Picked up my first welder today

[rankrank1]

To the OP: Nice purchase. You definitely got a good deal on your purchase. You will likely never lose money on that welder if you ever decide to sell it. Simple, durable, reliable welder that will last for decades and you have a minimal $180 invested into it and it will never depreciate. Hard to go wrong on a deal like that.

 

[woodlandfarms]

At 180 for your luncoln you got a great deal. In my areas 250 to 300 are the going price for acdc machines and Ac only is 150 to 250. I have no clue if the new machines are better but will find out soon. The extra beauty of your machine is that you can re sell it for the same price. Well done

 

[Reverser]

Am I wrong in thinking $180 was a good price? The 225AC machines are going for $300 or so new, the Lincoln AC/DC machine in that size around $550. I only really have seen the Lincoln AC units for sale used from $200-250. Haven't really seen any of the machine I purchased come up used in my area. It seemed like a good deal??

You got a real good deal on your machine. I'd be skeptical of anyone telling you different.

 

[Reverser]

To the OP: Nice purchase. You definitely got a good deal on your purchase. You will likely never lose money on that welder if you ever decide to sell it. Simple, durable, reliable welder that will last for decades and you have a minimal $180 invested into it and it will never depreciate. Hard to go wrong on a deal like that.

I concur.
Rankrank1 and Woodlandfarms pretty well sums it up. :cool2:

 

[joshuabardwell]

I second what others have said about the deal you got on the welder. The one piece of advice I would give you is to carefully watch the duty cycle. If your welder is anything like my old transformer welder was, the duty cycle is only around 20% at the highest amperages. If you're welding on DC, you'll be maxing the thing out easily when running 1/8" 7018. So time about how long it takes to burn a rod and then calculate how many rods it takes you to exceed your duty cycle. Duty cycle is calculated as a number of minutes out of ten that you are burning rod. So if you have a 20% duty cycle, you can burn for two minutes out of every ten. If you find that it takes you about a minute to burn one rod, then you can burn two full rods every ten minutes at max output. Transformer welders are pretty hard to break, but the number one way you can break them (short of dropping something on them) is by overheating them and exceeding the duty cycle. This will cause the rectifiers in the DC circuit to fail quicker, and eventually will cause the insulation on the transformer winding to fail. Watch your duty cycle and that machine will be bulletproof for a long time.

 

[Arc weld]

Arrow, you are right! I thought $180 for the Lincoln is a good deal. The only reason I mentioned an inverter is because the OP said the LWS would have asked $300 for the Lincoln. At that price an inverter is a better option in my opinion. The OP is taking a stick welding course. I don't why a comparison in more expensive TIG machines even came up?:confused2:

 

[Happy Gilmore]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm really happy with my find. I'm waiting to run a new plug in the garage so I can play around with it a bit. In the interim would it be bad to run it in the basement in an area with nothing flammable around it? Not sure if burning rods indoors is a bad idea. Just anxious to run it is all.

 

[k0ua]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm really happy with my find. I'm waiting to run a new plug in the garage so I can play around with it a bit. In the interim would it be bad to run it in the basement in an area with nothing flammable around it? Not sure if burning rods indoors is a bad idea. Just anxious to run it is all.

it is OK if you can get some doors open and a fan blowing out the smoke. Make sure there is truly nothing around to catch fire, and have a fire extinguisher handy.

the biggest problem is dealing with the smoke. But you can run some short test beads without dying.

 

[George2615]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm really happy with my find. I'm waiting to run a new plug in the garage so I can play around with it a bit. In the interim would it be bad to run it in the basement in an area with nothing flammable around it? Not sure if burning rods indoors is a bad idea. Just anxious to run it is all.

Windows open, fan on, extinguisher, and smoke detectors unhooked or disabled cause you'll be setting them off.

 

[k0ua]

Get a Tig torch (less than $100), regulator (about $25) and a cylinder of argon (buy or lease) and you will set up for TIG.. you can weld all day inside if you want.. no smoke (if your metal is clean). This is DC scratch start TIG, no pedal, and manual control of argon with a valve.. but it works.

Homemade Tig Welder - Tig Welding Old School with Scratch Start - YouTube

The ionized argon smells kinda like after a rain.