any welders here?

[echo4747]

One thing I've always wanted to do is learn to weld. I've done some basic stick welding, and one time layed a few beads on a flat piece of scrap with a mig welder. Hopefully this summer/fall I will have some time to "play around" and teach myself to weld fairly decent. I am considering buying this welder ( http://victortechnologies.com/Thermal Arc 3in1/Fabricator 211i/product_features.php ) and looking for opinions what people here think of this welder. Just looking for a good general purpose home machine. If its not a good choice please recommend something else.

-what I like with the above unit is that it is able to mig,tig,stick weld all from the same unit.
-120 or 240v capable
-seems portable enough to put in the back of a truck/car and use at various places

 

[Squeetard]

Looks like a chinese brand. There are other identical welders as that one with different names. You get what you pay for. The lincoln square wave 175 is twice the money but I bet it is twice the welder.

 

[skyking]

very nice. I mostly wirefeed steel for practicality, strength, ease of fabrication. Aluminum and stainless open up some cans of worms with backside gas, aluminum gums up abrasives and saws, etc.
I cut steel with a cold saw and have very little prep time. Once you get proficient you can make very light assemblies that really negate the need for fabbing with aluminum for the most part. You can resort to drilling lightening holes, for example:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31491753&postcount=283

That said I always wanted a dual voltage machine similar to that. Miller has a wirefeed with the two plugs, as does lincoln.