I don't have electric grid where I live so I'm using an old Hobart 200 amp powered by a 2 cylinder Wisconsin. It's not much good over 140 amps, makes a lot of noise and drinks a lot of gas but gets the job done.
I learned how to weld on one of those old hobarts. Ours was built a little different, it had the fuel tank on top, like the one in this picture. (found the pic on the internet- I have no idea what happened to the old welder we had- I hope its still burning rods somewhere.)
I don't think I ever poured fuel into it, without spilling on top of the lid, and it would run over by the hot exhaust. I was sure I was about to go up in flames at the ripe old age of 15, while whitey (the old man on the crew), stood back laughing at me, smoking a cigarette. Come to think of it, we didn't even have a gas can, we had one of those old steel mobil oil cans with the spout built into the top, haven't seen one of those in ages.
The fine adjustment was broken, you set temperature by adjusting rpms, which was a comedy of welding, sticking the rod, yelling back and forth, and welding some more, burning holes in whatever I was patching up, and finally getting the temp right, or taking the time to make a bigger patch for whatever I just burned a big hole in.
I learned the mysterious art of points.
The battery on ours was also always dead, it was on a trailer with a old trailer house axle. We would have to unhook it, roll it up by the truck hood, unhook the leads and vise grip them up to the battery posts for a jump.
The only thing you could see of the welder when backing up was the muffler standing up, so the trailer hitch had been rewelded together numerous times from being jackknifed. Trying to back up a welder with a 3' long hitch behind a crew cab, utility boxed one ton, is a art form of its own.
Good times......