year warranty and is from a British company.

Stuart

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Probably more driven by budget and purchasing preferences than actual machine, since inverters became available they are all pretty good.

– Nice thing from good quality supplier: R-Tech or Parweld
– Cheap and cheerful does the job: Parkside
– Somewhere in between: Clarke/SIP

Also consider:
– Whether you want a small portable unit or a larger trolley mounted thing
– If using separate gas cylinders, where will you source these from?

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

IF it’s only MIG that you want then there are many out there from very cheap to a lot of money. The one mentioned by Stuart should be a good one, but, at a price.

The main weaknesses of the cheaper ones is A, the wire feed mechanism and B, the current control. These 2 are aggravated by a poor torch.

The one thing that will make life difficult is an unsteady wire feed, a plastic block with a toy car motor as a feeder works BUT ONLY JUST and if the feed tube to the torch is straight ! Then there is the industrial rated motor, a cast alli block and the 2 feed rollers geared together. Stepped current settings you can live with but a variable set up is much better.

Don’t forget to factor in any costs of gas and bottle plus regulator, for anything more than a a very small job the 1L gas bottles get expensive. Also look for 5Kg wire capacity not the tiny 1Kg reels, for big work a 15Kg is even better.

You get what you pay for, my BOC Autolynx was £750 50 years ago and it still works.

If Inverter Fusion do a MIG welder I would look at it, a British company in Honiton. Good luck Noel.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

I’m impressed by my Esab Caddy 200i but that is a low end industrial machine and correspondingly priced unless, as I did, you get a decent deal on a used machine. £600 with Albee bottle about 4 years ago. Albee bottle comes with its own regulator so I didn’t have to buy one and can be sure that it’s working properly. I’m little unconvinced as to absolute performance and reliability of the economy ranges of regulators.

Whatever you do get a “synergic” one that sets sensible parameters automatically. I had one of the old style switch select SIP machines for a fair few years and got precisely nowhere. Understanding what the switches actually did and which ones to use defeated me. Not helped by the too cheaply made, moderately crap, wire feed. A quite skilled welder friend could make it work pretty well but admitted it took some futzing around and skilled technique variation to cope with the wire feed to get good results.

I already had an excellent Fronius MMA / scratch start TIG box so pure MIG made sense for me.

For most folk the three in one MIG, TIG, MMA inverter driven boxes make most sense. £600 – £800 (ish) from a reputable supplier but most of the extra cost of a 3 in 1 relative so single purpose goes into better internal bits. Microprocessor control makes it relatively cheap to add the extra functions so specifications have to be relaxed elsewhere to get the single function price differential.

The price / performance / quality thing has really shaken out into something sensible over the last half decade or so.

The inexpensive auto-darkening helmets are remarkably good these days. Mine is an expensive 3M which might have been worth the extra 5 years ago. But the margin relative to a modern cheapie has eroded to very small.

As has been said above you have to accept that you are in for  order of £1,000 if you wan’t just works and no swearing.

Clive

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

BOB.  If you’re not overly familiar with welding, I think Stuart’s idea of a college course makes sense.  You may get to try different machines, learn the correct techniques, talk to other participants about their experiences, and hopefully expert help/advice from the tutor.  Then look at your purchasing options.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

If your thinking of a cheap one think on ! I have 2 that were both given to me by people that couldn’t get them to work. Recently I had to use one, and I’ve been welding for about 60 years, I eventually got one to work JUST ! The weld was not pretty but it was sound.  As a beginner I would have given up !

As Clive has said for something that will work well and be reliable your looking at may be £1000, or go to an auction , I got a nearly new 400A industrial unit, all tooled up for £25. It will weld car bodies or blow the edge off a 1/2″ girder. THE CATCH it was 3phase, so I built a 20Kva genny to power it.  Noel.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

If you use Amazon, then you could check out the ‘Azzuno’ range of welders.

I bought one of their 200A machines earlier this year and it is excellent. They get some good feedback from buyers and are compact and seem reliable.

Martin.

 

 

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

Thanks for the replies. I was a sheetmetal worker in the 70s, 90s, and could welder quite well in those days. Looks like £700 for a decent set up,but for odd job work,a lot of machine for little use. I thought those Clark welders would perhaps do me, but you get what you pay for.

