Harbor Freight Titanium 125 Flux Core Welder

[jjeff]

If you end up welding a lot of sheet metal with a conventional flux core welder a auto darkening helmet is great in my experience. Lol what's the challenge in welding sheet metal with a spot welder?

 

[California]

HF makes some good machines so long as they aren't Chicago Electric.

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

I just checked. The black Chicago Electric 125 Flux is 38 lbs, no mention of inverter, still AC output (so major splatter!). It seems to be the same transformer-based dog as always.

I had their earlier version. It was rare to find an application that matched its (only) two voltage settings, Voltage Too High, or Voltage Way Too High. Maybe fewer transformer windings saved them a few cents. Just a frustration-maker! I replaced that with a similar Century with DC and a variable voltage dial, no more frustration, I could do nice work. The black HF Chicago is a bad frustrating joke for a beginner to start out with.

In contrast the modern HF Titanium 125 Flux seems excellent. HF should retire the black CE 125.

 

[California]

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.

I just commented on this over on WeldingSite. Here and Here. Short excerpts:

My favorite is INETUB BA71TGS. (.030 for welding thin material.)
https://www.amazon.com/BA71TGS-030-Inch-2-Pound-Gasless-Welding/dp/B003E2RF0E

It feeds more smoothly and welds with less smoke (so you can see what you're doing) and less splatter outside the weld area, compared to others I've tried.
This is made by an Italian company specializing in top quality welding products, so its definitely better than any bargain generic wire.

Inetub is the only GS-spec FC wire I will buy. Because GS means whatever secret ingredients they chose to put in it. In contrast, T-11 wire is a known, specific spec. Lincoln's NR-211 is T-11 spec.

Price for Inetub is comparable to other quality wire - and half the price of Lincoln's NR-211, considering Lincoln's small spools are only 1 lb.

Camelcamelcamel, a price tracker for anything on Amazon,
can email you a notice next time this on sale.

Definitely start with quality wire until you have some experience, to reduce the number of variables you have to figure out!

As for burn-through: last week I made some practice welds on old rusty .060" sheet metal, ground clean at where I joined it. This was with my HF MIG-180 (turned way down) and what was already in it, Inetub .035. I didn't have much problem with burn-through so long as I kept moving. A couple of instances in a half hour of tinkering.






.

 

[stuckmotor]

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.

Could you put up a link to the YouTube video or the specific HF welder he used?

 

[BlueLS]

If you end up welding a lot of sheet metal with a conventional flux core welder a auto darkening helmet is great in my experience. Lol what's the challenge in welding sheet metal with a spot welder?

I bought an auto darkening helmet yesterday and it made all the difference in the world.

 

[jjeff]

One thing you will notice when you turn the welder amps way down is difficulty striking a and keeping decent arc, no matter how I prepped or what I did with wire speed, Or at least I did. Eventually I was able to tune a welder in perfectly for what I was welding and could tell when I was about to burn thru ime, took time and practice though.

 

[WranglerX]

Though I graduated from fluxcore to solid wire and shield gas and I would never go back, I found this video helps a lot....

 

[California]

I graduated from fluxcore to solid wire and shield gas and I would never go back...

I'm limited to flux core (and stick) because this open tractor stall is where I weld and there's no protection from breezes.

 

[California]

Looking again at that second photo above, the extreme fumes from that junk wire is why I needed that 500 watt lamp in addition to daylight. I've never needed the lamp after I found Inetub FC wire - I think on the advice of someone here.

I bought the HF MIG-180 welder in that photo, used, from someone who was more of a mad experimenter than a welder. He included a half dozen spools of various brands of wire that he had tried, including the Chicago Electric wire that came originally with the MIG-180, plus I had some Forney, Blue Demon, and some generic from before. I eventually used up all of it.

After comparing all those I like the Inetub wire best.