As a precursor to my comments I will say that even though I have O/A'ed for quite some years my stick welding experience is only 2 years and my scratch TIG only one year. I am looking at a "reaL" TIG machine but that is still in the future. Scratch TIG will work for now.
I have a Brand X inverter stick welder that I like but have had some problems with. It was replaced under warrantee once and I think that it maybe exhibiting some issues again thus I jumped on this deal.
First I will say that I wish I had gone with Everlast instead of Brand X 2 years ago but I got a heck of a deal then as well so I can't complain.
I spent about 3 hours welding with the PA300 today and am very impressed. IMO it clearly is superior
overall to Brand X and especially with 6010. With 6010 10P-PLUS I was amazed at the difference in puddle control I had with the PA300. The range of arc force seems to be significantly broader than I have on my other machine. The Arc Force knob is labeled 1-10 but has 12 gradations so it is hard to say what each increment is (0.833/increment) 1, 1.833, 2.667, 3.5, 4.333, etc so I will ignore the 12 increments and just say 1 through 10 using increments of 1. The lower end of the range "1" seems to have more manipulation of the arc than what the other unit has at the "1" setting but are pretty close. The upper limit on the PA300 however seems to me to be a fair amount higher than the upper limit on Brand X. I really felt like I was able to do some things with the puddle that I have not previously been able to do when I was using arc force at 10. Of course with both machines using 10P+ there was spatter as would be expected of 6010. Overall I would give the PA300 a much higher rating on 6010 (at least with 10P+) than the other inverter.
If my description of the arc force range was inadequate maybe the picture will help my description. Higher high end and slightly higher low end.
Switching to 7018: using Esab Acclaim I would say that the PA300 did a very nice job.
My 7018 is normally used out of the ovens but today it was at outside air temp.
I would not say that it stood out as better than the Brand X inverter and if there was any difference between them it was in the noise factor. What I did notice was that with arc force at both 1 and at 10, I had less of a problem with the arc being snuffed out with the Acclaim 7018 than I did with the other inverter brand. When using Excalibur 7018 the other machine has no snuffing problem but it does intermittently with the Acclaim 7018. The PA 300 did not exhibit any issues like that.
Overall I would say the PA300 which does have 50 amps on the other machine is equal to the other machine with 7018 Acclaim and
far superior with the 6010 10P+ rods that I was using.
Glad that I jumped on the deal before Amazon raised the price up. I got the Jun 2013 machine vs what many/most of you got with the Oct 2013 machine.
Be careful with the plastic cover on the faceplate. It does not gravity fall down but remains wherever you left it and since I am not used to having a piece sticking up in the air I clipped it several times. I did not do any damage but could have easily broken it off. So watch that as you start to use yours.
I will post a review on Amazon
