stick welder question

[rankrank1]

...like you, 1/16" makes me crazy as you need about a rod an inch. (exaggerating but it certainly seems that way) I'll get ahold of some 5/64's 6013 and see how that goes. I did look at the Hobart 210 last week and considered it but for $879, it is more than I care to spend. Plus the extent of my welding ventures doesn't deserve this good a welder. Here is the part that gets confusing. A true welder has not much good to say about the little 115 migs and I can easily understand why...

I think you will like the 5/64" 6013 decently enough I have ran both (US forge brand and Forney brand) - sometimes it boils down to not what rod you desire to run but what rod my powersource welder will run and you go from there.

As for the 115 migs, some of the quality ones are quite okay. Yeah the pros slam em but they welding great big stuff. The reason they get slammed is idiots buy em and then try to weld things the machine is not capable of doing. In practicality a quality 115 volt mig unit is limted to 1/8" thick and thinner metal. Sure you can do 3/16" thick in a pinch but its stretching it. Where any mig really excels is on metal less than 1/16" thick. With a stick welder you can not weld under 1/16" thick or so and you will have to be darned skilled to do it too. Mig will handle that no problem and weld metal in the in the 26 and 28 gauge range no problem. And the 210 MVP will handle 3/8" thick stuff too when connected to 230 volt.

The reason I recommended the 210 MVP is it gives you the best of both worlds and you likely not to outgrow it as a homeowner. I would not pay the price you found either, but many poster have got them with coupon deals and blowout sales for a little over $700 - just have to wait for the right sale. Also to compare apples to apples some of those kits come with a spool gun and some do not. Spool gun by itself is around $200. If I could recoup the nearly $500 or so that I have in my Lincoln SP-135P then I would easily put another $200 with it to upgrade to the 210MVP for the enhanced 230 volt capability.

That said, I have had my SP-135P for many years and it was the best of the best as far as 115 volt migs go when I purchased. I will simply continue to do as I have always done:

Use my 115 mig on stuff 1/8 thick and less.
Use the Miller 230 volt AC/150DC Thunderbolt on stuff 1/16 thick and over (as well as dirty rusty stuff).
Use the little 50 amp crap box on occasion just for the heck of it.

Any way you slice it, I still have lots of welding capabilities covered for not all that much money. Have only $40 invested in the Miller Thunderbolt and have a whopping $8 invested in the little 50 amp crap box.

 

[arrow]

Well. I'll be danged!. You have the same anniversary as I do as a logger! To celebrate, i'm gonna weld two tin cans together and then go drop a tree on them.

Use to be a lot of loggers around here. Then someone found one of those dam spotted owls! I haven't seen a truck load of logs in years. 30-years ago it seemed as there were as many log trucks on the road as cars.[/QUOTE]

As an aside Shield, logging is very dirty politically and clear cutting didn't help matters. Fortunately unless it was for site prep, we seldom clear cut anything (largest I was ever involved in was an 80 acre site for a Corning Glass factory) N.E. logging was more of the "selective" type logging and not the type of large western felling sites. The killer of it all was that I was around "welding" all the time as logging broke everything. I never paid close attention to what was going on so never sort of "picked it up"

 

[Shield Arc]

I remember hunting elk and deer in the Olympic mountains, the way they clear cut there I'll bet looking down from an airplane it would look like a large wagon wheel. Only thing left was brush!

 

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I remember hunting elk and deer in the Olympic mountains, the way they clear cut there I'll bet looking down from an airplane it would look like a large wagon wheel. Only thing left was brush!

The dirty little secret is that most of the "save the animal" type prevention tactics had nothing to do with the animal at all but mostly do to special interest of a group or highly placed individual who simply did not want whatever was happening in "their neck of the woods" happening. Some one was always on the "correct bandwagon" simply to get re-elected. We had such an incident here on a beach in RI where trespass was limited to a large section of the beach due to "Piping Clover nesting area" I think 3 of these birds were spotted there in a 10 year period. The real reason was that this part of the beach abutted a RI senator's property and he didn't want to see people walking on the beach there as he considered it "his backyard"

 

[arrow]

arrow my Everlast PowerArc 200 is the 220-volt only version. This is what it will do with ESAB's Atom Arc 7018, and ESAB's 10P-Plus 6010.

