What MIG to buy (Professional)

[matt1978]

Not sure I agree with that, certainly wasn't that intuitive when I almost bought one, background menus to set up all sorts of things. Kind of reminded me of my previous Phoenix 330. Maybe I was just misunderstanding it?
I know they are superb machines so I wasn't letting me be put off because of that but the EWM is as well and I decided to stick with them. Sometimes I wonder if the Lorch might have been a better option but in the end I probably made the right choice for me and the work I do.
The GYS Neopulse was actually an even nicer and easier interface and also put down as nice a weld but it was new to the market when I trialled it and it wasn't working happily with my push-pull gun so it had to be skipped.

I think it depends on what you learn on.

With any HMI you can either have it upfront with knobs, dials and buttons on the front panel or you have relatively few buttons and knobs in the front and have dual function buttons that access sub menus.

For main welding everything is accessible from the front panel without needing to double push any buttons. Things in the sub menu are things that don’t often need to be adjusted such as pre-post gas, slopes, burn back time etc but if it’s selected the TwinPulse settings are also in the sub menu (freq-Twin Pulse relation-TwinPulse duty) but if TwinPulse hasn’t been selected than you don’t see anything about it in the sub menu when scrolling through

 

[Hood]

As said it didn't put me off and I often wonder if I should have gone Lorch, if for nothing else as I already have the nanofeeder that I can't use
I do prefer the more graphical interface on the newer EWM compared to the older text driven settings of my previous 330 and my feeling was the Lorch was more akin to the latter.

 

[matt1978]

Yes the HMI for the S and P series is by any comparison to what’s available on the market now very old school.

MicorMIG, not so much as it’s much more modern esp the ControlPro front panel choice.

I think in the future more machines will have apps so the set up can be done via a phone or a tablet with an option to have no HMI on the machine at all

 

[Hood]

......

I think in the future more machines will have apps so the set up can be done via a phone or a tablet with an option to have no HMI on the machine at all

That would put a lot of people off but for me it would be great, I love technology
The EWM has similar (PC software) but it is not that cheap so not something I will be buying.

 

[Munkul]

If the synergic lines are set nicely you rarely have to fiddle with the settings anyway. Turn to specific amps - > weld. Done. Less faff, more weld.
In contrast, with the Miller pulse Mig I was constantly tweaking the arc length, it was all over the place.

To be fair, if you go Lorch/EWM/Fronius you probably won't be disappointed with any of them!

 

[Hood]

If the synergic lines are set nicely you rarely have to fiddle with the settings anyway. Turn to specific amps - > weld. Done. Less faff, more weld.
In contrast, with the Miller pulse Mig I was constantly tweaking the arc length, it was all over the place.

To be fair, if you go Lorch/EWM/Fronius you probably won't be disappointed with any of them!

I find I have to (don't really have to but...) offset the voltage trim depending on the make of 5356 I have. It still welds nice if I don't and in reality it makes no difference to the actual weld but if I can tweak slightly to make it sound nicer then I will, I am just like that

 

[matt1978]

I find I have to (don't really have to but...) offset the voltage trim depending on the make of 5356 I have. It still welds nice if I don't and in reality it makes no difference to the actual weld but if I can tweak slightly to make it sound nicer then I will, I am just like that

It’s normal to have to change arc length from one reel of wire to another, same as you would from one bottle of gas to the next (for mixed gases) because of the manufacturing tolerances but once you’ve adjusted the arc length to suit that set up you shouldn’t have to adjust much for the whole working range of the synergic line

 

[Munkul]

I find I have to (don't really have to but...) offset the voltage trim depending on the make of 5356 I have. It still welds nice if I don't and in reality it makes no difference to the actual weld but if I can tweak slightly to make it sound nicer then I will, I am just like that

Yeah what Matt said.
He updated my machine the other week and the synergic line for normal CV is massively improved. Beforehand i preferred to set up on manual CV and wirespeed but now the line is perfect, I've got it set on +1 throughout the whole amperage range.
Bear in mind that my machine is coming up 10 years old now too...

 

[Ged93]

Does anybody here experienced this Fronius process ? Dealer told me it's available also pulsed on the TPSi

 

[superclarkey]

I looked at some of the Fronius machines and surprised how much plastic is in them, the compact stuff like the Transsteel is basically an all plastic machine lol, wtf, times have changed since I last bought a welder it seems...

I've been looking into the Kemppi MasterMig 358 and I really like the look of it, and tempted to wait for that as its November when its coming out, apparently the 355 and its lower spec machine are out in a few months time and prices are around £6600 for the 355, which is full set up with water cooler etc

Be interested to know where the 358 comes in prices wise, going to guess around £1000 more? maybe £1500 tops.. so would be right around my top end of my budget (well what I would like to spend). But I've watched the only video on the unit which is a really bad Kemppi presentation and it seems the 355 does everything the 358 does apart from the connectivity that I may never use (well would never use). so at £6,600 that seems fairly feature rich.

