How about a Hobart 140 Handler

   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #1  

Mrwurm

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Location
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New Holland TC30 Hydro 4x4, Gravely Zero Turn Mower
I currently own an a/c stick welder (230 volt) and an oxy/acetelyne gas rig. I have never used a mig welder, but I am now thinking of buying one. A friend of mine bought a cheapy at Harbor Freight and I am amazed at the quality of welds he's getting. I'm not interested in the cheapy model, but I thought this Hobart would suit me well.

It's 115 volt, has a gas valve and regulator. Having this type of rig could expand my welding to stainless and aluminum. It would also allow me to weld lighter gauge materials that always seem to get burned up by my stick welder (regardless of my best efforts to adjust the amperage)

Have I selected a good unit for general light to medium use ?
Can you sugggest another brand or model in the under $500 range ? (the Hobart 140 is $419 at TSC)
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #2  
If you use solid wire .023 and 75/25 gas it's a really nice little unit.
I prefer the Lincoln units but they have been improving the Hobart
for quite so time. I would buy the Hobart over the Miller 135 at this point. Although Miller is bringing out a all new little unit.

The Hobart really has a soft type arc and well do a good job on
sheetmetal. Aluminum will be in a super narrow range where it
will work. Probably not worth the effort.
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #3  
Jerry
Can't offer advice, but have you checked what's available Ebay Store

I bought a Lincoln a bit ago, easy people to work with.
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #4  
Last year, after much research, I bought a Hobart handler 180.
The 140s bigger brother, for not much over 500 with the stand and regulator at Ttractor Supply. This was the cheapest I found and I have been very happy with it. Although I am not so happy with my skill at using it. It's hard for me to get used to although I am welding things I never would have attempted with a stick(very thin wall pipe etc). If you cruise the welding forums I think you will find that most people consider the 180 to be for light to medium work and the 140 for mostly sheet metal. As for aluminum It sounds like a major pain to set up for it.
You need to change the drive rollers and feed liner. Since aluminum is very soft a lot of people have trouble feeding the wire through the gun without birds nesting at the drive rollers.
Just my thoughts and observations.
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #5  
i have that welder and spent most of today welding with it. i like it. it is a really good light duty welder.portabilty is nice(120 volt) and it comes with a regulator. bought mine from TSC as well. i have used both shielded and flux core with it and was satisfied with the results. i am really happy with mine and highly recommend it. hope this helps, let me know if i can help anymore, johnny
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler
  • Thread Starter
#6  
Thanks to all. I bought the 140 today and tried it out with .03 flux core. It welded 3/16 material with good penetration and nice bead. I also tried it on 1/4, though the manual recommends .035 wire for 1/4 steel. With the wire feed set at 50 (out of 0 to 100) it made a nice bead (although a bit slow) but penetration was not as deep as I would like. Seems that 3/16 is a good limit for this machine. I believe I will use my stick welder on heavy jobs (1/4) that require strength for safety.

It was $419 at TSC and I had a 10% off coupon. So, it came out to about $380.
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #7  
Congrats on your new welder!

I'll post this, hoping that I'm not insulting your intelligence in any way, but some of the MIG parameters aren't always as intuitive as one would think.

The tap knob sets the voltage you're welding with (I believe this machine has 4 taps, right?), and the wire speed knob obviously sets the wire speed, but here's the non-intuitive part: wire speed controls the amperage at that particular voltage. If you need more heat at a particular voltage, try increasing the wire speed, this will increase the amperage. If that still doesn't do it, reduce the wire speed back to the original setting and increase the voltage, then increase the wire speed again if needed. Realize though that you might hit the duty cycle limits a little quicker with the output amperage higher. If you still need more heat, you could try using 100% CO2 rather than a CO2/Argon mix, you'll get more heat but you'll also get more spatter.

I've always thought that the hardest part of MIG is justing getting the machine set right (voltage and wire speed). Once you've got the right settings dialed in, it's as easy as using a glue gun, IMHO. I'd imagine there's a chart on the inside of the door (there is on my Millermatic 210)...look at it and get confortable with it. Think of those as starting settings and tweak from there based on you results.

You CAN weld thick material with a smaller MIG welder (if it isn't such a large thermal mass that it sinks the heat too quickly)...you just have to bevel the edges and do multiple passes. If you do it infrequently, it works fine. If you end up doing this a lot, it's time to get a bigger MIG, or just revert to your Arc machine. For multiple passes on thick material with a limited duty cycle, I'd say Arc would probaby be faster.

HTH,
Dave
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler
  • Thread Starter
#8  
Good tutorial /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I did see in the manual that wire feed speed also adjusts the amperage. You're right, I would have never imagined that.

I also found that welding with a mig is not like welding with a stick. I was trying to maintain my arc space with the mig and ended up with 4 inches of wire sticking out of the gun.
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #9  
It's also about volt amp curves.
If you try to get 140 amps out
of that machine your volts
would probably be around 15 volts.
It's the game they play.
Using solid wire and gas shielding
you might get a real solid weld on a little
under .125 With the wire you got now,
it will bump it up some. Right about
where you found out for yourself.
You will like it for sheetmetal
with C-25 and .023 wire. You can
get about #70 on the wirefeed at tap
four. Then it will just stub into the work
Just not enough voltage to run anymore
wire.
 
   / How about a Hobart 140 Handler #10  
Yep it's it's taken me a long time to not just pull the gun back to break the arc when I am done with the bead like in stick welding.
Forgot several times to turn on the gas, makes a really, really ugly weld when you do that. I really think I might need a little lighter shade helmet to see what the bead is doing. I seem to be able to see whats going on better with the stick welder so I think maybe mig is not as bright. I really want one of those adjustable shade automatic helmets. Maybe if I cut out pictures and leave them around the house I might get one for my birthday.
 

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