get a welder while you can

[corn chip]

youtube has plenty of videos on this stuff but i like to see things for myself so i can know if im doing something wrong. especially with mig as its easy to get lack of fusion. some people would be suprised their weld may not be as good as they think when its judged by only outside appearance. having done numerous cut and etch ive seen lack of fusion on my own mig welds that looked fine on the outside. these photos were couple days ago with the transsteel. one of them looks especially bad in the root. the other three look ok over all.

 

[Monza Harry]

if your asking specifically about the fronius transteel 2200 , actually its a bit cheaper than its direct competition from lincoln (power mig 210mp) and miller (multimatic 215). the lincoln aluminum package with spool gun is $2400. miller doesnt seem to have a alumin package but the spool gun is $650 , machine is $2000. fronius is $2178, plus about $100 for the necessary small parts to run aluminum wire , remember it welds aluminum with the supplied gun. when you really dig into every little detail about each machine , i feel fronius easily pulls out front of all other machines.
lincoln and miller give you 10' gun and ground leads . fronius is 13'.
fronius has ip23 protection. lincoln only ip21c. miller i couldnt determine if it has any ip protection.
duty cycle , fronius wins hands down against miller and lincoln. also i may add , lincoln is not very transparent in their duty cycle info but what little info they do publish , fronius easily wins.
the mig guns, i havent seen the lincoln so i cant speak to it . millers gun is fine. has a nice nimble feel. fronius gun is a beast. seems more industrial, rather than homeowner. perhaps that could be good or bad. might be tricky getting into tight spots , otherwise i see zero disadvantage.
ground clamp , fronius is cast brass. miller appears to be stamped steel ,albeit with a copper strap connecting the jaws. not a bad clamp , but still a step behind a solid brass clamp. lincolns clamp im not sure of , probably similar to Miller's.
wire feed rate , miller 60-600ipm. fronius 59-708ipm. lincoln 50-500ipm.
fronius has a synergic weld mode. neither miller or lincoln have this mode that i could find.
ill be honest , i simply dont have the time to go into and type every tiny detail / feature / function / parameter, between these machines , other wise i would be typing all night and half of tomorow

Yes the Lincoln clamp is a (nicely polished) turd, stamped steel with a braided copper strap, same as you described the Miller. Yes yes yes, periodic destructive testing of our own welds is essential, pretty is just that, not necessarily strong, good thing, mine have never been a thing to behold. I am just now trying my new Linclon 210MP so some destructive behavior is in my near future! Harry

 

[corn chip]

get a bunch of different wires and try it all. i have probly five or six different wires in various sizes . 023 ,030 ,035. havent bothered to get any 045 yet. so far i got lincoln L56 and nr211mp. ine er70s6 and flux core if i recall. blue demon fluxcore. kiswell dual shield fluxcore. this is dual shield stuff from a few months back using the miller211. ive really no use specificly for this type of wire but bought some just to mess around with it

 

[corn chip]

passing this along. fronius has a 20th anniversarry promotion on the transsteel 2200. you get a free extra torch setup loaded for aluminum welding. its about $550 i think if tyou were to buy it seperate. kinda makes me mad as i just bought this machine about a month ago before the promotion for the same price lol. but you can never predict when a promotion will pop up https://shopweldingsupplies.com/collections/fronius-20th-anniversary-let-us-give-you-the-gift

 

[redm18]

Which weld above is the bad one?

 

[Bodj Built]

Which weld above is the bad one?

The right. No penetration in to the root

 

[corn chip]

Which weld above is the bad one?

well this one isnt particularrly good

 

[redm18]

Any thoughts on the cause? How likely do you think that weld is to fail?

 

[corn chip]

im very certain the cause is from the puddle getting ahead of the arc. impossible to say if it would fail as it would depend on the application and load it was under. something like holding fence posts together it would never fail. under a big load its possible it could fail partially or completely. hard to say

 

[corn chip]

so i was undecided but considering getting a third fronius machine as i mentioned at the thread beginning . well a great opportunity presented itself and i really couldnt say no. what i wasnt aware of is if you order a magicwave they now send the iwave which is the predocessor and newest model just on the market a few months. at first i thought they sent the wrong machine until i googled what the iwave is. ill have to dig into what theyve changed or upgraded on this new model. also i got the wireless pedal as my old machine has a corded pedal and more than once it was a tripping hazard and some what of a pain in the *** in general. the torches with all the control buttons in the handle i have no experience with so i got a ck 20 flex head setup incase i cant get used to the euro style. perhaps theyll both have advantages in certain areas and ill use them both but ck with foot pedal is all ive ever used so getting a feel for buttons on the handle may be a challenge. anyways i already have some projects lined up for this thing . probly make a cart right off the bat

 

[Retroman]

Looks like Miller is having another price increase tomorrow.

 

[corn chip]

Looks like Miller is having another price increase tomorrow.

i wouldnt be suprised. prices have gone beyond rediculous for alot of things. on a positive note i started making a cart for this thing. need to get more material tomorow

 

[buildyourown]

Everybody talks up Miller CS but HTP answered their phone on a Saturday morning and shipped me replacement parts for free. Long after a Miller would have been out of warranty.