As I say I'm in no rush, but I think the would be my ideal machine so going to be judging everything against it, and at the very minimum I will be waiting until the 355 launches and I can get my hands on it to try it out.

I will try and post the specs so you lot can tell me what's wrong with it

 

[matt1978]

The Rapid welding website is a good guide on pricing for Kempii.

 

[superclarkey]

The Rapid welding website is a good guide on pricing for Kempii.

Yes thank you, I've purchased all my mig welders and Hypertherm cutters from Andy at Rapid.

 

[superclarkey]

This is my Kemppi Kempact 253A as reference.

The Kempact is only rated to 150A at 100%ED, where as the 355/358 is rated at 220A at 100%ED.

 

[superclarkey]

Also was going to say the price of £6,600 is a full water package, whereas you can just buy the power source on its own for around £5k (with air cooled touch) with all those features... clearly limiting factor on how much Amperage you can use, but can easily add the water cooler on later at around £1600 more, and a touch maybe another £250. so basically around £1850 to upgrade to a water feature later if I so wished.

Again my goal isn't to weld pipe, I just want the feature set to be use at lower work amperage, so I feel like I could totally get away with no-cooler if I was not to work on Alloy with this machine... I know what your thinking "why bother" but I can except that if its not £10k!! its half the price with same feature set (well lets say for argument its the same, I'm sure there are differences) and there will be caveats I'm sure.

 

[Hood]

Also was going to say the price of £6,600 is a full water package, whereas you can just buy the power source on its own for around £5k (with air cooled touch) with all those features... clearly limiting factor on how much Amperage you can use, but can easily add the water cooler on later at around £1600 more, and a touch maybe another £250. so basically around £1850 to upgrade to a water feature later if I so wished.

Again my goal isn't to weld pipe, I just want the feature set to be use at lower work amperage, so I feel like I could totally get away with no-cooler if I was not to work on Alloy with this machine... I know what your thinking "why bother" but I can except that if its not £10k!! its half the price with same feature set (well lets say for argument its the same, I'm sure there are differences) and there will be caveats I'm sure.

I work solely in aluminium with the Phoenix, most of my welding is on 5mm and upwards sheet, 5mm being the most common, 10mm the next but up to 16mm. I have no need for a water cooled torch. I am not doing huge runs one after the other, most I usually do in one hit, well back stepping, is 2000mm and no issues at all. Carting a water cooler about for me would be a pain as I am usually working on fishing boats so the lighter everything is the better.

 

[superclarkey]

I work solely in aluminium with the Phoenix, most of my welding is on 5mm and upwards sheet, 5mm being the most common, 10mm the next but up to 16mm. I have no need for a water cooled torch. I am not doing huge runs one after the other, most I usually do in one hit, well back stepping, is 2000mm and no issues at all. Carting a water cooler about for me would be a pain as I am usually working on fishing boats so the lighter everything is the better.

That’s brilliant info, what amps do you typically use for 5mm and 10mm?

The other factor for me is allot of mig guns are just too big to get into close areas, I’m going to guess adding water cooled is going to make it larger for no benefits at low amps.

As I say my tig set gets hot and I have to stop, but I can do that’s fine… if I was in a high pressure need to get it finish situation I could understand the cost to get a machine to do that.

If I could weld 2m at 10mm I would be extremely happy :-)

 

[Munkul]

Just an opinion @superclarkey but I wouldn't want to splunk down £6k+ on a brand new machine design that hasn't even been on the market yet. The current range of fastmigs are good (and there's loads of them about) but they aren't exactly infallible either, they do break down from time to time, and Kemppi support (up here at least) is not amazing.
Having said that, I do have a lot of time for Kemppi, their CV MIGs have always been top drawer to use and the older Kempomats are built to last forever.
Is it just the "shiny shiny" factor that's making you hold out for TFT touch screen etc over say a Kempact?
I'd also want a dealer/service centre I was on first name terms with and that have experience in aluminium MIG.
@Hood is a little bit different as he's ancient, very tech-savvy, and learned everything anyone ever needed to know before you and I were born but I know a lot of people need the experience of a good dealer when I was first setting up to MIG aluminium. It's all the simple things like having the right liner, trimming it properly, tips etc, and knowing how to diagnose a problem. 99% of problems are caused by some tiny little problem in the feed, and there is nothing more frustrating than continually burning back tips, it's an absolutely miserable experience.

Put it this way: My local dealer couldn't get a machine to run 1050 wire right after months of trying, and they're a multi-million pound company. Express Cutting & Welding in Preston specced and tested two different brands of machine on a new reel of 1050 wire and brought them both up to Wigton to demo, free of charge, in two visits. Guess which one gets my business now...