Shield, how hot were you running these rods and were they 1/8"?

 

[Shield Arc]

Shield, how hot were you running these rods and were they 1/8"?

Oh God I hate these questions. Yes they were 1/8-inch rods. Now remember the pipe welds were made on small dia pipe, and were loaded with heat from the welds below, so I'd guess the 7018 cap pass was made somewhere around 110-amps, and the 6010 welds around 75 to 80-amps.

 

[arrow]

Oh God I hate these questions. Yes they were 1/8-inch rods. Now remember the pipe welds were made on small dia pipe, and were loaded with heat from the welds below, so I'd guess the 7018 cap pass was made somewhere around 110-amps, and the 6010 welds around 75 to 80-amps.

Thanks Shield. I do not know what it is to run a good welder. My machine runs so cold that it could never acquire this bead and will stick 14 times before it connects. So, this is what they mean as "a pipe dream"

 

[Shield Arc]

Well I'll tell you, that PowerArc 200 is the best arc for the dollar I have ever seen! But like I said, I'm new to this welding thing!

 

[Mark @ Everlast]

Checking in. Wow. You guys can't let a person have a holiday? lol.:thumbsup: Ok. So here's the scoop on the PowerARC 200.
Amazon is ordering the PA 200. It's the same old unit we've always sold. The new PowerARC 200ST is our slightly improved machine which has lift TIG function, and a reported better 6010 capability, though I haven't welded with it yet. It has one slight disadvantage in the fact it has a reduced duty cycle of 35% at 200 amps. At 160 amps though it's back up to 60%.

The PowerARC 200ST does cost more and lists for 399.00 plus shipping. It is dual voltage and is capable of up to 125 amps. The circuitry has been improved, with vertical board integration for better impact resistance and resilience. It does have PFC. What PFC is basically is a bank of capacitors which absorb fluctuations and even power out, reducing peak demand.
Heres the specs:


120V:
120A/24.8V @ 35% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
90A/23.6V @ 60% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
70A/22.8V @ 100% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C

240V:

200A/28V @ 35% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
160A/26.4V @ 60% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
130A/25.2V @ 100% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C


120V:
120A/24.8V @ 35% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
90A/23.6V @ 60% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
70A/22.8V @ 100% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C

240V:

200A/28V @ 35% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
160A/26.4V @ 60% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C
130A/25.2V @ 100% Duty Cycle/ 40ｺ C

Max Inrush ( I1MAX ) Amps:

@110V: 42.8A
@220V: 40A

Maximum Rated (I1EFF ) Input Amps:

@110V: 25.7A
@220V: 23.7A

Again, though you are limited by total current and voltage in. Just for example...V x's A= Wattage. So if you have 115 v and 20 amps in...that equals 2300 watts. IF you are demanding say 120 amps at 24.8V (which is the volt/amp level at near max output) that equals 2976 watts. That's 676 watts more than you are putting in. Just not going to happen especially with some efficiency loss which has to happen somewhere. So to get more out, you have to be able to put more in. It's not something magic that can happen, we're bound by the laws of electricity just like anyone else. PFC can stabilize the spike demand and help out with unstable or fluctuating voltage if it dips a little low, but it will still require a certain amount of power at sometime.

 

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A

Again, though you are limited by total current and voltage in. Just for example...V x's A= Wattage. So if you have 115 v and 20 amps in...that equals 2300 watts. IF you are demanding say 120 amps at 24.8V (which is the volt/amp level at near max output) that equals 2976 watts. That's 676 watts more than you are putting in. Just not going to happen especially with some efficiency loss which has to happen somewhere. So to get more out, you have to be able to put more in. It's not something magic that can happen, we're bound by the laws of electricity just like anyone else. PFC can stabilize the spike demand and help out with unstable or fluctuating voltage if it dips a little low, but it will still require a certain amount of power at sometime.

So if this 115v circuit I have is on 10 gauge wire and on a 30 amp breaker, I'm within the parameters of a 120 amp welder dial in while in 110/ 120 mode? While we're at it, can you please ball park shipping from Cali to RI? Thanks