New club member :D

[londonsean69]

Well, after very little persuasion I am now the owner of a nice, shiny red 185.

Delivered today, and was extremely well packed, with no damage whatsoever.

Looks like the earlier carrier problems have been resolved.

Only problem is I have to wait till next week to use it!!

Absolute top class service from Steve (weldequip) and Portamig.

Sean

 

[londonsean69]

Erm, not many people posting in the Portamig forum would have a Lincoln welder

 

[malcolm]

Erm, not many people posting in the Portamig forum would have a Lincoln welder

I've moved that one to it's own thread - first time on a forum is very confusing.

Welcome to the Portamig club. What did you upgrade from? Should be interested in your impressions.

 

[londonsean69]

I upgraded from a Sealey 130 hobby type macchine.

It was OK, but I was fed up of buying small gas bottles for it. I know I could have converted it, but the torch was starting to get knackered as well, leading to wire feed problems.

So I decided to treat my company (me) to an early christmas present, and lower my tax liability on the way (it's treated as plant and machinery)

First impressions on opening the box were of a very nice, solid unit.

The switches just ooze industrious, they feel so solid and chunky, rather than cheap and nasty.

I have a busy week at work, but will be picking up an X30 of Ar/CO2 and an X10 of AR from an Air Products distributor in Surbiton.

Hopefully getting a load of steel next weekend so will be putting it through it's paces, plus I need to finish of a Stainless exhaust on me bike. The SS welding has beeen going well on the little machine, but where I joined the SS to the existing MS headers I was blowing through the rusty, thin, MS, even using the 'pulse' method in the tutorials.

Hopefully the lower settings and better wire feed on the Portamig will allow me to build up a thickness of steel on the join, and cover all the pinholes.

Will hopefully have some bits soon for the projects forum.

Sean

 

[Psymon]

Portamig 181

I too upgraded this week. From a tired Sealey MightyMig 100 - been using it with gasless because of regulator problem. Resulting bird poo welds made me decide on a quality welder.

So now a proud owner of a Portamig 181. Been using it a few hours yesterday. Very nice machine, quality build and great to use. I am nothing like a pro but having a decent bit of kit means now I have no excuses when laying welds!

It has a roll of 0.8mm gas wire on it at the moment. Really want to get doing thinner stuff so next roll will be 15kg of 0.6mm. Now I can finally finish my welding desk and clear out the garage. So much junk in there really needs to go to Ebay, Freecycle or the dump.

Next project is a stove for the garage - hope to get it finished before the snow! If only the wife would allow me to have some time to get it done. At the moment there is plenty of decorating to do and my time gets split between work, decoration, wife and child entertaining and then finally welding...

 

[future_jack]

Congrats. I've a nice yellow one!

 

[Neil Fletcher]

Might just have to join this club myself, I tried a 185 a couple of days ago after my very old SIP 150 died a death - I guess it didn't owe me much as I did buy it secondhand from a garage about 22 years ago. I must admit that I was well impressed with the general build quality and ease of use. Most of my work is at rusty old cars so I liked the low power settings.

The only thing that surprised me was how light and plasticy the wire feed mechanism looked but then I'm used to the massive alloy frame and alloy gearbox of my SIP, plus the SIP had a motor that would double as a starter motor on a small car but then I've noticed that most modern welders seem to have quite a small wire feed mechanism.

Now I just need to drop a few subtle hints about the house about what I'd like for x-mas.

All the best, Neil.

Neil Fletcher Racing

 

[Johnny™]

hello Neil,

Im just up the road from you in Moira, ive had my 185 for a few months now but only started welding with it in earnest. I thought the wire feed was very sturdy compared to the migs ive seen before?

Anyway im still trying to get a decent weld using CO2, im definitely considering argoshield instead as the CO2 is too hard to get smooth on thin metal. Im constantly blowing holes :/

 

[Neil Fletcher]

Well it's here, my new 185. Many thanks to Weldequip.

It arrived about 1.30 pm on Monday and for once in my life I screwed something completely together before starting to use it. It was about 3.00 pm before I lit an arc and I've been using it almost constantly until now 1.45 am

There'll be no excuse now for not getting a few of these projects of mine finished off. It's only when you get a good machine that you begin to realise that you've spent the last 20 odd years adjusting my technique to work round the faults in my old machine.

All the best, Neil.

 

[londonsean69]

Well, after having it for a couple of months, I finally got to use mine on Sunday evening.

Wired in a plug, hit the on switch and nothing happened.
Checked the plug was wired correctly (it was) so whipped off the side panel and found a pair of connectors from the power lead to the switch were not connected.

Once sorted I connected my nice new bottle of Argo' Light and laid down a really nice, smooth weld on some 25x25x2 box section I had lying around.

Penetration was crap, but the weld was really nice and smooth, and very easy to lay down.

Upped the power a touch and spent about 30 mins just running beads, practicing a few butt fillet and mitre joints.

The diffference between using the Portamig and my old Sealy was phenomenal.
Everything just worked as it should, the wire feed was really smooth and constant, and having a 4m torch means I don't need to move it around much (which at 47kg plus 35kg gas bottle is a relief).

Really nice machine and I can't wait to use it in anger.

Sean

PS My 16amp RCD didn't like the welder being set on max power

 

[English Steve]

Got my 185 at the end of April, and have just loaded the 6th 5kg roll of wire. It has been well and truly tested and I have to say I remain impressed.

Hope you chaps are as happy with it in a few months as I am now

 

[Neil Fletcher]

Hope you chaps are as happy with it in a few months as I am now

If it goes as well as my old SIP did then I'll still be as happy with it in 20 years time as I am now. This is two nights in a row now that I've been welding to 2 am with it.

All the best, Neil.

Neil Fletcher Racing

 

[Wozzaaah]

whipped off the side panel and found a pair of connectors from the power lead to the switch were not connected.

PS My 16amp RCD didn't like the welder being set on max power

Sounds like a Friday afternoon one

Assuming the one you've got now is a normal type B, change the RCD for a type C or if you can get one, a type D, that should sort it .

 

[madkayaker]

Do you meen RCD or MCB?

 

[Wozzaaah]

MCB

 

[madkayaker]

Just testing. There is two types of RCD A and S A type are the normal one and S is a time delayed to allow discrimination between multiple RCD on the same circuit.

 

[londonsean69]

Sorry, I mean MCB

I don't have an RCD on my dist. board in the garage

Sean