I didn't realize you have a FREE 69 SA 200 at your disposal! Almost as good as striking gold.:cool2: Unless it was burn't out, it's worth looking into getting running. It is a RED Face for sure and very desirable!:thumbsup::thumbsup: Even if it's beyond your budget to fix, it's worth good money to the right buyer. Pipe welders will spend $4 or $5000 having Red Faces completely refurbished better than new. Some will even pay double that to get a Tom Fowler Mainliner SA. SA 200's are really popular with pipe welders because of how they work doing downhand pipe welding with XX10 rods. You can drag the rod on the pipe and have a consistent smooth arc. I have heard from an extremely knowledgeable welding instructor and former Miller rep. that Miller portables can tend to re-rectify the arc when dragging the rod going vertical down because they are a 3 phase alternator using a rectifier to get DC current. Something like that anyway. There are some Millers that are better for pipe welding though.
Remote controls aren't really for changing the current when welding, well for TIG they are. Changing current with one hand while using the crash and burn one handed method on the stinger? I don't think you could adjust the current fast enough for what you needed to change. You could do that easier by manipulating the rod as necessary. Remote's are nice to have because depending on the weld you want, you can adjust as needed without going back to the machine. The root pass may need less heat than the fill and cap passes. The 5 current ranges should never be adjusted when welding. You'd have serious arcing/melting/welding of the contacts not to mention your weld would go cold for a second when you switched ranges. SA 200's vary the open circuit voltage from about 55 to 90 volts with the 5 overlapping current ranges. This affects how forceful or soft the arc is. Older SA200's use all copper windings which lets a welder set their heat in the morning and it' stays consistent all day long. The 73-till early 90's? SA 200's used some aluminum winding's that required changing the settings as the welder warmed up and cooled off for lunch breaks and such. A royal PIA! The Classic series and still available diesel models went back to the old all copper winding's. Not as good as the older Red faces(60's) and short hoods(40's/50's)but close. For most welding other than pipe, most welders wouldn't notice a difference between an SA 200 over other DC welders. All stick welding machines will vary the amperage somewhat with arc length. This wasn't a unique feature of SA 200's. Open circuit volts drops from 55-90 down to around 24 arc volts. MIG welders are opposite and are called constant voltage machines, which means you set the voltage and it stays pretty consistent. Basically, stick welding machines are constant current/variable voltage and MIG machines are constant voltage/variable current(amps). It's a little..or a lot confusing sometimes.
