Welding Tips and Tricks

Asking for advice. I have a 180 Lincoln run on Flux Core only. I seem to be getting into more heavier stuff and have to run pretty much maxed out. Problem is the short duty cycle and waiting for things to cool down. Not a huge deal as I am a retired hobbyist doing my own jobs plus a few side jobs. It would be nice to have a mig for lighter material to give me a bit more flexibility as things come up. I am thinking of getting a bigger no frills wire welder for flux core only and using the 180 for mig (have the whole kit that came with the machine still in the box and the mig cart). The Eastwood 250 with 60% duty cycle at full tilt seems to fit and its a pretty basic machine. It fits my mantra- K.I.S.S. ( Keep It Simple Stupid ).I have done a bit of research and it seems to work decent from what I found if that's accurate. The big problem I see is parts and service. They only list 2 dealers in Canada where I am. One forum post said its a Tweco style gun that will take Lincoln consumables. Is this accurate? Has anyone any experience with this welder and if so what are your thoughts? The price is a fraction of the big name brands and this makes me wonder. With what I'am doing it's a stretch to justify spending 2-3 times as much for a comparably powered big name welder for basically light useage so that's a non starter. Appreciate any input.

Homeboy, I'm assuming your talking about this- http://www.eastwood.com/mig-250-welder-eastwood.html
I wish i could answer you question about the consumables, but I can't. It wouldn't hurt to email them about it.
I have seen people knock eastwood online. I've talked to a person with an eastwood mig that he really liked. First off, why wouldn't you let go for an extra 100$ for something so much more capable? (http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-mp250i ... elder.html)

If I remember correctly, they have some sort of a 3 year warranty. And within those 3 years I bet you could save enough money to buy a "name brand" if you wanted to but the eastwood might just surprise you. If you go with eastwood, I hope you get the multiprocess, even if you don't know how to tig or stick it's something worth learning and has a learning curve in your advantage if your allready used to seeing the weld puddle

Thanks for your reply and advice. At this point I am basically trying to research and get information. The mp250i does have more functions but I really have no interest in Tig and I already have a AC/DC 230amp stick which is seldom used. An issue is size in my smaller shop. I think I can modify my existing cart to fit my plasma cutter and the 250 which I would use for Mig and use my Lincoln for flux core as a portable. Apparently the torch is Tweco and common Lincoln style combustables are claimed to fit. This is mostly just a retirement hobby for me and my needs are fairly basic. I also did find a fairly local (1 hr drive)dealer which I am going to contact for more info and pricing ( Canadian) The 250 has an optional 15ft lead which I consider a must. My big interest at this point is reviews from current users of this welder to get a feel for its reliability. I have checked a lot of forums and reviews but many are older and may or may not reflect accurately on the current model. Mainly the reviews were positive with a few glitches but as is often noted even the high end machines can have the odd problem also. As for warranty it seems like they mostly just do a swap out for a new unit. As for made in China my 180 Lincoln Mig Pack and Previous 100 are said to be Chinese made and worked flawlessly for my needs. It all depends on the quality of the specs the retailer requests and the durability as demonstrated by the end user.

Have you searched on YouTube? Fortunately welding machine manufactures don't release a new model every year like car manufactures, so a review that's a year or two old may still be relavent

LtBadd wrote:Have you searched on YouTube? Fortunately welding machine manufactures don't release a new model every year like car manufactures, so a review that's a year or two old may still be relavent

Yes I saw several videos and read many forums and everything seemed pretty good. I do like models that have been around for awhile to work out the bugs and I haven't seen of much changes from around 2010 that have been mentioned. Company reviews I do take with a huge grain of salt. I am pretty confident about the warrantee and operations aspect its just durability which is tough for a machine that's fairly new on the market. Every time I buy a piece of equipment I go through an insane drill of spending a crazy amount of time trying to get all the info I can from as many credible sources as I can and so far its worked out very well. The 175 had an issue with plastic wire drive cases breaking but I really haven't run into anything chronic on the 250.

Well, you have to do your do diligence