Yes DC welders if youre welding pipe box section or plate work are much nicer to use.
Get into welding structural steel with them, or into the corner of a square steel tank and start getting a bit of arc blow. Youll have the AC set out again before you know it lol
It's a known killer of those mighty midgets to fire them up with the leads cooled round the alternator like that. The magnetic field in the cables can demagnetise the rotor causing it not to generate.