Is anyone familiar with this welder?

[decoir]

Hi everyone. I'm new to welding and metal work in general. I have been pushed into this world by my need to construct a bike trailer (as in, a trailer to be pulled by a bicycle). I have all the metal, and would like to weld it myself. I won't be doing any vital welding work, nor anything that I desperately need to be really high-quality, so I am only looking for something very cheap at this stage.

Today I chanced upon an arc welder, for £49.99, in a local independant hardware store. It looked like the box had been up on the shelf since before I was born.

The shop assistant read out from the top of the box that it "is" 40A, and can put out 130A max. The brand is Draper, apparently - I don't know the model. See below for a picture of the box.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, from what you can see?

Literally something around the £50 would be ok. I know it will be crap, but that's fine by me.

Even screwfix has one for £45 - maybe that's worth a look as well.

Thanks everyone.

 

[shenion]

I had a 110A version of that. Real low end and never really output the full current. Would do 2mm rods max.

Had to be turned almost all the way up to run a 1.6mm rod.


Was a $0.99 ebay deal and about what it was worth.

I would suggest a 180A, as a minimum for these low-end AC welders. Name-brand at 140A or higher.

 

[weldernewbie]

I'm a newbie myself but have looked around a while for welders and am fairly familiar with what's on offer on Ebay. The AC buzz boxes as their refered to on this forum are cheap as chips on Ebay, brands like SIP, SEALEY, CLARKE 140a+ easily go for £50 or less. If you're not in a mad rush I'd wait on something 2nd hand with more welly on Ebay and don't forget try to go for a min level of 30a as well so you can go a bit lower on thin metal if necessary. They have a very low 2nd hand value and from what I can gather there isn't much that goes wrong with them, go for ones with detachable leads as another sign of slightly better quality than the Aldi and Screwfix jobs.

Good luck!

Sunny

 

[decoir]

Thanks for the replies. There's a couple of local sales that I'll try to check out, though I am kind of in a hurry for it. Days and weeks, then months, even, go by really quickly when you're waiting for something, and in this case I kind of need to get stuff built fairly quickly. I could buy a new and high-quality version of what I want to build for less than the price of the welder, but I see this as an opportunity to have a go at welding, and plus I just hate buying things new when I could make them out of scrap.

 

[weldernewbie]

Thanks for the replies. There's a couple of local sales that I'll try to check out, though I am kind of in a hurry for it. Days and weeks, then months, even, go by really quickly when you're waiting for something, and in this case I kind of need to get stuff built fairly quickly. I could buy a new and high-quality version of what I want to build for less than the price of the welder, but I see this as an opportunity to have a go at welding, and plus I just hate buying things new when I could make them out of scrap.

I'd agree with your approach but the last thing I'd say is you could apply the same philosophy to getting a welder. I don't think a budget of £50 new will get you much more than the Aldi/Screwfix type welders. But having said that there's a chap called George on the forum who I think is very happy with his Aldi type welder and there are a number of threads on the subject which might give you comfort.

 

[decoir]

For anyone who's interested, I am considering getting these two welders here:

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=12734