THE CHEAPEST "MIG" WELDER ON AMAZON - REVIEWED!!!

I finally made it to the point of being a real welder we free caution here so I'm holy welded a small number of times in my entire life electricity would go welder hey everyone I'm Chuckie 2009 and you know over the years I've made a lot of videos I promoted a bunch of welders I've reviewed a bunch of welders and and one thing I haven't done is the cheapest MIG welder on Amazon so this thing it cost eighty eight dollars and 99 cents shipped to my door I don't know how current that will be whenever you know you might find this video or whatever but as you can see this is sold by best choice products which is important because if I bought anything else on Amazon it wouldn't have been the best choice and that's that's really something I look for yeah eighty-eight dollars and 99 fricking cents so recently you know right before we're filming this video I filmed a video on the cheapest stick welder on Amazon I really you know it cost that one cost one hundred and fourteen dollars I'm really going into this and knowing the specs on these machines and the layout of them even before I open this box cuz you know I checked it out on the listing I really think the stick welder between the two of them is going to be the superior machine it's got like infinite essentially power adjustment on the front of it whereas this has taps and everything and the other thing this is what I tell everyone if you're going to buy let's just call it what it is the cheapest welder you can get your hands on it's really my best advice is to buy a stick machine because it's basically just a power source this being a wire feed welder has a bunch of moving parts and stuff in it it's a lot more to go wrong but alright so let's see they give you this wonderful little wire brush slash just like everything so that's good we also have a handle to the obligatory Chinese face mask which is sort of a running joke in the well doing right yeah it's in here of course it is all right yeah so needless to say I'm I'm not affiliated with with with best choice products I bought this with my very own $88 so I could make this video for you guys but if anybody actually does for any reason decide they should buy this thing you know or you buy anything else on Amazon if you click the link in the description channel learn it's a small Commission which helps make a non sponsored content like this possible for you guys so I'm just gonna take a moment and assemble this fine piece of safety gear I think this thinks you're still wonderful I think I'm actually gonna get rid of my op trails and just you know use this from just use this from now on oh boy yeah the lines fell out it's going like this oh boy you know it's funny when it makes me laugh like a dolphin all right let's see there's not even like a clear lens or anything literally just the day literally just the dark lens and it goes in it like such so I mean I'm actually gonna try and weld with it like this because this is clearly the way the manufacturer intended their product to be used so we'll give that a shot you know all jokes aside I am actually kind of surprised that comes with it because ultimately that did cost someone somewhere money maybe only 50 cents or something but still all right okay all right all right we can retire the fro nice because we have actually there's not even a name on it yeah there isn't it's just those MIG 130 okay so two things first off this is not a MIG welder I know it says it I know I joked about it before I know that all the other listings on Amazon for similar cheaper machines say it as well but here here's how this works MIG the acronym MIG it stands for metal inert gas in the UK or whatever it's called mag or metal add gas there is no gas there's no gas port on this there's no regulator that comes with it there is no host this is only a flux core welder where'd my school go yeah this is only a flux core welder so it's not going to be good for sheet metal I would not recommend this if you're going to be you know trying to patch body panels on your on your truck or your Jeep or your car or your motorcycle or whatever the other thing that this has going against it where the heck is the power cord I guess it comes out though yeah appears to come out the front or something the other downside to this is it's only a hundred and ten volt power so on a wire feed machine like this optimistically we're gonna be able to weld like eighth inch and that's really gonna be pushing it and you're gonna run into issues with this like tripping breakers and everything this is why if someone was on an extreme budget I'd really push them towards that budget stick welder because that was a 220 machine so that's actually capable of like you know putting out real power so all right I'm not look I'm doing this because you guys I've asked for it literally for years I'm not really too thrilled about this like I said I would've bought the cheap stick machine the other thing is stick welding is what I would refer to is a legitimate process nobody uses this crap in the field there's flux core welding and there's flux core welding if there's like you know running large sixteenth inch wires like this off five six hundred amp engine drives you know and then there's dual a shield flux core welding this stuff is a pain it's sputter II it's messy it's dirty it burns through thin sheet metal and you can't really use it on thicker stuff because this welder is only a hundred and ten volt machine and it just doesn't have the power but you know what we'll give this thing a shot and whether it works or whether it explodes instantly you guys will get to see and you know here's here's the thing you know everybody likes to laugh at machines like this I've even enjoyed the