Lonnie-S wrote:
I looked more at reviews of their TIG welders around Christmas time and found the reviews were surprisingly good (about B to B+ grades, generally) for their new, Vulcan line of TIG machines. I did not check on their MIG welders, however.
Starting with online reviews is a good place to go. There are often video reviews on YouTube as well. On YouTube you have to put a little time into evaluating the experience level and background of the reviewers. Sometimes they are people who are definitely qualified, and sometimes not.
I took a cursory look at the HF website for the MIG 215. It has all the basics you'll need for our level of MIG welding: 120/240V; multiple wire sizes; wire speed control; voltage control; and material thickness settings. You can do 90% of the work needed on a Locost at 120V, but 220V is nice for thicker materials now and again. The material thickness settings are good a lot of the time, but you will find situations where you have to set the wire speed and voltage settings to get the weld quality you want.
It would certainly be worth investigating. I would not bother with flux core for Locost welding, but it can be useful for infrastructure projects around your home shop like making things out of 1/8" thick angle iron, fab'ing welding tables, etc., so if they give you flux core wire with the product, don't throw it away.
Cheers,
I did 100% of my Locost welding with a 120V MIG, even my halfshaft shortening welds. I never had a problem. It is the same mfgr/model as Ron Champion shows in "The Book" although his was naturally 220V/50Hz. I recently bought an AlphaTIG 200X for teaching myself TIG. It is 115/230V. I will keep the 120V MIG too.
_________________
Chuck.
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