Which mig welder

[marcus-young]

I need some help choosing a suitable welder. i am a motorsport engineering student, and am currently undertaking a few projects. i have several welding jobs to do therefore plan on learnng. i preferably dont want to spend more than £200, i have no objections to buying used besides the fact that i dont really know enough to know if im buying good stuff or not. the most i really will be using the welder for is such as roll cage tubing and general automotive use. also it has to be less that 2.8kw absorbed power due to most of the usage being from my generator. i definitely want to be able to weld with gas, if its gasless it would be a bonus. if anybody can suggest anything to me the help it would be greatly appreciated

 

[shenion]

What power is your generator? A 130A MIG is usually 2.4KVA. The minimum recommended generator would be 5kVA and preferred would be above 7KVA.

130A will barely do 3mm. You would want more like 150.

I get the feeling you cant get there from here with your current power setup You probably could do low-power bodywork welding though.

The Clarke 151EN would be a minimum I'd recommend.

 

[marcus-young]

My generator is 2.8kva. I was under the impression that because I won't be running the welder for prolonged periods of time that I would be fine running 2.4kva. The roll cage tube has a 2.5mm wall thickness, this is the thickest I should need to weld. Can I not run a welder suitable of welding this off 2.8kva? Also you suggest a 150, would this require a 16amp socket installing? Cheers

 

[shenion]

On a small generator, the MIG will be unstable and may damage the generator as it has large current spikes.

A 150A will run off a 13A for short periods on full power.

 

[xboxjoner]

I have a 200amp welder that runs fine off a 13amp 3 pin plug, dont know about running off a generator though because of power spikes as already said above.

 

[Wozzaaah]

^ you won't be getting the full 200 amps out of it though, not on a 13A supply, no way no how.

 

[marcus-young]

have taken advice and bought a 5.5Kva honda generator. also as it happens my mate has the clarke 151en welder which he going to teach me to weld on until i recover from the cost of the genny and can afford to buy 1 of my own lol

 

[keith19]

Keep your generator somewhere safe and secure. There is a type of people who travel about a great deal who always have a particular interest in generators...

 

[marcus-young]

funnily enough, if your thinking of the same sort of people as me, they dont really travel anywhere,but theres a site full of the f*****s about 2 miles from my house.. few years back my dads garage got rinsed of all its tools by them. not taking any chances there lol

 

[StickNtig]

Just a suggestion but if your doing primarily roll cages and thin wall tubing have you thought of getting a TIG set instead?

 

[marcus-young]

I have thought about it, but from what iv heard tig is much harder. And I don't know if I'd ever do it enough to be competent. I would love to learn tig though. I don't know what other people's views are on this

 

[StickNtig]

A couple of weeks practice should have you putting decent enough beads down with the tig and you'll keep improving as you go on and be able to make the finished products look really good, its definitly a skill worth learning. Squirty is okay but a half-witted chimp could learn mig in an hour!

So if your after learning a skill you have my opinion.