What are you hoping to weld with this. I am sure money must be a concern for you to look at this welder. You would be better off to get a stick welder if this type of welder is what you are wanting. This will not do any body work, neither will a stick welder. This is basicly a mini stick welder and probably not a very good one. I could see wire feed and many other things given you problems with this welder. If cheap is a must then a used stick welder is going to be your best bet.

You just about need to get into about a $800.00 mig welder to have something that will do very good for you (all purpose) . Then if you plan to weld headers or aluminium a tig welder is the way to go. But a tig will not do body work either.


Jess

If it doesn't have the ability to go to a gas feed (normal MIG welding) it's not worth it.................


BTW, I haven't had any problems with my Harbor Freight MIG welder. It started as a flux wire model, but had a gas line hookup on it. Once I got a regulator and CO2 bottle I was all set for MIG welding....... (and haven't gone back to the gasless since)

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

I know this is not the right answer but our fab expert uses a miller mig welder pricey i think about 2000 dollars but he can do great work on mild steel chromemoly and stainllesteal. Just change the wire. He is a prefessional welder but i have seen him do work with that welder you said could not be done.

I broke down and bought a Millermatic 185 about 8 yrs ago, after going thru a couple of Century brand and an Astro brand mig. IT cost me like $1100 then but being that I burned up these others in such short order
with what I spent on that one, plus the 'cheap' ones I coulda bought the Miller twice and had change! Lincoln, Miller, and Hobart (Which is actually part of Miller) all have reasonably priced 110V welders taht are way better than the early economy MIGs. Their cheapest 220 ones really arent that much more expensive either these days. With my Miller Ive never had to do anything except some tips and 1 liner. Whats weird for me, though, is I might not touch my welder for a couple of months then when it comes out for the smallest of tasks, it seems that I find myself using it constantly for a couple of weeks or so at a time. This model is probably overkill for me but I decided long ago that if Im gonna spend the $$$$ on a tool, its a waste of time and $$$$ NOT to buy something good. It depends on how much youll be using it, for occasional use any of the name brands above have machines for $350-500 that would serve you well. I don't know, Harbor freight scares me on that sort of things. Oh, a couple of years ago, Miller quit selling the 185, they now sell it as a 210. The next model down is a 175. You might think that this is too many amps for you and you might be right but you want a bigger unit than you think youll need because of waht they call duty cycle.