Electric welder at Lidl

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by Dave Halford on 17/01/2020 21:05:53:

Usual issue with cheap welders – a high-ish minimum current so it might be a hole blower on thin or rusty stuff.

Gasless wire is nearly as messy as stick welding.

Just to add, I believe the 1mm to 2mm capability, the reference to 4mm and 6mm is nonsense.

The duty cycle of 60% and 10% for low to high says 6 minutes welding 2mm needs a 54 minute cool down for summer use.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Dave, are they not indicating the cool-down period as 15 minutes – before doing another 90 seconds of welding, then another overload trip and 15 minute wait? All the same, it would be a little less than 6 minutes welding every hour for thick material. Of course, that will be at the ‘standard testing temperature’? You get what you pay for, I guess.

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

I once had one of this type, they will tack stuff together but they will not produce a structurally sound weld. Thats not to say that in the right hands (I was a full time coded welder back then – I could weld) a strong weld is impossible, but where a complete novice would struggle with a proper mig set up they would surely fail with one of these. On the cheaper models the wire permenantly live which only adds to make things more difficult. The weld will invariably look like bird poo! I could get a half decent weld on thin steel by using max amps but other than that it would just spit bits of metal at the job which might or might not fuse together. I gave mine to my brother inlaw who most certainly confirmed the above!

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Thanks, everybody, not knowing much about welding, the advice is appreciated, I now know it is not quite what I wanted.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

IF you can find a second hand BOC autolynx buy it .You will have one of the best small – ish MIG welders ever made. For thin material use 0.6 wire. As for gas Co2 will work fine. If you have a friendly landlord you may be able to get your gas(Co2 NOT co2N mix), Have a gas and a beer. Small , cheap mig welders are difficult for even the trained man to use and often immpossible for the amateur. A poor Manual arc weld will look just that !!! It is possible to do a mig weld that whilst to the untrained eye is fine BUT has zero mechanical strength. On one occasion that I was involved in causing a serious road accident, the component that failed was commercially made. Noel

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

My only experience with electric welding was with sticks, the runs looked good until they were touched, it was 100% flux and 0% weld. I got on ok with gas though, oxy acetylene and welding / brazing / silver soldering are relatively easy. I've always fancied TIG.

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Spend some time here mig they cover most, with tutorials as well

[Cabinet EnforcerParticipant @cabinetenforcer]

Just as a follow up, Lidl now list the plasma cutter as for sale on the 13th Feb for 80squids.

I think this is the first time that one of these cheap Chinese plasmas has been retailed in the UK.

[Martin WhittleParticipant @martinwhittle67411]

Another follow up: two Lidl stores in the Southampton area that I tried this morning had sold out of the plasma cutter, before 11.15am. I was looking forward to an interesting new toy!

[Ian Johnson 1Participant @ianjohnson1]

Posted by fizzy on 18/01/2020 21:10:03:

I once had one of this type, they will tack stuff together but they will not produce a structurally sound weld. Thats not to say that in the right hands (I was a full time coded welder back then – I could weld) a strong weld is impossible, but where a complete novice would struggle with a proper mig set up they would surely fail with one of these. On the cheaper models the wire permenantly live which only adds to make things more difficult. The weld will invariably look like bird poo! I could get a half decent weld on thin steel by using max amps but other than that it would just spit bits of metal at the job which might or might not fuse together. I gave mine to my brother inlaw who most certainly confirmed the above!

I can confirm this also! I bought a similar Aldi stick welder and just couldn't get any weld penetration at all. I will try again and if no improvement it will be binned.

I should have spent double the money and bought a decent welder from Machine Mart or somewhere. Buy cheap buy twice!!!

Ian

[Martin WhittleParticipant @martinwhittle67411]

It was a plasma cutter so I don't expect it to weld!

Martin

[Ray LyonsParticipant @raylyons29267]

I went into my Lidl store at 10 o'clock and they still had two plasma cutters in stock. Previously bought the stick welder but found that with 2.5mm rods it is useless, sticking all the time but using 1.5mm rods it works a treat.

When I was in this morning, saw a 13mm bench drill with a variable speed control and rated at about 1 HP which looked interesting.

[Ray LyonsParticipant @raylyons29267]

Forgot to mention, did not come out empty handed, bought an air nibbler for cutting sheet metal at £14.99 and a pack of assorted nuts for £2.99.

[petro1headParticipant @petro1head]

Found this feedback – Mig forum

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

They must be a popular purchase. Our local store did not even receive any allocation at all, even though advertised in their weekly offers booklet.

[John Paton 1Participant @johnpaton1]

FWIW my plasma welder is a Jasic and the chap that runs the welding courses I attended chooses to use Jasic kit and says he finds them durable and reliable.

I think the combo unit was just over £300 new when I last lookd, so not exactly 'budget' but certainly not in the £700 arena.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

They had a few in my local Lidl and I did the usual agonising before taking the plunge

Flux Cored Wire Welder PFDS 120 A2

After my initial fight with the wire reel which is like fishing mono as it springs off the drum I spent 3 days fighting to get any bead at all. It was a real baptism of fire. I thought my machine was a duffer, wrong polarity or something

I can lay a nice fast tack weld really easily with my 80A Lidl inverter stick welder but this gasless MIG thing just laffed at me

Then eventually after a few days of welding and Utubing it all started coming together bigtime

You get amazing penetration for a hobby machine and it lays down rock solid lumps of metal once you figure out how to build a bead up, but you've got to get your Amps and Feed rate right-on-the-money

I think one problem is the gas coming from the core, it blasts the molten metal away from the arc point so you have to get that metal sticking to the moving bead

I started off hating it bigtime and am now seriously pleased with what I've got

Helpful hints

Mount the drum in the machine and secure it down properly

before unsnipping the wire hold it securely with a second pair of pliers as it is cut… or it will unravel bigtime and ruin your day

push into the tube and clamp the wire as loosely as possible for a feed and use the machine to draw it through

if you poke the tip wire against a bit of wood as a feeding tension test it should cease feeding, you don't need a tight clamping action on the wire

You're ready to go now, and gawd help you

Hint2 Keep a 1mm drill handy to drill out any tip blockages, (only had one so far. 0.9mm wire)

Edited By Ady1 on 24/07/2020 15:21:25

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