Buying a Harbor Freight Flux Cored Welder
My next trip to Harbor Freight I'm going to pick up their 90 Amp Flux Cored Welder (ITEM 44567) which lists for $149 but is on sale at the stores for $119.99 plus 15% off by coupon. It only weight 34.5 lbs, which helps explain the 10% duty cycle at 80 Amps and the 18% duty cycle at 60 Amps. Uses .030" flux cored wire, comes with a starter spool. But the two really neat things about it are that it's so cheap, I may as well use it for a website learning tool, and that it runs on 110V, in case it happens to last beyond the period of time for which I've rented a garage/studio.
I had planned on buying a Harbor Freight MIG welder, a couple of friends have used them over the years, but they are fairly notorious for wire feed problems. I assume the Flux Cored welder will have the same problem with the feed, and I've read online that they suffer from a design flaw that leaves them with a hot tip. A "hot tip" is slang for a tip that's always on when the welder is powered on, meaning if you lay it down and it touches ground, it arcs out.
I wasn't sure about the whole flux cored technology since I never heard of it before looking at welders in Harbor Freight last week, but I found a nice write-up on weldingengineer.com that lists a number of strong points, my favorite of which was "Low operator skill required." Also found a demo from a guy welding up an exhaust pipe who looked pretty indifferent to protective clothing:
Run time: 3:16
One of the problems with inert gas welding, which is that a breeze can really mess you up. With flux core welding, the flux inside the core generates the inert gas when it's heated up, which protects the arc. I figure that after a little practicing, I'll start with the floor pan repair and then get to the unibody. Besides, the new floor pan will give me something to weld the unibody to!
Harbor Freight allows anybody to download the manual as a PDF file. The warning to make sure you are ready to work before turning the welder on "to avoid unintentional welding" certainly sounds like a hot tip to me. The 18% duty cycle amounts to 8 minutes and 12 seconds off after 1 minute 48 seconds on. I thought they meant welding time, but it looks like they mean "welder on" time, which strikes me as odd - how stressed can the welder be if it's not creating an arc?
I had planned on buying a Harbor Freight MIG welder, a couple of friends have used them over the years, but they are fairly notorious for wire feed problems. I assume the Flux Cored welder will have the same problem with the feed, and I've read online that they suffer from a design flaw that leaves them with a hot tip. A "hot tip" is slang for a tip that's always on when the welder is powered on, meaning if you lay it down and it touches ground, it arcs out.
I wasn't sure about the whole flux cored technology since I never heard of it before looking at welders in Harbor Freight last week, but I found a nice write-up on weldingengineer.com that lists a number of strong points, my favorite of which was "Low operator skill required." Also found a demo from a guy welding up an exhaust pipe who looked pretty indifferent to protective clothing:
Run time: 3:16
One of the problems with inert gas welding, which is that a breeze can really mess you up. With flux core welding, the flux inside the core generates the inert gas when it's heated up, which protects the arc. I figure that after a little practicing, I'll start with the floor pan repair and then get to the unibody. Besides, the new floor pan will give me something to weld the unibody to!
Harbor Freight allows anybody to download the manual as a PDF file. The warning to make sure you are ready to work before turning the welder on "to avoid unintentional welding" certainly sounds like a hot tip to me. The 18% duty cycle amounts to 8 minutes and 12 seconds off after 1 minute 48 seconds on. I thought they meant welding time, but it looks like they mean "welder on" time, which strikes me as odd - how stressed can the welder be if it's not creating an arc?
Labels: arc, core, flux, harbor freight, hot tip, welder, welding
posted by Morris Rosenthal at
12:42 PM
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