cheap shot or two in this video as well but the reality is that this entire machine costs one quarter of just what a proper replacement made gun for an industrial machine costs for the entire thing shipped to my door and I know for the most part how things like this go together x2 fusillade of welding equipment they they're probably have taken every shortcut ever I bet you anything if we take these screws out they don't actually screw into anything in here just like the other side of the handle like right into the plastic but you know it's if it works it works now how the heck do we open that thing of a jigger Oh all right we're in okay so let's see what we have up here it does come with some wire which is really nice now in the welding community the included wire that comes on machines like this is literally a running joke everybody tells you like back when Harbor Freight sold machines like this before they got their new Vulcan ones you know pretty much the main advice on anybody who would use these things is get rid of the cheap stuff and get some proper wire anyway so we're just going to use this to save time because this is a very small spool it's not gonna last long anyway and then you'll end up buying something like this sooner or later oh here's the manual all right great okay looks a little cheap but we do have our required components here let's come take a look at this and we'll try to put a spool in here all right so here's what we got we have it as anyone would expect for the price a plastic wire drive system I'm not a fan of these this one seems especially cheap but it's the same thing like like Hobart and I think Lincoln uses on their ultra low end machines spool goes here feeds in like such in this we have a spring we have this little bushing thing which goes which sandwiches to spool in there and they give you two tips which is nice these should be the standard like I think these are m8 thread or something so a person should be able to get replacements it you know like Home Depot or whatever and this is my personal favorite they give you a few it's like a literal glass something you find in a 1980s house fuse oh wait there's two fuses even better Plus this which it goes on here now here's another strike against this machine if we put this down you can see the version of a faceplate you get with this machine talks about duty cycle duty cycles most you guys know some percentage out of ten minutes that a machine can weld without overheating that's not sitting there running with the fan that's actually having the art going welding so the machine has a sixty percent duty cycle that means it can run for six out of ten minutes at whatever amperage it's rated at this machine has a ten percent duty cycle literally one out of ten minutes you could weld with this machine without an overheating now this is of course maxed out on a mind-blowing 120 amps which it probably won't get to off your standard hundred and ten volt wall outlet so you know if you turn it down to 60 amps for welding together like something about twice the thickness of a razor blade thinking about my TIG experience maybe some exhaust pipe if you're lucky you have a thirty five percent duty cycle so you can keep the arc lit for three and a half out of ten minutes while putting out enough power to if you're lucky join some paper clips together all right let's see we are going it to try to install phi and since you guys didn't ask I'll tell you anyway in my opinion the leak in flux core wire is vastly superior to the Hobart stuff which I can't really talk too much because obviously we didn't try it but I'm told that two is better than the stuff that's Oh get on there why does it this freaking fit mmm all right you know what that's probably not going too far all right let's see just trim this I mean if the machine just blows up I'm gonna have an issue getting my 11 bucks back for this spool all right cool oh boy okay well this is gonna be quite the adventure where is my extension cord so I'm only welded a small number of times in my entire life so I thought I would go ahead and consult this wonderful manual here all right let's see this one actually doesn't look as bad as some of the the Chinglish ones I've ever seen all right so first off we'll make sure that we're welding in a safe way by following the re precautions here all right let's see do not strike an arc on or near the gas cylinder all right that shouldn't be a problem because this doesn't actually use a gas cylinder all right let's see setting up the welder electrical your MIG welder must be earthed I'm going to grab a shovel and earth this welder it's funny that they keep referring to it as a MIG welder when you know obviously there's no gas so there's no I in MIG so it's a Riga welder so my favorite part of this wonderful manual is the troubleshooting section they don't actually connect the problems to the causes all they do is give you a random list of problems you might have in a random list of causes but all joking aside guys like I said $88 or whatever gets you at this wonderful machine alright weird that extension cord go great risk to myself to make these second-rate videos for you guys I will plug this thing in and now to start feeding the wireless you guys are pretty familiar with this process all we do we remove the tip and the nozzle off of our MIG gun then we fire this thing up hey it's alive alright and we turn our wire feed all the way up and this knob actually does feel quite good I thought it was just gonna be loose and floppy but it actually feels really tight and smooth which is good let's see and we will feed why're out the end of this all right we got our wire it's making some extremely odd noises I'll just screw this tip back on and aah all right okay we should