harbour freight welder. deal or no deal?

[T77911S]

saw this. dont know if 120 amps is too limiting? it does flux and mig wire.

they go on sale soon for $139.

120 Amp, 230 Volt MIG and Flux Welder, Reconditioned

[TechnoViking]

I have that welder. It's a decent, general purpose, budget welder.

What the picture does not show you is is has no electrical plug. Just a wire. You have to fit a plug on it that will match your 220V outlet.

I think you do get what you pay for, and a $1000+ welder would be better. Better range of settings, better reliability, etc. Probly better-looking welds But if you're cheap like me, you can make this one work for a lot of stuff around the house.

Another downside of all 220V setups is they are not portable like a 110V is. Try buying a 50' extension cord for it and you'll see what I mean.

See if you can get one of those 20% off coupons to use in conjunction with the sale. Sometimes they let you do that at HF.

[Jagshund]

If you're planning on doing a lot of welding, save your money and buy a Miller or LE. I've only seen one HF unit fail, but I've only known one person who's owned one.

[legion]

I decided to get a Lincoln 140T. I decided I could either get a cheap welder that I hated using or a better one that costs more.

From what I gather the HF units are usable, but they are hard to dial in.

[MotoSook]

I have the 120 VAC MIG (flux core or gas) welder from HF, and it's been going strong for probably 5 years. IIRC, I paid $150 for it + wire + gas tank at my local Air Gas dealer.

Only time I needed something bigger or better was when welding 1/4" steel plates.

I'm happy with my HF welder. If it craps out tomorrow, I can probably get it fixed for cheap. Not like there is much to them....and at this point, I've already gotten my money's worth time and time again.

[greglepore]

the liner in the torch is crap and will jam and misfeed if you use it much

[cstreit]

I've used one for quite some time. It has 4 fixed heat ranges so sometimes can be a challenge, but if you aren't welding up roll cages or artificial hips, it's fine for basic utility welding.

[juanbenae]

mine weld nary a life line...

[sammyg2]

I used to have the 120v version of the flux core wire feed HF mig.
Total POS.
I ended up selling it to a pelican for $50 at his insistence after I told him it was junk.
Maybe I just got a bad one, I dunno. But it was worthless.

[red-beard]

I have the 120V mig flux-wire unit. It works fine for my needs and skills, not often and poor.

I was able to weld repair the seat from my Jeep pretty well. I even attacked any spot with a slight crack. The seat is now solid.

If I were to really get into welding, I'd buy something better. But the 2 or 3 times I year I need to sloppily fix something, it's fine.

[stogie25]

The welder should be fine depending on what you want to use it for.

I have a HF stick welder. It works well on small projects. I used it to build the fenders on my Jeep (a very big project). It was not the welding that was the problem. The problem was we would weld for 10 minutes, then it would have to cool down for 40 minutes. The end result was good. It just took a lot of patience because of the duty cycle of the welder. On the third picture, notice the fan pointed at the welder to try to extend the welding times, and shorten the cooling times. It was February.