BTW I'd be at around 250 amps on 10mm alloy fillet welds. About 150-180 amps on 5mm. On pulse, with a water cooled gun. Used a gas cooled MB36 on my last welder but it would heat up and start to snag the wire at the tip after say a metre of weld. (Remember pulse heats up a gun faster than the same amps on CV does, about 30% according to Binzel)
Hood has a push/pull gun so gets away with it a lot easier, that's the bit he didn't mention

 

[Hood]

...
Hood has a push/pull gun so gets away with it a lot easier, that's the bit he didn't mention

I am sorry, when you are as ancient as me some things slip your mind

 

[superclarkey]

Just an opinion @superclarkey but I wouldn't want to splunk down £6k+ on a brand new machine design that hasn't even been on the market yet. The current range of fastmigs are good (and there's loads of them about) but they aren't exactly infallible either, they do break down from time to time, and Kemppi support (up here at least) is not amazing.
Having said that, I do have a lot of time for Kemppi, their CV MIGs have always been top drawer to use and the older Kempomats are built to last forever.
Is it just the "shiny shiny" factor that's making you hold out for TFT touch screen etc over say a Kempact?
I'd also want a dealer/service centre I was on first name terms with and that have experience in aluminium MIG.
@Hood is a little bit different as he's ancient, very tech-savvy, and learned everything anyone ever needed to know before you and I were born but I know a lot of people need the experience of a good dealer when I was first setting up to MIG aluminium. It's all the simple things like having the right liner, trimming it properly, tips etc, and knowing how to diagnose a problem. 99% of problems are caused by some tiny little problem in the feed, and there is nothing more frustrating than continually burning back tips, it's an absolutely miserable experience.

Put it this way: My local dealer couldn't get a machine to run 1050 wire right after months of trying, and they're a multi-million pound company. Express Cutting & Welding in Preston specced and tested two different brands of machine on a new reel of 1050 wire and brought them both up to Wigton to demo, free of charge, in two visits. Guess which one gets my business now...

BTW I'd be at around 250 amps on 10mm alloy fillet welds. About 150-180 amps on 5mm. On pulse, with a water cooled gun. Used a gas cooled MB36 on my last welder but it would heat up and start to snag the wire at the tip after say a metre of weld. (Remember pulse heats up a gun faster than the same amps on CV does, about 30% according to Binzel)
Hood has a push/pull gun so gets away with it a lot easier, that's the bit he didn't mention

I think any brand can have issues, and I agree you don't want the to be using a prototype and want a finish product that is well tested. All I will say is that any issues I've had with my Kemppi machines have been quickly resolved, but that might say more about RapidWelding and Andy Doe then anything else.

Clearly I would like the TFT if its only £500 or so more, as it will make it nicer to use and tweak, but saying that if the 355 can do all the same settings and tweak everything the same I would consider that over the 358 if its say allot more... but if its only £500 I would be gutted not to have waited for it.

Regarding being on a first name basis with a local dealer, I am, with several! but they do not sell the types of machines I'm interested in, only lower brand stuff that the general welder would buy and not getting into anything like the big brands. I'm in Birmingham after all lol

I'm self taught welder, I've learnt everything I have needed from YouTube videos and reading many books on the subject... and 15 years of experimenting... I'm not coded welder or qualified, but I know allot more then most people I bump into.. I find allot of people are set and forget it type of people, where I will try to always get the best from my machines and will do allot of test welds, cut and etches to see what actually works. I'm also more interested in the quality of the weld to how it looks like... I can do the Mig like tig **** easily now, but I don't because I personally don't like the look of it, I weld so its structurally strong and that is all I have to say on that!

The problem is, I work in motorsport where you trying to go down a rabbit hole with everything and learn the details, I find most welders and stuff like that very dumbed down and you simply can't adjust the stuff you want to adjust... So speaking to people normally results in not getting the answers I want because they don't know the answers themselves, just what they think they know.

I know my area of expertise.. doesn't mean I would know how to weld a 12inch pipe and follow the WPS or whatever its called, because I have no call for that, so why would I know it. However I do know the basics and practices as I want to know as much as I can do.

What I'm trying to say is, the reason I'm craving a machine that can do more, is because I want to do more with it and push what I can do with a MIG more... in a way having a dumb mig all these years is great, as I've learnt to do everything with TIG welder, and such I would say I'm very good at it, specially alloy welding, being ambidextrous in my writing and welding etc makes a huge difference because I can welded touch in either had just as well, so makes no difference the position I'm in.. and with roll cages you can imagine you've got to weld wrong handed in a mirror most of the time and I think that Is something that can't be easily read in a book, only hands on gets you there.

I try my best to listen and learn, I'm open to suggestions and tae everything on board, So don't think I'm ignoring any advice in this thread. (trust me I would love to learn off someone else and ask all the questions) But I've worked alone for 15 years.. what I know is what I've worked out for myself or self researched.

Also spoiler alert I love welding and want to get better, so its not just a job to me, I care what the welds look like and when it comes to roll cages I care that it saves lives, so I take it very seriously.

 

[Hood]

Sounds similar to me, self taught on everything from welding to machining to CNC to building CNC's, always trying different settings and different ways and the day I stop learning will be the day I die.