Welding Tips and Tricks

I do a lot of tig work with my miller 161, mostly stainless steel sanitary welding in restaurants and vineyards. For the last few years ive only taken on some of my job for aluminum being cause i can take it into work and use our syncrowave. I am looking to have the AC option in my home garage and im having trouble justifying spending 2300$ for miller blue which has always performed excellent for me. Over 1300$ on a Hobart 165. I have read quite a few times that they have a lot of the same parts. Need help with this decision. Need the AC, 115/220v option and I love millers low amperage start... anyone have any info on these two?

180 amps is pretty low for an AC TIG box. You’ll only be able to weld 1/8” material with that little amperage. Even less with 165.

If this is to be very occasional, for $900 you can buy a Prime Weld 225. Looks too good to be true, but actually works really damn well.

I do mostly inter coolers and radiator mounts, occasionally a header. I have an oven in my garage a preheat with but I understand what you are saying. Would you go with the dynasty series? Having pulse is nice to keep the heat out of stainless. But 4k$ hurts the bank pretty good too.

take a look at the Invertig 220, less expensive then the Dynasty and still feature rich

usaweld.com

forget the 165.
the other factor is duty cycle. golden rule of get a machine with more amps than you need.
i have a 185 and i run that full noise on aluminium. however i tend to do short runs which helps with its duty cycle.

for a home gamer that doesn't need commercial quality there is tons of cheaper perfectly adequate brands around.