Harbor Freight Welder deal..?

Gale Hawkins · May 12, 2010

yomax4 said:
For some odd reason, All Flux Cored Welders come with or are suggested to use .035 Cored wire. I have sold hundreds of these units and I can tell you that they have more capacity using .030 wire. Cored or solid wire. They will weld hotter with .030 than .035. Most 115v units are an 80- 90 amp output and .023 will not get the peak power out of them and .035 runs a little cold even when ran wide open. Try .030 and let me know what you think.:thumbsup:

Yomax4 it will try some .030 the next time I buy. The HF wire that comes with it is .030. I guess one just needs to speep up the feed a bit?

Huge on these little welders are the CURRENT requirements of 120v/25 amp. I just so happen to have 120v/30 amp outlet for the RV we are using. Those who are using them on 15 amp sources may have power related issues.

valley · May 13, 2010

I did a job [ repaired a service ramp] with the 90AMP I was pleased with welder. I used the .030" wire, I had the feed up all the way.
The auto darken helmet worked fine. I want to try the welder on some auto exaust before extending the tractor pipe.

There are applications where it will serve better than the stick welder.

yomax4 · May 13, 2010

I think most 115v Mig Units are ran wide open most of the time at least all the ones I had were. Unless you are doing body work or rusted thin material.

valley · May 14, 2010

So if you are doing welding fender or exaust pipe, would you use the low heat and .035" wire?

yomax4 · May 14, 2010

I would never use .035 wire witha 115v Welder. .030 for max power gas or gass less. .023 hard wire for body work with gas. Or .030 Cored Wire turned down with out Gas. Try it..

valley · May 14, 2010

With the HF 90Amp there is only the choice of high or low. Your mentioned that you get more heat with .030" than .035". That implied, I thought, with .035 would be less likely to burn through body metal.

RPW · May 22, 2010

I went with the .035 wire because that is what I had on hand. Remember that the High/low switch on the HF units control voltage. All wire type welders will use the wire speed to set the amps. Not to say that the higher end welders don't have other ways to set amperage or other aspects of the weld but by setting the wire speed higher you are pushing more wire into the weld pool therefore you are keeping the current flowing more (bad explaination). As far as using the .030 or .023 when the time comes I'll pick up some to try. As far as the poster asking about the size of tip and why I went with .035 it was because of the poor quality of the HF wire. since re-discovering the HF unit I've already gone through the small roll of Lincoln wire I had. My neighbor doesn't hold much for FCAW and gave me his larger roll of .035 wire. Because my HF can not accept the larger roll I will making a jig to roll the larger roll to the smaller. -Gale- I'm glad your having a good experience with the little HF units. Over time you will want to get a larger unit to handle the heavier jobs. Next on your list will be a decent stick welder. Something in the 200+ amp range for those heavier jobs. And of course a TIG for a whole new experience in welding

FredH · May 22, 2010

I have a lincoln Sp135 110/120 volt that I have rarely run maxed out on power . Using .035 flux core , recently welded 3/8" angle to a piece of solid 1.25" rod that had been used as a anchor point , ( about 4' long , sharpened on 1 end ) . Then beat the whole thing into the ground to bolt a hose reel box to , so better half would not drag the thing across the yard pulling hose .

Power settings are in letter's up to "H" maybe?? But actually was running 3 clicks down and was still melting the solid rod as much together as I was welding it .
Strength .... Well after beating the daylights out of it to get it down far enough , welds were still solid as was the angle .

I think what was mentioned above likely causes more problems for people than they think and that is the power draw on a circuit . I have several different circuits in my shop that I can use for various things . Some will handle the welder , some won't . The ones that can , I have rewired them and have higher capacity breakers on those for the extra load . Others I have left as they are , since they are only used for everyday power tools .

My purchase of this welder was by chance , as my brother was going to sell it along with a bunch of other items he did not need , and I made payments for several months . Otherwise I would of either been with-out a welder or likely would of chosen something different .

Fred H.

Sandlot · May 23, 2010

valley said:
Years ago, I won't say how many, when I was leadman, we had in our shop a small unit that you would grip in the stinger clamp, a tube to the unit would feed Argon gas, inside the procelain cone would be a tungton rod we would sharpen on the grinder. When we got the big water cooled machine and the old one was about to be thrown out I brought it home. I still have it archived.
I remember practicing with it until I was very good. I thought of getting a tank of Argon and regulator to set up again but never have.
Do you remember these?

Yep, we called it a scratch start TIG adapter. The welder at our station used it for TIG welding out in the field. We would have the welding machine and Argon bottle setting on the ground near the boiler and run the leads and hose up to the job. He would connect a remote resistor bank with a rheostat to the end of his welding lead up on the boiler then hook his scratch start setup to that. He would crank his welding machine up above the amps needed for the job and use the resistor bank/rheostat setup to make fine adjustments while up on the boiler. This replaced the foot pedal he would have used welding in the shop. He would need to scratch the tungsten tip on the work to start the arch. The gas was flowing all the time once we turned on the bottle and adjusted the flow, no solenoid valve.