Hello,
I bought one of these and I thought I'd give my opinions on it in case other people were thinking about buying one. I bought it off of Amazon. I paid approx. $352 for it with a 6 year warranty. The extended warranty is through Amazon.
I built this cart using scrap metal and this little welder.
I bought the welder because my Firepower was in the shop. I figured it would take forever to get it back. They were out of Weldpro's when I ordered one. The Weldpro arrived the same day I got my other welder back from repairs. I used the Weldpro heavy just to see what it could do. I am happy with it.
Pros:
It's lite. About 25 pounds with a 2 pound spool of wire.
It runs 1/8" 7018 on 110 volts. I had an ESAB Mini Arc 130 that had a hard time with 1/8" 7018 rod. This one ran it, maybe a little cold. Ran it with no problems on 220 volts.
It's dual voltage.
It was cheap.
Has a 6 year warranty.
The packing was incredible. I have never received anything packed this good.
Welds great.
1/4" steel in single pass with .030 and 75/25.
Cons:
It's cheap. Surprisingly good quality, but they did cut a few corners.
6 foot MIG gun. It's a good thing the machine is lite.
Wire feed roll is held on by a plastic lock, as is the wire spool. I would really be happier to have metal bolts here.
No adjustment for the wire spool tension? Well it adjusts, just not they way you'd think. There are 2 springs for the wire spool roll. If the tension is too low, swap it out for stronger spring. Too tight, use the softer spring. Still too tight, just tear the label off of the wire. You read that right, remove the label from the spool.
No weld settings chart. Well there is one in the book, but it's worthless.
Impressions:
I have ran quite a few beads with this machine. It performs very good. In fact, I sold my Mini Arc 130 and replaced it with this.
1/4" steel 75/25 .030 wire welder settings maxed out.
1/4" one pass, 75/25 .030 wire. The spatter was because the nozzle was full of gunk. Or it may have been because my hand shakes pretty bad. Either way, it was my bad, not the machines. Both wire feed speed and volts are maxed out for this weld.
This seems to be a decent little machine. I bought it because I like the stick ability along with the wire feed. I currently have an ESAB Multimaster 260, a Firepower 220i, and the Weldpro 155GSV. The Multimaster is too heavy to transport to and from work. I can carry the Firepower, but it's a pain. My 7 year old granddaughter could probably carry the Weldpro. And if it breaks, or someone steals it.... Did I mention that it was cheap?
I will add more photos in a followup post.
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