Recommend me a welder

[Welder Dave]

A Big Blue 400D would be overkill unless you were doing a lot of repairs on large equipment with 1/4" rods or gouging. A Ranger 305 will burn 1/4" rods but wouldn't be a good choice if you were doing it on a regular basis. Burning 3/16" rods you could weld 200' away if needed. If you had a lot of welding to do you could run Dual-shield flux-core since it's a CC/CV machine. A BB400 is bigger heavier machine. A Ranger or Bobcat could be thrown in a pick up and would be a lot easier. For a really heavy duty machine a Lincoln generator would be good choice and a little nicer arc than a Miller.

 

[Georgia Iron]

I missed your budget. But I would go with a big blue 400 miller. Diesel welder. I have 3 welders and most of my work at my shop is outdoors so I use this machine. It is a 3 phase welder and it will do better than a ranger style welder and it can handle 100' + leads to get work that is further away running large rods. I have a lincoln wire feed box that can hook to it but I mostly use 7018 rods.

Before Covid you could get a nice used unit for about $6000.00 Now I am not sure of the going price.

I also have a precision tig with a water cooled torch by lincoln. I am planning to build my BAJA race buggy frame with it. LOL. maybe in my next life.

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The fuel economy is half of what any gas welder is. Best welder I have ever used for field work.

On the fuel economy, what i was trying to say is that it will run twice as long on a tank of fuel. A ranger will burn out in a day and the miller will go 2 to 3 days on a tank of fuel. I burnt up a ranger with 5/32' rods. The miller has paid for itself in fuel savings.

 

[Welder Dave]

That's very odd 5/32" rods would be an issue with a Ranger 305G. A smaller Ranger even seems odd there would be an issue. Miller's Excel Power is a great feature that extends run time on a tank of fuel a lot. The diesel Ranger's and Trailblazers run a long time but are noisy since they run at high speed. I've have to look if Miller has Excel power available on the diesel models. That would be pretty fuel efficient. I don't do enough welding now that I need to worry about fuel consumption but SA200's converted diesel or newer diesel models sip fuel compared to gas models. They don't have the distinct bark of the Continentals though. You can tell an SA200 from a long ways away.

 

[Georgia Iron]

That's very odd 5/32" rods would be an issue with a Ranger 305G. A smaller Ranger even seems odd there would be an issue. Miller's Excel Power is a great feature that extends run time on a tank of fuel a lot. The diesel Ranger's and Trailblazers run a long time but are noisy since they run at high speed. I've have to look if Miller has Excel power available on the diesel models. That would be pretty fuel efficient. I don't do enough welding now that I need to worry about fuel consumption but SA200's converted diesel or newer diesel models sip fuel compared to gas models. They don't have the distinct bark of the Continentals though. You can tell an SA200 from a long ways away.

It was a ranger 250, that kept giving me issues. $1500.00 circuit board, overpriced repair parts, forced to pay high retail prices for repair parts going through there forced vender network. So you get hit with full retail and they dont really care. It was previously a warranty replaced item, which you only get 3 years and it does not matter if you have low hours on the machine. It failed just outside the time limit with low hours. Got sucked into that cost, then another board issue again. Just outside of the now 1 year parts warranty. Either keep putting money into a welder that was not really up to a lot of repeated heavy work or move on. The machine was still heavy, needed a forklift or a machine to load and move it. So it is the same as moving the miller around.

The miller has a better arch than anything else I have used. And it just runs along nice and quiet and smooth. The 2 welders are not really comparable the ranger is not a diesel but it showed me the "way". I am sure the diesel Lincoln machines are also great. But how it worked out for me on repairs on the smaller machine it ended up costing Lincoln my business. They never were told and I would not have known who to have told anyway.

I still use a Lincoln plasma cutter (Procut 60) and I trust it, I switched to the Chinese consumables off of ebay and they are about 60% cheaper and do the same job as the Lincoln tips. Now I just toss them and every new project gets a nice new tip for precision cutting.

Companies need to be careful on how they stick customers because I am one of those that don't forgive and forget. And now look so many years later and the miller takes all that I can throw at it. I tend to play a game with myself, I am always attempting to break my welds and it keeps me on my toes and I have learned to make a pretty good weld, and something else either bends or breaks before my welds let go.

Welder Dave. I am sure you are aware but for others that are not. These bigger machines have the power to really put out a quality weld. If you are just doing lighter work then by all means get a plug in 220 unit. For me my welding always seems to come up to far from a power source and the diesel unit solved that issue for me. I have a plug in welder at my shop also and I don't even bother with it because my miller works so well and it is covenant to use outside. And you can dial it right down to do very thin work with small rods.

 

[Old Doug]

I had a welder with a continental it was something the gas it burnt. It just had a 5 gallon tank so you needed to haul extra gas in cans around not the best deal. I sold the welder the next owner started a fire refueling it . I heard the building it was in was burnt down but the welder was saved.

 

[1693TA]

Welder Dave. I am sure you are aware but for others that are not. These bigger machines have the power to really put out a quality weld. If you are just doing lighter work then by all means get a plug in 220 unit. For me my welding always seems to come up to far from a power source and the diesel unit solved that issue for me. I have a plug in welder at my shop also and I don't even bother with it because my miller works so well and it is covenant to use outside. And you can dial it right down to do very thin work with small rods.

I'm from the old stick welding days. Have kept my old Hobart Bros. engine drive welder because of the quality of weld it will lay down. It always put out enough power, (DC only) and my portable grinders/saws were all universal motors so ran on the DC output convenience power only quite well. Still use it from time to time but in reality since I've slowed down, most times, my shop welders get use. Don't quite enjoy laying in the mud and muck as much as used to I guess.

Once I get my diesel powered welder on running gear, I'll probably finally let the older one go; but that would be hard.

 

[Welder Dave]

Every manufacturer has had dud/bad machines. A Ranger 250 is not a heavy duty machine. There was an earlier Ranger that also had a lot of issues (Ranger 8 maybe). Ranger 305's have a very good reputation welding wise and are for heavier duty use. They have a very nice arc. A big issue that should have been a recall was when they changed them so the carb. couldn't vent to the outside. If the fuel tank was filled too high the carb. would flood which would wash the cylinders and ruin the engine. The fuel had to be about 6 inches below the filler neck. Going out to a remote location you generally want to take as much fuel as possible. 6 inches down is ridiculous. In small print Lincoln says to turn the key on and fill to the fuel gauge just goes to full. What a hassle just to put gas in it. Millermatic 250's are known for being models to avoid as are XMT300's. The cost of new boards for XMT's made them cost prohibitive to repair and the boards went out often. A BB 400 is a heavy industrial machine. It doesn't compare at all to the smaller high speed Rangers. A lot of people like the older machines like SA 200's because there's a lot less electronics and they're much easier and less expensive to repair. I have a 1961 still going strong. Parts are readly available to keep them running indefinitely. I don't think any of the new machines will last 50 years or more and I'd bet the parts will be obsolete after 15 years or so. Miller has done a lot to get a nicer arc on their engine drives. They were never true DC generators so didn't have as nice of welding characteristics as Lincoln and Hobart true DC generators. Most newer machines are all electronic although Lincoln does still have some generators. They are extremely expensive though. A 300 amp machine is sufficient for most heavy equipment general repairs. If 1/4" rods and gouging are common then you'd want a 400 amp or bigger machine.