Giant

[summeh]

Hi guys, hope you can help...

I'm a bit of a car nut and have pretty much turned my hand to everything except welding in the past, love getting involved, learning new things etc. So decided that I'd like to try my hand at some welding.

I've got a track car that needs some welding, chassis rails, underneath, sills and rear quarter panels. I already understand that mig is probably the best for this kind of work.

I also will be doing some fabrication in the future, manifolds, tanks etc and understand that tig would be best for this kind of thing.

So I was thinking about getting a mig/tig/arc inverter that can do everything, but my budget is around 500quid and the inverter fusion jobby comes out just above that. So probably go for a mig now then buy a tig machine in future when I come to it.

Was looking in ebay and see you can get a chinese mig inverter for under 200quid Giant Super 180 Mig - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MIG-WELDER-180-AMP-INVERTOR-NEW-BOXED-C-EURO-TORCH-/310795326361

Anyone use those/have experience? I only need occasional use. Is it going to be really ****? or will it do the job? also nice that it goes down to 20amps, so good for thin bodypanels?

Also, prefer the idea of inverter as seems a much newer tech than transformer?

 

[PTvor]

I've no experience of Giant kit, but if you do a search on here using "Giant", they don't have the best reputation for reliability. The price says something.

I've heard enough about them to put me off buying anything they sell.

MMA inverters are popular; light, efficient, you can use different sorts of rods, usually good duty cycles, features to make things easier, hot start etc.

MIG inverters are less popular, certainly for amateur/hobby welding. The advantages of an inverter MIG as opposed to a traditional design with a big transformer and some simple electronics for the wire feed, aren't as great.

Things are changing slowly.

But, getting an inverter based MIG just because it's much newer tech, isn't an obvious argument for buying one to most people. With the newer tech comes complexity and it's much more difficult and expensive to fix, if it goes wrong.

 

[Jim Davey]

The fact that they weld better in the main, are lighter, more efficient and more versatile doesn't come into it then?
Transformer based welders are a dying breed, solid state stuff gets cheaper and better all the time. There will come a point as the costs of copper and steel keep rising where it will actually be cheaper to make an inverter of any size cheaper than a transformer. Unless the transformer machine has some decent amounts of copper and iron in it (cheapo ones dont) they weld rough, whereas almost without exception inverters don't. If you can find the extra dough, go for an inverter or a good quality transformer based machine, not a hobby 'special'.

 

[steve.h]

Personally I would either look for a secondhand Portamig or stretch the budget and buy a new one. I had no previous experience of welding before I bought the Portamig, I am really pleased that I did buy it.
You only need to read a dozen posts about people struggling to learn to weld with the £200 job from ebay, you need to use gas as gasless is nowhere near as good from what I have read. I used the tutorials on here to learn to weld and found them easy to understand and very good as well as the advice of members (they are great and know a great deal).
You say you want to fabricate items with thicker material so the portamig would be good (I have the 215), as well as going down to 15 anps for the bodywork stuff, you will not find any off the shelf MIG that goes that low, many cheaper ones are 30+ amps so very hard to do bodywork. I would say buy once, the best you can afford, trust me you will not regret it, and for gas look at the rent free cylinders or the BOC volkszone offer (search on here for it).
You may well wonder what/who the Portamig is, its sold on the shop at the top of this forum, steve is great, very helpful too. The machines are made by hand in york, technical arc I believe, they make machines for many companies who badge them up for their brand like Oxford and others, if you look around the web you will find several brands that are the same machine shape etc, they are top quality machines and will last a lifetime if looked after well, I dont think the more modern options will last as long, unless you spend 3 times the money that is.

 

[PTvor]

The fact that they weld better in the main, are lighter, more efficient and more versatile doesn't come into it then?
Transformer based welders are a dying breed, solid state stuff gets cheaper and better all the time. There will come a point as the costs of copper and steel keep rising where it will actually be cheaper to make an inverter of any size cheaper than a transformer. Unless the transformer machine has some decent amounts of copper and iron in it (cheapo ones dont) they weld rough, whereas almost without exception inverters don't. If you can find the extra dough, go for an inverter or a good quality transformer based machine, not a hobby 'special'.

Yes, but Summeh was asking about whether it was good idea to buy a Giant inverter MIG for £200, and saying that an IFL for just under £600 was out of his reach, not wondering whether to go for Kemppi or Fronius.

When it comes to sub £500 machines there are not many inverter based MIG models but it's changing.

I think most would still prefer the Portamig (or similar) to an inverter based machine at about the same price. Inverters have a reputation for being beautiful to use, but not so robust and very expensive to fix when they go wrong, which they do.

There's obviously a difference between hobby grade and industrial grade kit.