WHAT'S THE BEST HARBOR FREIGHT WELDER FOR DIY/HOBBYISTS & MY THOUGHTS ON THE TITANIUM MIG 170

all right so you guys know I was looking at the Millers and this is the 141 that hooks up to 110 but you do have to you have to switch the polarity if you want to go air gas or flux core by switching the cable leads this one was coming at about eight hundred and fifty bucks manual setting four-speed manual setting for how much voltage is going through it but you can't hook fair gas up to it so that was a little bit on the pricier side for something that you can get and I was also looking at this Miller Matic 211 the one same one my dad has you can plug into 220 or 110 again you have to change the polarity if you want to go flux core or air gas there's a little adapter that it comes with this one was coming in right at around twelve hundred and fifty thirteen hundred bucks plus tax taxes a lot but it does have some auto features you can set the gauge automatically to whatever wire you're running plus voltage and thickness based on the metal that you're trying to do it's a MIG welder that does aluminum steel and like I said it's it's overall it's really nice my dad has it it's just a little bit out of my price range I wasn't I don't really need Pro Series cost welders I'm not a professional welder so I started looking at the Lincoln's and I was like okay the benefits between Lincoln and Miller is that they can get some parts form should they break down outside of the warranty period and it's relatively inexpensive to fix it so I'm going back to Harbor Freight just to revisit some of the welders because I have had such good luck with my flux core welder from Harbor Freight which cost me a hundred bucks and I was like they gotta have something here that's got to be a little bit better than what it is that I'm already running so let me take a closer look and see what they got so I saw the welding carts they were looking pretty nice if you wanted this is something to set your welder on this was a huge parking lot sale that they had going on this Vulcan where you can hook your tanks up have a nice little work surface - that was nice started looking at the Vulcan welders because someone recommended the Vulcan welders a little bit better on pricing definitely better than some of the ones that we saw from the welding supply store as well as Home Depot but you can't get a Miller anywhere else except for a welding store and if you want to link you pretty much got to go to Home Depot and I was like okay now we're starting to get up there on price and now I'm getting pretty close to Lincoln and Miller prices I don't know if I'm really ready to do that if I'm gonna do that I might as well go Miller or Lincoln man I was trying to you know do my research you guys said that speed plus polarity plus whether you're running gas plus a lot of things would make or break you as far as a well a good weld is concerned I was talking about penetration and how is having lack of penetration out of the flux core welder and so I was really looking some for something that's a little bit better quality that would provide a better weld then I saw these Titanium's these Titanium's came in at a much more reasonable price and they offered a lot of the similar features that Hobart offered that Lincoln offered not quite Miller status I wouldn't say but they you know they did offer the gas they didn't have the you can reverse the polarity a lot easier on this device than you can a Miller or a Lincoln and I guess a much much better price and I know anything about Hobart I know that Jay on swears by Hobart I don't know anything about them either so I was I was looking at these and I was like man this might be worth taking a little closer look at so that being said let's take a closer look and see which one I got all right so we got our our mix setting here that we can turn up that's digitally displayed we try to run it at five and about five wire speed after playing with it I'm not sure what this 2 T 4 T is I like to go on and off my trigger so I'm guessing that 2t is probably where I want to be and if I was holding it down a lot or consistently maybe 40 I just don't know you know I'm still new I'm a hobby it's like I said it best but any rate here we go here's some settings here's the trouble chart we're checking it out we're not gonna be penetrating anything too thick says they can run for about six to seven and a half minutes for duty cycle there's the wild spool going through this aluminum deal and then out into the hose I'm on flux core right now 30 thousands of flux port so my ground clamp comes up it goes into the positive the the actual wire spool or welding rod part portion of it plugs in up here followed by another little cable that plugs into here and then the main cable that comes out of here for wire feed is going to go around over here to the negative and it's it's pretty simplistic you know it's got a deal here where if you were to unplug this it's got a knob you'll line it up and you spin it on same with the other one this only fits one way it's a five prong deal see what else can I tell you here's a Vince 11 this green so far backside so you're gonna want to make sure you have it set for 120 if you have luck score they also got the 240 as well as the on/off switch to turn the welding welder on or off I selected off the fan cools everything down and then it turns itself off and of course when you're ready to weld you turn it on give it a few seconds to get booted up it's good to go alright guys so I'm back here on the side of the house got my little welding station set up but I want to talk a little bit about how I came to the decision that I did was picking up the maple on 70 so if you guys been following me for the last week or so you would have seen that we went to Home Depot we did get a chance to go into Harbor Freight we went into tractor supply we went into vagabond welding we looked at some Millers some Lincoln's Hobart we looked at all the welders that they had to offer over Harbor Freight and really my decision came down to do I want to spend professional money for a professional Series Walter that I'm only going to use once in a blue moon for hobbyists like projects or do I want to spend just a little bit morning to get a little bit more money to get a little bit better weld and that's kind of what it came down to so you guys know that I've had this Chicago 90 in flux core for over four years but I've been using that style of well there for about nine years now it's what I started off with the only welding class I ever took was back in high school and that's been over 20 years ago so for the longest time I just thought that I was a crappy welder and I didn't do it often enough to make it halfway decent looking well but I was able to make it hold up for what it's worth well I decided to step it up just to see how much more difference there actually is between the 90 amp flux core and the titanium mig 170 another reason why I didn't want to spend buku dollars on a professional series welder is because I think that you can get a lot of the same exact features out of the titanium than you can a Miller and