Thanks for those in depth replies

Bob

 

 

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

Just going to check out Azzuno.

[andy198712Participant @andy198712]

I’ve had a Clarke 135TE. The one everyone recommended about 10 years ago. Can’t recall price but about £250-300 rings a bell.

 

i use it for car stuff, diy and hobby. Just done a 0.7mm exhaust pipe.

 

its good and learner friendly, just a couple switches and feed dial and a manual with a table telling you what to set it to on what metal to get you going.

 

[Bo’sun]

On Bo’sun Said:

… I think Stuart’s idea of a college course makes sense. …

If you can find one!  When I were a lad, local colleges all ran evening classes for adults in many practical subjects, all delightfully cheap.  Not now!  Just looked for welding courses within a 30mile radius, and there are none.  Likewise basic machining and computing courses.  Times have changed.

My closest college now has the telling mission statement “for careers not courses”. Their prospectuses offer full-time and part-time support for Apprenticeships up to Bachelor level, and some of the engineering courses include welding within a wider syllabus.  Aimed at school leavers training for industry, including Maths, English, theory and practice across a subject area like “automotive”.  Training for work, not hobby interests.

Casting the net wider, I found a 4 day welding course 60 miles away.  Not an easy journey so I’d have to stay over.  Cost over £1200, plus accommodation.  Adult education is no longer subsidised by the ratepayer!

Might just be my area.  What’s the situation elsewhere?

Dave

 

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

This is the course I did:

https://www.myerscough.ac.uk/courses/short-course/agricultural-engineering-and-motorsport/basic-welding-techniques/

It is at Myerscough College, near Preston in Lancashire. As you can see, the next course starts on the 17th January.

Stuart

 

[john fletcher 1Participant @johnfletcher1]

Before buying a Mig welder have a look at the price of the gas, also what about getting a welder friend to look at the used market for you, and have you plenty of space to park it when not in use. Often its cheaper to take the job to a welder and get it done properly. I did a 2 year welding at the local ‘Tec’ but they are no longer available at any price, even for the young, strangely enough.   Ted

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Hobbyweld are good if there is a convenient agent. You buy a refillable cylinder outright (choice of sizes) so no monthly rentals, ideal for light users. They do a MIG welding gas which is an argon/CO2 blend.

 

 

 

[peak4Participant @peak4]

For many years I’ve had a Cebora Pocket mig 130; no longer available, other than second hand.
Mine came from Thorite in Sheffield following an in-house promotion.
At the time, I believe they were also re-badged as Snap-On & BOC, so they also believed them to be of decent quality.
The young guy demonstrating it, showed a near perfect upside down 90° weld in thin steel, so any finish worse than that is down to me, not the welder.
I’m still mainly using plain pub gas, since I only need to weld occasionally; I pay to have the car welded these days.
Rent free Argon mix cylinders are readily available these days.

Might be worth checking Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Gumtree etc.

Bill

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

DO NOT assume that because BOC market it it is any good ! Having bought a superb Autolynx mig I bought a BOC trades cut 7 plasma cutter, little used and barely out of guarantee it failed and they offered no help at all even so that I could get it fixed and then the final insult was to tell me that I had bought a budget Italian machine – what did I expect !

Hobby weld Etc rent free cylinders are not cost free – you pay a hefty charge to “buy ” the cylinder. Noel.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

you do not buy the cyl its a returnable refund (minus 10%) if you decide you no longe need the cyl.

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

As Bernard says, with Hobbyweld you pay initially, but you can return the cylinder and get most of the money back. I think mine were about £60.

Stuart

[ryan.carter848Participant @ryan-carter848]

I don’t see any clarification on what you will be welding, apart from hobby use. The right machine will depend on how many amps you require to weld the jobs you’ve got planned.

If it’s mainly sheet metal and thin-ish stuff 200 amps max would do you fine.

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

I stand corrected, it is a deposit and the cylinders are to be returned when you are done with them. Still better than paying rental.

[ryan.carter848Participant @ryan-carter848]

Don’t lose the slip they give you though, money is then as good as gone – ask me how I know

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