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Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / I would for sure get EFI. If what you say is true about power you might want to consider a trailblazer with Excellpower. I only reeves fast enough to produce the power you need kind of like your Honda 2000. noise would be greatly improved over a constant rpm machine. I have a trailblazer 302, 2011 model with EFI and I have never had a problem.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT /
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / Noise is an issue, not so much for me, as I'm part deaf from working around loud machinery. Mostly its my Wife, and the neighbors who might have issue with it. Where I live we get frequent power outages, often lasting one week or more. I already have a 2000 watt honda inverter to keep the heat , refrigerator, Internet, and lights on. Its very good on fuel, and will run for 3 days on my extended tank. After a couple of days it gets old showering and doing laundry at friends houses. I need something bigger to run the water pump , and other appliances. It also has to run the well pump, and air compressor at the horse barn. I will probably build a trailer for it. I think it will be used for power generation as much as it will be for welding. I've been looking at welders on craigslist for quite a while, and either they're beat up sitting a puddle wanting $2000 (ran it last 2 years ago) or they look OK and they want $200 less than a new one. I'm really interested in the EFI, because all the equipment in my yard that runs off gas is constantly having carb issues from the water (tractors ,stump grinders, chiippers, log splitter). Even the old weldanpower150 had the carburetor bowl rust out (epoxy repair) and leak.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / I agree with ironman916. It’s a bit on the loud side.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / I bought a used Ranger 250 a few years ago with less than 100 hours, has served me well, but is a bit loud...
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / I would stay away from any welders in the Bobcat class. The extra $1000 for a trailblazer or a 305G is money well spent. I would buy a used Trailblazer or 305G over a new Bobcat class welder.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / I have the miller 250efi. Use it for heavy stick but mainly for powering my 210mp when I’m out working on projects and would rather mig. I personally don’t like stick and only use it when I can’t use my mig, working with thick stuff or don’t want to spend a time of time on prep and it isn’t crucial I do. Besides that it’s a backup generator at the house. Never had any issues and it always performs as expected Brett
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / Wow, I never saw that deal ! If they were offering a free SW200 with the 250gxt I would have trouble walking away from that. I like the arc force dial, and the digital read outs on the 305g, the TB325 has that too(another$1000). I think Lincoln gives you more power and duty cycle for the money. I don't think that it(305g) has AC though. I need the AC more than I need the extra fifty amps, I weld a lot of stuff exposed to magnets, or weld near them. I don't think I would by the HF unit for AC on Aluminum, because its about the same price as a SW200. Its such a tough choice, because once you begin to settle on one, well , its just another $1000 dollars to the next one, and the next one. Before I know it I'll be bringing home a 500 amp air pack machine to weld up cracked mason dumps, Landscape trailers, lawm mower decks, and hay tedders, arc gouging Kubota B36 buckets LOL. Originally I was looking at the 150 amp units originally, but some of those are $3000 to begin with(just not big enough welder or generator power). Thanks for the info , its good to hear from someone who has actually uses one. Dont know how real some of the online reviews are ( "I bought one today, and the paint is great"). I like to know what they are actually capable of. I don't weld much pipe, mostly beam, channel , and tube, so its good to know it will do 5p+ downhill, and 3/16" 7018 well. I wish you luck with the Lincoln, hope it makes you some money
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / I was going to buy a 250gxt at the end of 2017 when they had the special with a free Mig, plasma, or tig machine. I passed on it and wound up buying a 305g instead in February. I’m really happy with it. I’m glad I chose it because the downhill pipe mode and the arc force dial. For an extra $900, it was well worth it in my opinion. Also, I wouldn’t be running it to the max with some 3/16” 7018. So far I’m very happy with it. It will downhill 5p+ like a champ too.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / For generator power the 250 machines are great and you can't go wrong. We have bobcats at work with over 5,000 hours on them being used to run grinders, hammer drills, and charge batteries as well as weld at the same time. We weld with the machines 40+ hour a week and at that point you really notice the difference between the 250 and 300+ amp machines. For occasional welding but mainly power generation the 250 machines should serve you well.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / Thanks for the replies. After looking at the price of wire feeders, I'll probably do anything bigger with stick. I plan on using my 210mp for wire welding for now. Right now I'm running(at the machines limit) .035" dual shield, .045" innershield, and a spoolgun with .035" aluminum on the 210mp. I'll probably only use 2 or 3 times a week for a couple of hours at a time. It will probably be put into service as a generator occasionally. Thats why I was curious about how loud the lincoln was. Its not as much a problem for me as much as my wife, and my neighbors. Power goes out here alot, 3 outages here already this year. Last time it was for over a week, and several last year. I was mildly surprised that the EFI option was only $200 dollars more. The trailblazer is just a little out of my budget right now, but I have been staring at the brochure for 20 years now,,,, I think the scale is tipping towards blue .. Besides, I missed the deadline for the Lincoln "money matters" promotion.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / Red or blue doesn't matter but I would recommend the 325 Trailblazer or the 305G Ranger instead of the Bobcat or 250 GTX. If you are welding for more then 4 hours a day you will definitely notice the difference. You will be able to run .045" dual shield or .068 flux core on the 250 amp machine but you are going to be overworking them. If you don't want to spend the extra money for the 305G or the Trailblazer I have had better experiences with the Bobcat over the 250 GTX. To be honest I have used at least 5 different GTXs in the last 2 years and was not impressed with the way they weld or with their power output. It is possible to make good welds with them but there is a noticeable irregularity to the arc after they have been running for a while.
Re: New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / Just my 2 cents... In that class of machine I have had better luck with Blue than Red. I would definitely go fuel injection, My new TB 325 starts much easier than my old 302's and uses quite a bit less gas. For the wires you asked about, a 300 amp class machine may be a better choice, .068 T-11 fluxcore hits my Trailblazer at 265 +/- amps easy on heavy stuff.
New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT / My lincoln weldanpower 150 has begun to sink into the earth. After 6 years the repair of this unit (bad armature,open somewhere in the middle) costs too much to repair for too little capacity. The wife has green lighted the purchase a new welder/generator. The selection has come down to the Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT. Both have fairly similar specs, with the lincoln with a lttle more duty cycle than the miller.Most of my work is Machine repair, small trailers, chippers, small/medium dump bodies, gates/pens , Gentlemen farmer equipment compact tractor equipment.Just a few questions the salesman couldn't answer. Is the Lincoln that much louder than the miller ? Is the EFI a worthy investment, and is it reliable ? Will a 250 amp machine run .045" dual shield, and .068 flux core(gasless) Is there anything very different that I'm missing, both machines are within a few hundred dollars of each other. Lincoln sale ends tomorrow with $400 dollars off. Any opoinions, Red, or Blue ?
New Miller bobcat 250 EFI or the Lincoln Ranger 250 GXT /
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