$75 Amazon stick welder actually works

[UncleW]

I got a Hone brand “140 Amp” DC inverter arc welder at Amazon on a black Friday sale for $75. Planned to use it to tack stuff and do real welding on my neighbor’s ancient Forney. His welder outlet is outside and weather was awful, so I thought I’d try the Hone. It’s smaller than a toaster, so I had my doubts

Plugged it into 110V, set to 85 Amps indicated and ran 3/32 6013 beatifully. No issues with 20A breaker trip or machine shutoff. Tried 1/8” 7018 at 120A and it either stuck the rod, tripped the breaker, or shut itself off. Not surprised

Stinger and ground clamp were junk, but $25 at Harbor Fright fixed that. Burned through a couple of pounds of the 6013 and made good enough farmer welds on my tractor tool bar — 2 1/2” 3/16” wall square tube. Good so far, but something will probably break and I’ll grind it out and weld it with the Forney, but I got my project up and running without suffering outside

I’ll plug it into 220v and see if it will run 1/8” 7018 at 140 amps indicated, but I’m not expecting much on that. Should be fine with 3/32” 7018

 

[California]

Yeah. There are a lot of astonishingly inexpensive welders on Amazon now.

Seems to me so long as you buy the $13.50, three year replacement warranty listed alongside that one, and don't need all of what is claimed for maximum output, then these are quite suitable for puttering around. Not everyone needs production-shop amperage rating or 20 year parts availability, at 10~20 times higher cost. (Buying a dozen of these to have replacements would be cheaper. )

Harbor Freight made its owner immensely wealthy by selling just-good-enough tools for years, good enough that customers kept coming back. (Long before the recent addition of better quality stuff).

I'm happy with the Amico dual voltage flux wire welder I bought late 2021. $149. Its ground clamp is far better than the 'battery charger' clamp on the cheapest welders and the gun is great. Aside from reliability that might turn out to be HF-level, I can't think of anything else that distinguishes it from its far more expensive name brand equivalents.

Project Farm on Youtube has reviewed some of the inexpensive welders. That's a good place to start, for choosing one.