 

[Retroman]

Everybody talks up Miller CS but HTP answered their phone on a Saturday morning and shipped me replacement parts for free. Long after a Miller would have been out of warranty.

Always nice to hear of companies going above and beyond for there customers.

 

[corn chip]

think i got this cart mostly done atleast for now . decided to try some blickle germany casters this time. they seem well made even for their budget line. much better than the junkers from HD and HF anyways

 

[nadogail]

With all the international exchanges of information and technology, I have come to the conclusion that a top quality product can be made almost anywhere. The important difference is not going to be the country of origin but the adherence to established standards of quality control.

Japanese products for example, were once known as “Cheap Japanese Junk”. They adopted Statistical Quality Control and now make world class products. Their cars, for example, have progressed from cheap imitations to top tier products.

If there’s a demand I am sure they could couple a Diesel engine to a quality generator and build a machine equal or better to anything any other country can produce.

I regret the loss of our supposedly superior American technological leadership but I accept that others can make a quality product that can compete, on a level field, with our best products

 

[William Payne]

What’s with the Fronius hate? they are a top brand in Europe. I have a Miller but I looked at Fronius and I only stayed with Miller out of personal preference regarding the way I like settings. I’m not a fan of menus and presets. I want independent manual control of everything.

However there are Fronius machines I absolutely want to buy. Specifically their cold metal transfer machines. Nobody else is doing that.

 

[speed bump]

What’s with the Fronius hate? they are a top brand in Europe. I have a Miller but I looked at Fronius and I only stayed with Miller out of personal preference regarding the way I like settings. I’m not a fan of menus and presets. I want independent manual control of everything.

However there are Fronius machines I absolutely want to buy. Specifically their cold metal transfer machines. Nobody else is doing that.

I don't know if it is hate but everyone I have talked to who bought one locally basically said it's good but it didn't do anything better than the Miller or Lincoln's they already owned. These are all production/job shop environments. I know we looked at buying one of the backpack welders but we have a couple of maxstars and several engine drives so I couldn't come up with a reason to try one.

In a hobby shop or a lower volume shop I could see it being a good value as far as getting into a high quality pulsed mig or a really fancy tig for a slightly lower price point than a lot of the millers or Lincolns with those features.

 

[corn chip]

anybody that buys a particular brand thinking it will make a better weld is a fool. even microscopically examined im not sure a thousand dollar machine would do a 'better' weld than a hundred dollar machine. cut and etch examinations look pretty much the same as theres plenty of those on youtube.
what the thousand dollar welder is likely to give you is a more pleasant experience. better accessories. better internal components. simply better designed. most likely many additional years of trouble free service. these things are important to me.
if you want a chinese machine then buy a chinese machine, perhaps they can do it as well as the germans, japanese , italians and austrians.
its a shame i just had no interest in american (or mexico) assembled machines. thats not how i want to spend my money. stone me if you want

 

[tarbellb]

anybody that buys a particular brand thinking it will make a better weld is a fool. even microscopically examined im not sure a thousand dollar machine would do a 'better' weld than a hundred dollar machine. cut and etch examinations look pretty much the same as theres plenty of those on youtube.
what the thousand dollar welder is likely to give you is a more pleasant experience. better accessories. better internal components. simply better designed. most likely many additional years of trouble free service. these things are important to me.
if you want a chinese machine then buy a chinese machine, perhaps they can do it as well as the germans, japanese , italians and austrians.
its a shame i just had no interest in american (or mexico) assembled machines. thats not how i want to spend my money. stone me if you want

Excellent reply

 

[Hohn]

well im no professional certified welder but the machine seems to do good. the material was 1/2" thick mild steel in a t joint. top photo is one side of the joint with 1/8 lincoln excaliber 7018 at 130a if i recall. bottom photo is the piece sliced. right leg is the 1/8 excaliber at 130a. left leg is 3/16 7018 ,excaliber i think. i didnt think the machine had enough horsepower for the 3/16 but figure i would turn it up full blast to 180a just to see what happened. it motored along fine and didnt stall out but the left leg in the photo clearly shows 180a isnt enough. the 3/16 rod and 1/2" plate isnt something i normally mess with ,figured i just try it for fun.
my one complaint is they only include a small two sided post card looking thing to get you going as a quick set up guide. a full scale owners manual would of been nice instead. i was able to dload the full tilt owners manual from the fronius website easy enough but it would be nice to have a hard copy to keep on hand with the machine. oh well i guess

I'm no welder, but that sure looks great to me, the etch proves the penetration. Full root and tie-in, can't ask for much more.

 

[Stobal]

just got a great idea. maybe ill go print it at a local library lol. they charge $.10 a page i think but that would be well worth $13 rather than using my printer

lol just saw the date of the original post. My suggestion is probably a bit late to the game, although I should mention I wasn’t the one who brought it back from the dead.

Yeah. You can get them to spiral bind it to for not much more. Although it might be better to do it in two parts if you go that route.

 

[bb29510]

i do alot of work in the shipyards, Ingalls, Austal, and you see all these millers out in the weather, rain cold, heat, and they never turn them off

must mean something