im in the market for a 220 mig welder. what do you guys recommend? i would like one that welds at least 3/8" in a single pass. gas sheilded of course. ive herd the lincoln is the best, but what about the miller guys. thanks again for all your guys help. hddm3:grd:

I just bought a Miller welder a week or so ago. Works very well it is the miller matic 251 welds up to 1/2 in a single pass. Dunno who told you Lincoln was the best but I have to disagee never cared for Lincoln welder at all. Miller is the best IMO

Miller is the best, I'd say also...........250 Millermatic is what I bought also..........

Millermatic, The only way to go.

I went with a Miller years ago and have been well served. My Millermatic 185 has done 1/4" steel plate with good penetration in a single pass. Haven't tried anything heavier. Bought the spool gun and have done aluminum with it as well.

Stu

I was really intrigued by the miller passport unit when I was looking about a year ago. Basically seems to give MM210 performance on 240v and MM135 performance on 120v in a 45 lb package and is optimized to run on straight CO2 for MIG. Comes at a price tho' so I didn't pull the trigger.

Would love to hear if anyone actually has one and what they thought about it.

hddm3, blue or red you won't go wrong (grey and yellow, maybe?). I lean to blue. Why? The best welder I ever met runs nothing but. However, he does it as a living. The second best welder I ever met uses all Red gear and does it as a hobby. It's the the guy holding the torch, not the color of the box, that gets the job done.

Go to a local dealer and see what they have. I found my local guys are very price competitive with ebay and online stores and they are there when I need advice or parts.

Some are true to the Blue. I personally own a Lincoln and have used both. They both produce great products and you can't go wrong with either one. Shop around though, it will pay off.
www.cyberweld.com usually has some pretty competitve prices.

toolking.com

I was in this same spot a bit ago......I got a Hobart 140 for MIG and a Miller thunderbolt ACDC stick for (way) less the cost of a 220v mig.

ebay and craigslist are great too.

I have had my lincoln sp200 since 1980 it went in once for a circuit board or something. it works for me. miller also makes great machines. at the time I had an in at a lincoln dealer got it reasonable. with the co2 bottle and the twico gun .

Personally, if you can afford it. I would get a Hobart. They are a very smooth welder and have very little problems with boards and feeders. They are a single phase welder but still gives you the opportunity to run a bigger bead and get better penetration for single passes. Most 3 phase welders will allow you to run nicer welds and use less power but you need 3 phase power close. Hobart has an industrial class of machines and can weld up to 1/2" material @ 250a.

http://www.hobartwelders.com/products/IronMan250.html

Agreed with Rcher: HOBART is a very good option, had 2 in my AG class. zero issues...and a bunch of city kids played with it...(as in changed amps ect. during a load.)

I bought one recently and have nothing to complain about.

Matt

Check the Hobart out though. The cheaper versions have PLASTIC drive wheels for the wire feed. I looked at all of them and ended up with a 220V Lincoln. I couldn't justify the additional cost of the Miller for my limited use. I would have bought the Miller if I used it everyday. But my Lincoln was alot cheaper and does anything I could ask for.

E-bay was the cheapest place I found....

I have the Lincoln mig 175. Does just what I want it to do and maybe more. I use the Miller at my work.
Now I am not a welder, just a hobbiest so my opinions are not profesional.
I believe any of the bigger names in welding will have two versions of welders on the market. Ones for the industrial and ones for the hobbiest like ourselves.
My Lincoln will weld just as good as the Miller at my work for what I am using it for. I have had it for two years now with mixed gas. I have made receivers, metal work benches, repairs to trailers, etc... and the welds are still strong.
Shop around, but the best deal is not always the way to go. As mentioned talk with the dealers that sell the major brands and the ones that have a good PR are the ones I would go with. You will always need welding items and repalacement parts and chances are they will treat you right as a repeat customer.
On a side note I thought I had heard that Hobart was made by Miller or the other way around. Sorta like Dewalt and Black & Decker.

My dealer told me the same about hobart and miller. Hobart is a cheaper version of miller.
PS I have the Lincoln 175 too! and it's great...

I have been a welder since I was 10 and am now 53. I started out with the Lincoln pipeliner as they called them then and have run them all. Just about what everyone here has said makes sense to me. I would look for any welder that has at least an 80% duty cycle. That means you can run welds for 8 out of 10 minutes and anything less would not work. If you have something that is only a 5% or so you will wait for the weld machine to cool down before you can get it very hot again or it just burns up. PERIOD! They all have there own bells and whistles and myself I perfer the miller and the hobart for a shop type machine. But they will all do about the same thing, just depends on what you look and want as options. But the first thing is what is the DUTY CYCLE??

Phillip
03 DA
I LUV my truck

im in the market for a 220 mig welder. what do you guys recommend? i would like one that welds at least 3/8" in a single pass. gas sheilded of course. ive herd the lincoln is the best, but what about the miller guys. thanks again for all your guys help. hddm3:grd:

I have a Lincoln 255 at home for a long loan. It is tryly amazing
how much metal that thing will lay down. It has the geared, paired
steel pinch rollers. I went through 4 10 lbs spools of 0.035 ER70S
and stepped up to the 44 lb spools.

Welding 5/8" plate with 30 degree bevel 2-side butt joints I was
moving so fast it was hard to stay away from the hot metal. A
bit of 5/8" wall steel tube went in two passes. The closed loop
speed control with digital readout for voltage and speed is really
really sweet. I like the automated thermal managment; the fan
turns on when the machine needs cooling and turns off otherwise.

With 0.045 wire and a mix of 10% helium and 90% CO2 you should
be able to weld 3/8 single pass at good speed. Buy some "TriMix"
and try that out. You need a
GOOD 50 amp circuit to plug in the machine. What is the duty
cycle for this work? The machine will heat up some, but in the process
you get LOTS of hot metal pieces.

I have a Lincoln power mig 215 and absoultley love it. Been running it for 3 years with zero problems. For about $1200 you can't go wrong. I also bought the spool gun kit and dual gas bottle mounts. This unit will weld from .040 to 3/8" steel with no problem. I've welded my 1.5" thick truck pulling hitch up,(multiple passes) and no issues all last season.