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Originally Posted by Opper77
One other quick point... on a MIG welder, the wire speed is actually your "HEAT" and voltage serves as pressure, or "puddle fluidity" On thick materials, the wire speed goes up WITH the voltage (ideally, they are a 5-6/1 ratio ie 120Amps, 20 Volts) for a decent weld on 3/16" plate, and vice-versa for thin steel. On machines with no actual numerical values, if you really want to be picky, use an ammeter and voltmeter to calibrate them.
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Is this just the smaller mig welders that do this? At work I use a miller mig setup where the power source and wire feeder are separate modules, and I can't see any way that the speed of the wire feeder could possibly affect voltage or amperage output of the power source.
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I think you may be happier with your WeldPak100 if you can get it working better.
I have that exact same welder and I can easily weld up anything sheetmetal on a truck. Holes, cracks, patch panels, whatever.
With the proper settings, it will do anything you want on sheetmetal.
I also have a Millermatic 250 MIG welder and I always use the little Lincoln on thin stuff. It works better for me than the bigger welder does.
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I can (and have) welded sheetmetal with it, but there are a couple things I don't like about it that make me want to upgrade to a better welder:
1) The duty cycle is really pathetic, something around 20%, weld too long with it and it pops an internal breaker and i'm stuck waiting 10-15 minutes for it to work again
2) No gas valve. Turn on the gas at the bottle/flow meter, and thats how much it flows whether you're welding or not. Wasteful at best.
3) I consider the 4 settings for heat and infinitely variable wirespeed imprecise at best...I can make good welds with it, but it requires a lot of tinkering with settings over time....whereas the miller mig at work, I can set it, pull the trigger, and forget it, makes the same consistency welds over and over again, which the little lincoln never seems to do over an extended period of time.