Interesting Ian (deliberately no <>!)

What ampage is your migatronic and does it run off a normal 13amp socket?

Does this need a gas cylinder as well?

Sorry for the questions - just not an area I know an awful lot about, and keen to take a personal recommendation

Thinking of searching one out

Mine is a "Rallymig 166" - I believe it's a 160A welder and yes, it'll run off a standard 13A socket.
MIG / MAG (Metal Inert Gas / Metal Active Gas) welding does require a shielding gas - I use a refillable Argon/CO2 mix as it works out a lot cheaper than using the disposable ones.

My first welder also allowed "gasless" welding, which is where you use a special wire that has a flux in it to protect the weld instead of a gas shield. As I said above, a decent welder could probably get reasonable results out of it, but I found it a complete pain to use. I spoke to the tutor on my course about "gasless MIG" and he just laughed at me - he said it was one of those things that sounds like a good idea in practise but doesn't really work.

Cheers fella

Aye but at full chat it will blow fuses

Couple of my mates were running some steelbar in place of a fuse but that sounds lethal - i just dinnae use my clark 151 at full bore

Its amaizing what you can pick up but - id like to do classes to neaten up my welding but all the classes near aberdeen ive found are over 5 weeks 1 night a week - my work can see me in 5 different countrys inthat time.

I use pub gas (plain old CO2) and it works just fine. Cheaper as well because I just buy my landlord a beer or three and he swaps me an empty one for a full one.

mig is definately the way to go for diy & quick repairs, shielding gas being the main issue with expense, most diy miggers go for the small halfords type bottles but they seem to dissapear quite alarmingly fast & aint cheap, better if you know a friendly landlord who can sort you with c02 from the beer pump ! or you can hire small bottles from boc etc
which last longer and you can offhire them if you only use occasionally for projects

i would avoid screwfix & other cheap welders alike as there ability to be set up nicely is crap,
you dont however have to fork out for a top notcher as there are plenty of good usable diy machines available such as sealey, clarke, sip etc
if you got a couple off hundred to spend on one then you can get some nice used pro machines like migatronic, murex, esab, lincoln to name a few

most newbies will struggle to set the machine up for the material there working on, a lot of this is down to poor equipment that doesnt function smoothly & wrong settings/choice of wire etc
small budget machines are very limited with power settings & adjustments meaning you have to end up compramising on your welding tecnique to get a result.
beware of second hand machines that have been abused/neglected as you will prob have to buy new torch, wire feed rolls etc all adds up!

i can offer advice to any diy-er whoes struggling to set there machine up, just gimme a call no prob

buy the biggest you can afford is my policy,160 amp is a good usefull size, i used to run 200 amps from my cooker socket!! back in the days,35 amp fuse

Metal Active gas ???? WTF

Metal Arc Gas Shielded it should be!!!! tut tut. Man I hope your welding is better.

I have used the screwfix machines there is nothing wrong with them.
It is just inexperianced people that cant set them up so wouldnt make any difference what they machine they used.

The disposable bottles from machine mart or toolstation do last a while the problem with DIY'ers is they set the gas flow to much, this doesnt really help the weld as it can draw oxygen in and cause porosity in the weld cause a weak as **** weld and it looks **** to.

Try this place for there gas bottles a lot cheaper than paying the hire charge to BOC

:: Adams Gas ::

good point andy, i dont mean to diss screw fix or any other cheap small diy mig plant
to be fair many of the folk ive helped to set up have had plant about a year old or so and as such in the hands of unexperienced users have suffered neglect, bent liners, feked shrouds, iffy feed rollers all culminating in porous weak welds
im sure in good fettle there enough for any occasional user. ive used many ropey bits of kit over the 20 yrs ive been at it and found spares become obsolete very quickly if at all available, so if your torch harness gets feked after a few good sessions dragging around chassis etc then chances are youd be looking at trying to graft one on from another model or buy another cheap plant! the wire feed motor is another feature which gives up the ghost.
if like me you intend to use one often then id always go for a bigger plant with universal euro connect torch, less down time, better duty cycle, reliable wire feed
[ you get what you pay for, if you dont youve been ripped off !!]

andy mcd said:

Metal Active gas ???? WTF

Metal Arc Gas Shielded it should be!!!! tut tut. Man I hope your welding is better.

Click to expand...

Gas metal arc welding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh well city and guilds must have got it wrong on my certificates then !! i dont think so

i use a synergic 300 amp mig machine and a 250 amp acdc tig set in my day to day work.

VERY good on all parts of a landrover :scratching_chin:

It takes a great amount of skill to make a weld look good and have enough penatration etc to do the job properly. A decent mig machine is a must IMO