A month or so ago I asked on here for advice about buying a welder. The prevailing recommendation was almost overwhelmingly ‘buy a Hobart 140'. I’m here to say that I ignored that advice in spectacular fashion and ended up buying something even I wasn’t sure about: One of the cheapest dual voltage MIG welders on Amazon.
I’m also happy to say that while I’ve barely used the thing yet, I think I made the right choice for me. Let me explain.
A number of years ago as a nerdy homeschooled teenager I got into blacksmithing. I never got super good, but I became obsessed with learning to forge weld. I burnt a lot of steel trying to smack two white-hot pieces coated in borax into one. While I was sometimes successful, I probably should have realized there was a better way for me and moved on.
Fast forward 15 years or so, and the equipment I had was moving from storage to storage with no place to set it up. My brother-in-law gave me an old stick welder, but my workspace is in the basement rather than a garage. This made it almost impossible to lug the machine around when it was time to use it.
Cleaning up the shed this fall gave me an idea - what if I sold the blacksmithing stuff and bought a welder I could actually move around? I ended up giving the post vise away to a friend that does Ferrier work, and then sold the rest as a bundle for $550.
While that could have landed me the aforementioned Hobart handler 140, I had 2 issues with that plan. First, while the Hobart is no doubt much more portable than the old Forney stick welder I had, it’s still transformer based and therefore a bit of a clunker these days. True, it would probably last forever, but having used an inverter welder before I decided I wanted something even smaller and lighter. Lastly, I kind of like stick welding and decided it would be handy to have a machine that could do that in a pinch too.
So I started looking at inverter MIG/Stick welders, but then something else happened: I developed a need for an air compressor. Not wanting to waste much of the welder budget but wanting something big enough for light shop duty, I ended up using a coupon and picked up this guy - the HF McGraw 20 gallon.
So basically that left me with 2 choices: hold off on buying a welder for a while and save, or get something stupid cheap. So naturally, I did the latter.
Oddly, Sungoldpower (looks like they originally started selling solar panels and power inverters, hence the name) sells 2 very similar welders with about a $140 price difference. They are both dual voltage MIG/Stick welders, one 190 amp and the other 200 amp. Other than the 10 amps and the color, the only functional difference I could see was the more expensive machine had a 4 pin mig gun, which could support a spool gun for aluminum.
I decided that wasn’t worth it and bought the cheaper unit, under $300 with a 4 year warranty. As it turns out, the machine I was sent actually has a 4 pin gun (unlike the photos on Amazon). Score! Other than that, it’s about as I’d expect. Quality on the welder itself seems decent, but the leads are laughably short and cheap. At least that’s an easy upgrade!
So does it weld? So far I’ve only run a few test beads, and I’ll need to save up for a gas tank and regulator so it’s flux only. At my level of welding, which is ‘glue metal to metal’ it seems great so far. The arc is smooth and steady and it’s much easier to use than stick. I’ve got a lot of learning to do, but as long as it keeps running I’m pretty sure this machine will be able to keep up with whatever hobby or automotive projects I throw at it.
So for under $300 I have a capable flux/stick machine. Add a bottle of mixed gas and solid wire, and I can MIG. Add a bottle of Argon and a spool gun, and I should be able to do aluminum. At that point I could probably get a tig torch with a gas valve and try some basic scratch start tig. If it can last me 4 years (or I can buy another with the warranty) and lets me try all that, I’ll consider it a win.
In order to celebrate the underdog, I decided to give its blue exterior a hand cut Miller spoof decal. ladies and gentleman, I give you the Mill-eh. May it live forever (or at least the next 4 years).
Finally, after 2 years of thinking about it I finally pulled the motor out of my KZ750 twin and hauled it into the basement for a winter top end rebuild. I don’t think I’ll need the welder at all for this project, but I’m glad to finally be getting to it. First things first though - I think I need to build an engine stand.
