Got a Harbor freight titanium 125 flux core.wire feeder

[tapwelder]

Picked it up last night. Have not welded with fluxcore on about 15 yrs. Thought i might be able to use it instead of stick for outside installs. Probably could but o have no use for this process.

The machine will weld. Produces great heat for upto 3/16. Took 4 minutes ro set up to weld. Must of that time was spent feeding the wire. It has a jog switch inside but that was discovered after I paid attention the instructions.

I cannot believe i used to weld with this stuff. I could not seen the edges of the puddle. Lots of spatter and residue. The only issue with the welder is it pisses our occasionally. I thought if was because my contact tip was to close as it was shorting across spatter, but it happened with a 1 in space.
I thought I could use for tacking steel for gang cutting, but nope. Too

I will return it tomorrow.

A couple welds. Veritcal up capping a 6013 bead on 1/8" used machine setting deom.the panel.

The second is a.butt joining 2 1/16" steel tubes.

I could see the puddle but not the edges of puddle.

[tapwelder]

I am not trashing the machine. It weld well. I personally have no use no shielded flux core.

Only issue i did have was the arc powering tapering/sputtering during welding. At some point during the long weld it would taper off them go back to normal. ??? Those are 6 inch continuous welds. I did not play with setting

[smithdoor]

I take it the first use of fluxcore.
I do not like 120volt welders
But to get the best out of a to 120 volt you need to use E70-GS 0.030 wire. They say you can use other size but does not work well for most welders.

Note the Chicago 170 is a 240 volt welder and does work great.

Dave

Picked it up last night. Have not welded with fluxcore on about 15 yrs. Thought i might be able to use it instead of stick for outside installs. Probably could but o have no use for this process.

The machine will weld. Produces great heat for upto 3/16. Took 4 minutes ro set up to weld. Must of that time was spent feeding the wire. It has a jog switch inside but that was discovered after I paid attention the instructions.

I cannot believe i used to weld with this stuff. I could not seen the edges of the puddle. Lots of spatter and residue. The only issue with the welder is it pisses our occasionally. I thought if was because my contact tip was to close as it was shorting across spatter, but it happened with a 1 in space.
I thought I could use for tacking steel for gang cutting, but nope. Too

I will return it tomorrow.

A couple welds. Veritcal up capping a 6013 bead on 1/8" used machine setting deom.the panel.

The second is a.butt joining 2 1/16" steel tubes.

I could see the puddle but not the edges of puddle.

[California]

Picked it up last night.
I will return it tomorrow.

I could see the puddle but not the edges of puddle.

Put it on Craigslist for more than you paid! HF here shows none of those available anywhere. But you can order now for delivery next June.

After trying several brands I settled on INE flux core wire. It welds nice and has less smoke so you can see what you are doing.

[tapwelder]

Thanks. I will try some lincoln stufff tonight

[tapwelder]

Oh my. Picked a spool of lincoln. Nr211. What a difference over the roll supplied with the machine.

Thank for the tip. The dream is still alive...

[smithdoor]

I am glad 😊 the welder is working for you.

Dave

Oh my. Picked a spool of lincoln. Nr211. What a difference over the roll supplied with the machine.

Thank for the tip. The dream is still alive...

[California]

Oh my. Picked a spool of lincoln. Nr211. What a difference over the roll supplied with the machine.

Thank for the tip. The dream is still alive...

Here's a Youtube comparison of flux core wires. Start watching at the 14 minutes point for his conclusions. He liked the Lincoln NR-211 best. (I haven't used Lincoln NR-211).

He overlooked one issue: Small rolls of Lincoln NR-211 are only 1 lb, so it's twice as expensive as the others he tried that are on 2 lb rolls.

He rated the Hobart wire from Tractor Supply second. I agree, I've used that and found it better than most others I've tried. But I like the INE wire I mentioned above, the best of anything I've used.

Vulcan wire trial starts at 8 minutes, Lincoln at 10 minutes.

[tapwelder]

Yeah, a marked difference in smoothness, crispness, view and spatter adhesion is less. Less residue travel, i think? I will look for the INE wire.

Here is vertical up on 3/16. Not sure what happened at the beginning/porosity. At the top the wire sputtered and the tip glowed orange and bend.

The other is flat 1/16" butt.

Pretty satisfied.

One a advantage over stick is no stubs to dispose of.

Anybody know how 1lb of wire last compared to 1 lb of stick? Or idea how to compare

[smithdoor]

It about same depending the rod and fluxcore.
There are charts and tables

I know some welders I have know will a vertical up for welding then cover pass down.
My self I can see the different of up and down welding so would do the welding per specifications for type of work.

Dave

Yeah, a marked difference in smoothness, crispness, view and spatter adhesion is less. Less residue travel, i think? I will look for the INE wire.

Here is vertical up on 3/16. Not sure what happened at the beginning/porosity. At the top the wire sputtered and the tip glowed orange and bend.

The other is flat 1/16" butt.

Pretty satisfied.

One a advantage over stick is no stubs to dispose of.

Anybody know how 1lb of wire last compared to 1 lb of stick? Or idea how to compare

[California]

I just noticed that the Lincoln and Hobart flux wires are both "E71T-11, AWS 5.20" specified alloy. So the Hobart should in theory run the same as Lincoln.

While the E71T-GS spec shown on most brands, means whatever the manufacturer considers suitable. So there can be wide differences between brands. And the customer can only judge quality in advance, by the manufacturer's reputation.


I've mentioned this before but Tapwelder may not have seen it: My first flux welder was a blue Harbor Freight 90a AC 'Mig-100' 15 years ago. All it would do is spit, not weld. I returned it.

Then I noticed a large number of them on Ebay including a professional liquidator listing many.

