Hi folks,
Looking for a cheap (ideally <£100 but definitely <£200) stick welder and there are loads on the Ebay that all look fine - I bet they're all made in the same factory but are there any that are better than others? I already have a nice Lincoln MIG and an AC/DC TIG machine that live in the workshop. This will purely be used for thick structural sections (>6mm) in the workshop (which is infrequent) and used on site. This is mostly agricultural type welding and some repairs. I expect to be running 2.5 & 3.2 electrodes (probably mostly 3.2). Most likely will be mild steel only but perhaps some casting repairs. Duty cycle isn't hugely important because it's not a production environment. I'm also not overly bothered about warranties etc as this price point they're basically disposable but I would be expecting to get a couple of years out of it (maybe seeing an average of 30 mins work / week). DC only is fine - unless there's a good reason it shouldn't be that I'm unaware of.
Here are a couple I've considered:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MMA-200-A...744710?hash=item3f84ba5946:g:MPoAAOSwRFFZlgMN
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200AMP-HF...557188&hash=item41cac10e1c:g:FI4AAOSwgQRZbFw-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200AMP-MM...533702?hash=item2f0d0ec146:g:OzwAAOSwjoFZq1hP
I was going to go for the Aldi one recently, but I missed out unfortunately! Has anyone got particularly good experiences to share?
Looking for a cheap (ideally <£100 but definitely <£200) stick welder and there are loads on the Ebay that all look fine - I bet they're all made in the same factory but are there any that are better than others? I already have a nice Lincoln MIG and an AC/DC TIG machine that live in the workshop. This will purely be used for thick structural sections (>6mm) in the workshop (which is infrequent) and used on site. This is mostly agricultural type welding and some repairs. I expect to be running 2.5 & 3.2 electrodes (probably mostly 3.2). Most likely will be mild steel only but perhaps some casting repairs. Duty cycle isn't hugely important because it's not a production environment. I'm also not overly bothered about warranties etc as this price point they're basically disposable but I would be expecting to get a couple of years out of it (maybe seeing an average of 30 mins work / week). DC only is fine - unless there's a good reason it shouldn't be that I'm unaware of.
Here are a couple I've considered:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MMA-200-A...744710?hash=item3f84ba5946:g:MPoAAOSwRFFZlgMN
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200AMP-HF...557188&hash=item41cac10e1c:g:FI4AAOSwgQRZbFw-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200AMP-MM...533702?hash=item2f0d0ec146:g:OzwAAOSwjoFZq1hP
I was going to go for the Aldi one recently, but I missed out unfortunately! Has anyone got particularly good experiences to share?