Looking for a shoulder strapped mig, Kemppi, caddy, or GYS?

[taffbats]

Hi guys

A little about myself first, I'm a welder fabricator by trade so have plenty of experience with industrial size welders however I am in the process of building my own home workshop and have reached the stage of cladding the outside of the building, this I am doing with Corten steel cladding at 3mm thick in 415mm wide full length strips and will require alot of outside and up the ladder welding!...my current home welder is a Butters AMT 1800 with upgraded 4 roll wire feed and has been a great machine, however it is built like a tank and impossible to get up a ladder!!..I am looking at maybe flogging the butters to fund either a Kemppi minarcmig, esab caddy 200, or maybe even a GYS pearl? this ideally would weld as good as the butters but give me portability aswell, anybody have any hands on experience with said welders? and what would you guys recommend?
Also anybody know of where I could maybe test all three before I make a purchase?

Cheers
Kev

 

[amron]

Did you consider the possibility to detach/use a seperate feeder, so that you have to climb only with the feeder and not with the whole machine?

 

[shenion]

With a 4-roll feeder it should handle a 25' torch, 15' if you don't have to go up high.. That would be a lot easier to carry up a ladder (and deal with a long gas line.).

On a similar tack, I'd get a stick welder and long leads.

 

[cornishwelding]

Depending on your power supply, the Pearl would do a very good job as it incorporates Flexible Voltage and PFC (power factor correction), basically meaning it will run on a very long extension lead.

The GYSMI 206 FV MMA machine, also has the same FV and PFC, and would put down a 4mm rod on a 13 Amp supply.

The separate wire feeder would be good, but it would cost just as much, if not more to retro fit to the butters, then add 10-15 metres of control cable, power cable and gas hose, fit a chassis socket to the power source, remake the loom to supply the interconnects to the feeder etc.

The Pearl XL takes full sized 15kg rolls of wire, has a 4 roll feeder and a decent duty cycle I think the Minarc can only take a 5kg reel.

Tough one, but if you are going to spend on a new machine that is going to spend the rest of it's life in the workshop, then I would be tempted to buy with that in mind, and have one that better suits a workshop after the one off job is done.

Just my thoughts

Darrin

 

[taffbats]

Thanks for the advice gents, after much deliberation I'm going to bite the bullet and buy the GYS pearl, I like the 4 roll feed and euro connection, I was looking at the trafimet spool gun/extension on fleabay for my butters, but decided I cant be bothered arsing about with it.

 

[pedrobedro]

I wouldn't like to use a welder with a 15kg reel up a ladder on a shoulder strap and the torch cable on the Minarc or Esab is much more flexible than a Euro torch. I am biased as I have an older Minarc mig 180 and I don't think a euro fitting is any advantage on a portable welder. Are you using the welder up the ladder on gasless wire, how far up the ladder are you going to be working ?

 

[cornishwelding]

I wouldn't like to use a welder with a 15kg reel up a ladder on a shoulder strap and the torch cable on the Minarc or Esab is much more flexible than a Euro torch. I am biased as I have an older Minarc mig 180 and I don't think a euro fitting is any advantage on a portable welder. Are you using the welder up the ladder on gasless wire, how far up the ladder are you going to be working ?

I beg to differ, it depends upon the quality of the torch, hyperflex power cables on the Parweld Premium for instance, are very flexible, plus the ability to change the liner for a teflon, swap the outgoing feeder capillary tube for ally is a must.

As the op would like to use it in the workshop after this job, it makes perfect sense to go with a machine that suits the ongoing requirement.

The Pearl's I have put out perform very well, and the PFC and FV enables the use of extra long extensions too