Lincoln let me talk about that for a second so my dad I was talking with my dad and told me hey you know son it's gonna be a little bit difficult for you to get replacement components when it comes to those cheaper welders so I did my due diligence I started asking questions of the Harbor Freight employees they gave me a 1-800 number that I'll put down the description that you can actually call and if you're out of warranty you can get replacement components for the titanium as well as the Vulcan you know they didn't know if they had any kind of replacement components as far as the Chicago electric but a beauty behind the Harbor Freight warranty is that before your warranty is getting ready to expire you can go back and you can renew that warranty for another two years or one year however you however long you want to extend your warranty for so I thought that was a great option you know you go in every couple years you pay him 50 bucks or whatever and you got a new warranty and I think that's great so that really helped aid me in my decision for going with the titanium over say something like a Miller with the Miller I don't know what their warranty is like but I can tell you this much if something broke on it it's pretty much up to me to find the replacement component I highly doubt that I could take it back to the welding supply store and say I need a new one with Home Depot it's hit and miss you know you can talk to them you can call the corporate office and maybe see what they can do for you on that and they do offer warranties to but how long that warranty or how well that warranty is I'm not too entirely sure now I did pick up a warranty with my Milwaukee chop saw and I picked that warranty up for two years at 25 bucks and I thought that was a pretty damn good deal and again I can do the same exact thing with them I can go in and I could pay for a new warranty want to get close to that or if it breaks down to that timeframe I can simply go into the Home Depot and change it out for a new one all right enough of my jibba jabba let's get this thing fired up let's put some steel on this thing and let's start doing some welding and see how well the welds come out [Music] [Music] [Music] all right so I thought before I started welding with the new welder I would show you guys a weld that I did with the 90 amp flux core you can see not the most prettiest thing in the entire world but it worked and what I'm talking about penetration like when you go to clean something up and again I'm not sure how well this is going to show it but you'll see like this little hairline crack in the metal and this is just flush with the surface we're only some of the weld actually penetrated in deep enough for it to hold it together maybe I went too much on the grinding now but it's the same situation over here a little portion of that corner not completely sealed and then again over here but you might be able to see this one a little bit better again not completely sealed so I don't know if I'm grinding it down too much or it's just not penetrating very well but here at the top you'll see that it seemed to penetrate really well and there is no hairline crack and that's also with the 90 amp flux core so it's real hit and miss I'm gonna turn the voltage down to four think we're running a little hot and man that's a pretty world already far left tackle way better way better this is a 1/16 square tubing I believe yeah 1/16 square tubing look at that and that pretty [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right so not too incredibly bad whatsoever these well two came out nice and crispy I had good penetration I felt there was a couple of times on this side that I kind of got blinded by the Sun so maybe my settings were a little bit off too so it kind of spackled a little bit but overall still a pretty decent looking weld all right now this weld is on quarter inch steel and you can see that came out just beautiful beautiful now I've got my speeds at 5-4 wire about four and a half for the MIG and then five on whatever that is I'm not really sure I mean my welder guys out there can tell me anyway I'm going to go ahead and weld the other end of this support piece and then I'm gonna run one more in between so yeah guys overall I am very impressed I am very impressed with this little welder and I even got a smoking deal on it because the employees at Harbor Freight are freaking awesome I ended up picking this hot rod up during the huge parking lot sale this weekend for 450 bucks pretty bitchin did pretty bitchin so I would say money well-spent and if I consider the amount that I paid for this versus what I paid for that and that getting me pretty much all my money back out of you know doing like I said exhaust work this kind of stuff racecar stuff I've made my money back with that this one I just kind of I wanted to step it up a little bit get some better welds it's that way I can get a little bit more artsy craftsy and whatnot which is why I decide to make myself a little table looking at my little table yeah so far so good I gotta see how much it's gonna cost for a flat plate of Steel to go across but as far as this welder now weld it look at Wells 1/16 1/16 of an inch real well it does really well on the quarter inch stuff says it can go up to 3/8 I don't have any any real immediate need to go 3/8 welding but it's nice to know that it can do that and yeah overall pretty happy I think I need to work on my squaring though not sure it happened over there I measured the tube evenly for both sides and all this is the same length and everything for whatever reason though that back leg looks like it's sticking out a heck of a lot farther than a it really should be but it's whatever it's a desert table man this thing can be planted in the ground and collect as much rest in whatever it's just meant for me to come over and bang on things every once in a while or you know clamp have an area to clamp on to you with the welder to weld something on top so that's pretty cool that's what my whole goal was behind this table so I'm getting there hopefully it won't take me eight months to get to the next step but you know no rush he'll rush in it for all for me I'm just having fun and man I'm just killer excited about this Walter guys I really am well that'll pretty much wrap it up for this video guys if you liked it give it a thumbs up if you didn't like it give it a thumbs down share if you want to share my total thoughts on this overall review this Willner kicks ass - thumbs up I'm gonna say Harbor Freight for the win or in this case titanium for the win so real happy with my purchase thanks everybody I'll see you next time deuces

Channel: Justin Dow

Views: 1,564,825

Keywords: Titanium MIG170 Review, Titanium Mig170, Titanium welders, Harbor Freight Welders, Chicago Electric welder, Chicago Electric 90Amp Flux Core, Lincoln welders, Miller 211, Miller 211 Mig welder, What's the best welder for DIY, What's the best professional welder, whats the best gas welder, Harbor Freight Tools, Harbor Freight Welder review, Harbor Freight Walk Around

Id: HO8kRM5pzjQ

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2019