Harbor Freight Titanium 125 Flux Core Welder

[BlueLS]

I've always been a stick welder and decided to try a wire feed welder. This 125/120v is an entry level piece and I'm getting the hang of it. I was hoping it would do spot welding on sheet metal but even at it's lowest amperage setting, it just blows right through. Is that the way it is or is there a technique I need to learn?

 

[ning]

Following as I've had really spotty luck with my mini welder unit (Miller 130) turned way down too.

One thing to note more generally with wire is that the E71T-GS wire is very loosely defined while the only slightly more expensive E71T-11 has a more reliable specification. I wouldn't use the GS; I accidentally bought it once and I'm like wtf is wrong with my alleged technique and then I realized it was probably the wire.

 

[2manyrocks]

Some sheet metal like auto body panels can only be mig welded without burn through using thin solid wire and shielding gas. Normal flux core wire without any shielding gas tends to burn through most thin metal unless you spot weld in very short bursts before the metal has a chance to overheat, and you might still burn through depending on how thick the metal is.

 

[yomax4]

Hopefully you are trying to spot with 030 wire not 035.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

I burn on thin metal too. Kinda off topic, but I learned using Blue Devil wire, they make a 1 pass and multiple pass wire. My multiple pass welds look better using it.

 

[WranglerX]

On sheet metal use .023 or .030 wire (solid wire with shield gas preferred) and do a tack weld every inch of so (do not try to run bead), when you have success in going length of weldment go back and put another tack weld next to one you already did, keep up the repeat process till you have a complete weld....

Got to be 25 videos on youtube showing concepts....

 

[garry1p]

I have the same welder and surprised at how well it welds.
I saw a guy on YouTube use the HF welder on sheet metal, what he did was turn it "up" on the highest setting and just touched the metal for less than a second and did not blow through. I haven't had a reason to try that but it worked for him.

 

[5030]

Get get yourself a resistance hand held spot welder. You'll have much better results or buy yourself a TIG machine and use that. Be apprised TIG welding takes skill while MIG is basically a glue gun.

HF makes some good machines so long as they aren't Chicago Electric. I have a Vulcan ProTig 205 myself and you cannot beat it for the price and I also have the Titanium 45 amp plasma and it's interfaced with my plasma table. Runs like a top and can clean cut 5/8 plate on the table, all day and never hit the duty cycle plus the consumables are dirt cheap.

I read that even the dirt cheap Chicago is now an inverter machine (no transformer any more).

The ProTig can weld any metal that will conduct electricity btw. That includes copper of all things.

 

[jjeff]

First welder I owned was a flux core Lincoln 100 amp had infinite amp and wire speed adjustment. Used medium amperage and slower wire speeds, Anyways don't even bother to try running a bead on thin sheet metal pushing pulling or weaving rather short bursts eventually you can almost tell when it's going to burn through, move down your work and repeat sometimes moving down your work significantly to cooler steel and coming back to fill it in It probably won't look the best initially but practices makes perfect and i got pretty good at it eventually.

 

[5030]

Just looked on the HF website. The 110 spot welder is under 150 bucks and that will do any thin conductive metal.