Beginner (ish) multi process welder

[neil neil orange peel]

Hi,

Sorry if this gets asked a lot but I couldn't find any recent posts on multi process welders.

I've got a SIP Migmate 130, which was originally my Dad's and is pretty long in the tooth. Started a project today and getting pretty frustrated, maybe a quarter of my welds at best have been more or less ok, the rest varying between just about acceptable and rubbish. Main issue seems to be inconsistent wire feed, so had a bit of a Google and lo and behold this is a common problem with that set. There's a thread on here about improving it, but I'm thinking maybe just get something better.

I'd like to learn to TIG weld at some point, so thinking a multi process machine. Are these generally any good, or are they too compromised by trying to be too many things?

I have no particular budget in mind yet, as I have no idea what I can get for my money, but I don't mind investing a bit in decent tools (buy cheap buy twice and all that). I'm sure the sky's the limit, but I'm just a hobbyist, so any advice on where the sort of cost cutoff is between something capable of decent welds and something that's not worthwhile would be helpful.

Might be nice to have the option of AC too, but perhaps I'm being a bit over ambitious here?

Cheers

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

I've got a SIP Migmate 130

I had a Migmate....it was dreadful...just really inconsistent. Just when I'd give up it would throw me 1 or 2 perfect welds...just to keep my hope going!

The only silver lining in my story is the bloke who bought it off me on ebay was a bit of a tool...so karma seemed to be restored!

I went for separate machines...bought a Kemppi for mig work which is a synergetic machine (sets itself up given a material thickness).

Plenty folk on here have multi process but a good one I think can be a bit expensive especially if you want ac/dc big too.

Welcome to the forum

 

[neil neil orange peel]

Thanks, I know exactly what you mean about the odd perfect weld, just enough to make you think maybe the set is actually ok.

Been looking around and if I really do want MIG and AC/DC TIG then I'd be looking at the Parweld xtm 211di. It's mightily tempting and would be all the welder I'd ever need, but not sure I can justify the price tag. I think I'm going to go all in on TIG and get a reasonable DC machine to get me started, if I get any good with it I'm not sure I'd use MIG very much after that. Just looking to do some mild steel fabrication at the moment and it's a DIY project so no problem taking plenty of time. Thinking the Rtech 160 set, seems to be plenty of Rtech fans on here. If I decide to try AC down the line I can always sell it and switch to something more capable.

 

[tom2207]

buy your mig ,,,,

when your ready buy a separate tig set .

that way you have a back up if something goes wrong , and it wont work out much more expensive , and a lot less swapping about ,
welcome to the forum too.

 

[addjunkie]

If you aspire to tig aluminium, buy a mig and a separate AcDc tig

 

[Ged93]

It depends only about money and experience .
Multiprocess machines are just a commercial thing , a mig must be a mig , a tig must be a tig , that's it .
A welder which can do everything very well does not exist .

Or maybe yes , I've seen the new iWave from Fronius , that one can do everything ( mig , tig , stick all special processes ) , and costs almost 20'000 euros .......

 

[chrismac]

I have a thermal arc fabricator, it is pretty reasonable bit of kit, I agree that its not the best at everything, the mig is fine, tig is okay, better than lift arc on a basic inverter, at the time it suited me to buy it and its been a good buy, depending on what you want to do,
I also said years ago I would buy a AC/DC machine, I just cant justify it for hobby use at home, I have access to all the gear at work so no real need to spend lots of money on that set up yet!!

 

[hotponyshoes]

I've got a couple of multi-process machines.
They were all bought as I needed a specific feature, non of them bought because they were multipurpose. Ie. I wasn't looking to purchase a decent multipurpose set.

The main issue with them is they are a faff to swap processes. Swapping from mig mode to tig mode is easy as you just press a couple of buttons but swapping torches, gas , wire etc is a pain.
Mind you, I find swapping torches and rollers and gad to go from steel to Alloy in the mig such a pain that I just bought an extra machine.

It's probably even worst as a light/hobby user as you'll spend 15mins swapping everything around to do 5mins of welding. Would not be so bad if you had a day's worth of welding to do after a 15min change over.

You can get multiprocess machines that can have both mig and tig torches connected at the same time, and ones that can have 2 different gases connected at once. They tend to be so expensive that you could buy 2 dedicated machines for the same price and get better proformance from both though.

If you have the space then a transformer mig is cheap enough, either used or new.
A half decent tig set will also run arc rods fine. The tig will cover you for any thin or thick stuff that the mig won't do.

Mig is also very handy for tacking up stuff one-handed before you tig it up nicely. If you are doing one-off/hobby fabrication having both machines in action at once can be a big time saver