A year later I bought the same model and it welded ok. I suspect HF included the lowest quality of flux wire on that earlier batch of welders, and that mistake doomed that entire earlier batch of welders. So nearly all of that batch immediately became customer returns. I can't think of any other reason for that sudden huge number of them as 'as new - open box' on Ebay.

[smithdoor]

My self I view Amazon and Walmart or any other place I can the best price.
Band Name is only if the best price.

Dave

I just noticed that the Lincoln and Hobart flux wires are both "E71T-11, AWS 5.20" specified alloy. So the Hobart should in theory run the same as Lincoln.

While the E71T-GS spec shown on most brands, means whatever the manufacturer considers suitable. So there can be wide differences between brands. And the customer can only judge quality in advance, by the manufacturer's reputation.


I've mentioned this before but Tapwelder may not have seen it: My first flux welder was a blue Harbor Freight 90a AC 'Mig-100' 15 years ago. All it would do is spit, not weld. I returned it.

Then I noticed a large number of them on Ebay including a professional liquidator listing many.

A year later I bought the same model and it welded ok. I suspect HF included the lowest quality of flux wire on that earlier batch of welders, and that mistake doomed that entire earlier batch of welders. So nearly all of that batch immediately became customer returns. I can't think of any other reason for that sudden huge number of them as 'as new - open box' on Ebay.

[California]

My self I view Amazon and Walmart or any other place I can the best price.
Band Name is only if the best price.

Dave

What do you think of the house-brand flux wire from the big sellers on Ebay - Welding City for example?

They have extensive positive feedback from many repeat customers.

Do those high-volume sellers represent first-tier quality, or just a lot of bulk sales where the buyer says to his employee "you're a professional welder, make this stuff work".

?

[tapwelder]

I use to use Blue demon with the GS designation as I recall it was not as messy at the HF.

I got some hobart fabshield today.

[farmersammm]

I am not trashing the machine. It weld well. I personally have no use no shielded flux core.

Only issue i did have was the arc powering tapering/sputtering during welding. At some point during the long weld it would taper off them go back to normal. ??? Those are 6 inch continuous welds. I did not play with setting

My Hobart will get increasingly "colder" during a long weld, or long duty cycle. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Seems to the the nature of the beast. You can compensate for it by decreasing stickout as the power diminishes. I do it all the time. The only machines I own, that don't do this, are the Ranger hooked to the LN25. So, bucks for bucks, you're doin' allright IMHO

[farmersammm]

This whole dollar thing SUCKS. You can puff your chest out, and say ya got the most powerful machine on the planet. I don't care if'n you pkr is longer than mine...............I really don't. All's I care about is whether it does the job If it's welding, just compensate for the baddies. It's all good.

[Brand X]

My Hobart will get increasingly "colder" during a long weld, or long duty cycle. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Seems to the the nature of the beast. You can compensate for it by decreasing stickout as the power diminishes. I do it all the time. The only machines I own, that don't do this, are the Ranger hooked to the LN25. So, bucks for bucks, you're doin' allright IMHO

The inverter 120 volt machine do not suffer from colder welds as you go..

[smithdoor]

They buy the on 500 to 1,000 pound spool and put on 1 or 2 pound spool.
They also have meet AWS standards.

Dave

What do you think of the house-brand flux wire from the big sellers on Ebay - Welding City for example?

They have extensive positive feedback from many repeat customers.

Do those high-volume sellers represent first-tier quality, or just a lot of bulk sales where the buyer says to his employee "you're a professional welder, make this stuff work".

?

[CPO_Dave]

My experience with early design 90 amp flux-core welder was just like you said. I never thought the HF wire was the problem. I figured it was my fault, being a newbe.
Well, after switching to DC stick welding, I got the hang of it, and went back to the HF flux core machine. It does work on thin EMT tubing, a little messy but solid welds. So then I fell into a practice session to see if I could improve the looks of weld. Here is what I did. Using a special "can-opener" (for soup or beans etc.) that has a horizontal blade that makes a clean-edge on the soup can lid, I weld the lid back onto the can (empty of course). It takes no more than 4 or 5 cans to get the technique under control. Even if I layoff welding for months, I warm up with a few soup can lids to refresh the technique. I am able to get satisfactory welds every time. Now, I am going to try the better wires to improve the spatter.
Thank you guys for this thread. In fact, this whole weldingweb thing is a big help to us self-taught novices.

[N2 Welding]

Wow I would never think to try welding soup cans together and quite honestly I doubt I could MiG thin metal like that and have a favorable outcome.

[SlowBlues]

strictly speaking about the electrical signal, it is not that complicated in the least in the least and can run very very well with good electrodes.

these days a mig current is easy to produce, it's funny how the cheapening or cost factor of the welder is so low that it makes more sense money wise to make unusable wire.

[SlowBlues]

even flux core soup cans is not that hard brother. run fast, keep an angle so you're pushing through thicker metal (tank logic). just keeping an acvtive eye and hand on the puddle is the biggest part. lol unless you mean like 20awg and below then yeah, praying helps more than technique. small wire and extra gas for cooling helps a bit

[tapwelder]

Welding soup cans with flux core needs to remain a secret. Thursday had a client bring me some tubes he need capped. Said he was afraid he would burn holes in the 14 gauge butt joint. He showed me his welder and it was the century 90.

[SlowBlues]

lol in my experience the secret is cooling time, and a fan to aid in that sense lol. metal is pretty simple, i still heat my soup against the fire in the plastic and heavy metal laden can when camping. must be why i still rock hahah

[SlowBlues]

my biggest thin metal tip - pint the metal into the puddle/thick part. do it fast and you'll zip up african wheelbarrows lol.