try not to set this down because I remember one of the corks of these I read it somewhere on the internet once is they're always hot it's just like a stick lead with an electrode in it any time we touch this here look away any time we touch this it is going to arc to the table until we burn away our wire so all right this is moving on before we actually start welding this is one of my main complaints about this unit how the head wait a minute there's not oh wait yeah I did put the ground clamp on nevermind one of my main complaints about this unit is there's really no infinitely adjustable voltage controls this is something you only see on the cheapest of the cheap machines even that $114 stick welder had infinitely adjustable controls obviously the you know only one control instead of two here so this you have minimum maximum and then one and two what's that okay that's concerning noise all right well whatever the case we'll just set this like in the middle because there's no references for what this will cut what this will actually what the city I don't I didn't even have a safe place to put this right now all right let's see let's get ready to weld here I finally made it to the point of being a real welder [Music] well son of a gun it actually does well I think this is an AC machine it's got that AC buzzing sound to it you know like you hear on an AC 225 Crackerbox or something which is extremely uncommon for again even the cheapest of the cheap normal wire drives but like I said 88 dollars and 99 cents this lens is way way too light though for actual welding it looks like it's maybe like a shade 7 or 8 or something so you know it's wonderful that was and as much as I look like an amateur wearing an actual helmet in comparison I'm going to wear an actual helmet alright now let's see what we did know keep in mind this is just middle-of-the-road settings here oh wait oh shoot I should use the actual thingamajigger and it did produce an actual weld now keep in mind this is self shielded flux core wire so it's not like you know when we hear about flux core flux core used to weld together railroad cars or industrial equipment really it's like dual a shield flux course there's gas as well it's a completely different wire nothing like this and yeah I'm just I'm just not a fan of this stuff per se but it actually did produce a somewhat respectable looking weld for eighty eight dollars and ninety nine cents if I bought a large spool of flux core wire at the store it would approximately double the cost of my welding setup so you know for a little hundred and ten volt machine that actually had quite a bit of bite to it it felt like it was burning into the material a lot more than I was really expecting it to so but you know that's just that's what you get when you make the best choice and builders all right let's uh let's try this again watch your eyes I think we tripped a breaker this is going to be your eternal battle running 110 volt welder this is why I prefer not to run hundred and ten volt welders and the other thing is when I'm reviewing machine or I'm filming a promotional video for a machine's dual voltage which is a thing so it'll run on 110 or 220 so if you're watching this thing oh well I don't have 220 yet you can spend more money and get what's called a dual voltage machine like I said will run on either voltage so you can use it now 110 and just deal with struggles like this and then when you get proper power you know you have full power and you won't be tripping breakers constantly the reason why I don't and this is relevant for you guys the reason why I don't film stuff 110 when it's a dual voltage machine or when I do I don't give specifics is because what I can do in this garage on this circuit on 110 volt power you know it might be more than somebody with a crappy or electrical setup could do on 110 volt power but on the flip side if someone has a better 110 volt power set up like a dedicated 1520 amp breaker or something they can obviously do a lot more than I can so really it just depends and that's the downside of reviewing a machine like this is what it'll do for me it might not do for you it just comes down to the power setup that you have alright do the breaker box help there gets the breaker again all right well we weld it enough for right now anyway I I just I don't know like I said I would get the stick welder but obviously you know here's the other thing not to keep harping about how great the stick machine is but you know the limitation with that is he can't weld thin material like anything under eighth inch basically it's gonna be a battle for most people but with the stick machine you can set up a TIG torch you know and run scratch start TIG you can search yet I even made some videos on it and and be able to weld thinner material and thicker material this can only do like intermediate thickness like 14 gauge to basically eighth inch and it kind of even struggles with that in some ways but like I said it actually does fricken work so alright for whatever it's worth thanks for watching don't forget to rate comment and subscribe for more it's just it it is what it is man I just I don't have anything else that I could just show you what it is and what it did and it it actually did work clearly because it is the best choice [Music]

Channel: ChuckE2009

Views: 972,782

Rating: 4.482017 out of 5

Keywords: weld, welder, welded, welding, cheap, cheapest, machine, mig, metal, inert, gas, project, diy, starter, first, first welder, starter welder, budget, affordable, fabrication, flux core, flux, core, flux-core, harbor freight, harbor, freight, lincoln, lincoln electric, nr211, nr-211, wire

Id: TunZbxoqCDY

Length: 18min 49sec (1129 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2018