Would you sell off the transformer machine now that an inverter rules the roost?

Strostkovy said:

Miller compressed gas regulator 22-80-580

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thanks for the quick response. I'm going to relax a bit now,

Ries said:

Depends on, to quote Clint Eastwood, how lucky you feel.
Cheap chinese, with no parts availability, could last a week or a decade.
HTP, with one dealer in the US, medium price, medium quality.
Miller, Lincoln, or ESAB, industrial quality industrial prices.

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htp stel are older tech but good qaulity. ive had one of their tigs for years and wouldnt hesitate to recomend them , if thats all your budget allows. if money was no concearn , of course theres other machines i would buy first. but you can pull the side panels off a htp , theyre good machines ,just a bit dated.

esab high end european made stuff might be industrial qaulity but their smaller ,assembled in india machines are not even close to industrial level.

Thanks guys- I am going to sell off the Hobart.
It is a nice damn machine but how things are rolling just now I don't need it in the shop and space for equipment is really tight.

mikeylikesit said:

htp stel are older tech but good qaulity. ive had one of their tigs for years and wouldnt hesitate to recomend them , if thats all your budget allows. if money was no concearn , of course theres other machines i would buy first. but you can pull the side panels off a htp , theyre good machines ,just a bit dated.

esab high end european made stuff might be industrial qaulity but their smaller ,assembled in india machines are not even close to industrial level.

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HTP is fine for hobbyists- you get good quality euro or eastern euro machines for a good price.
The problem for me, as a business, is parts and service and accessory compatibility.
I need my machines to work, today, when employees show up to use them.
I cannot wait for parts that may or may not be in stock in Illinois to arrive by mail.
If I have a problem with my miller machines, the outside sales rep from my local welding supply will drive over with a part, and they have 25 branches in my state, so, generally, parts are at most a day out.
They also have a large stock of rental machines- they will loan or rent me a machine, if one of mine needs to go down to Seattle for a repair at their main repair facility.
I can even order some Miller parts from third party vendors- their water coolers for tig use pumps made in the USA, and I have bought replacements direct from the manufacturer. Dunno who makes internal parts for HTP machines made in Italy, but I think they are much harder to get here.
This sort of "reliability" along with my ability to buy Miller parts pretty much anywere, nationwide, is why I dont own HTP machines.
I have been on jobsites in Phoenix, or Pasadena, with my welders, where I could go to a Miller dealer within a couple of miles, and get anything I needed.
This same problem, only much more, exists with the unbelievably cheap chinese machines like Everlast- no local parts, no local service.

i hear ya. alot of people buy a machine based on what repair facility is only 5mi down the road and i can understand that thought process.
i think a bit differently however. me personally ,dont care what service ,repair , or parts shop is just down the street. when im spending many thousands of dollars for what i consider top class equipment ,i expect it to work and work well for a long time. ya i know nothing lasts forever but i dont sit up at night worrying about what might happen some day. this is why ill never buy a machine based on what repair facility is just across town.
no im not a business owner but my thinking wouldnt change even if i was.

im in a smaller town and even with a broken miller or lincoln ,theres no gaurantee they wont have to ship it out of state for repair. we have one authorized miller/lincoln repair shop but they dont always have a employed tech. and even when they have a tech , how can anybody be sure how competant they are. again ,just another reason i could careless what repair shop is just down the road.
if i did own a welding business , i would have a plan in place incase a machine went down (perhaps a spare machine in the corner) and certainly i wouldnt run empty on consumables and need a box of contact tips at midnight. thats just poor business practice. so finding consumables on every street corner makes little difference to me. come to think of it ,ive never bought a single welding consumable at the local shops.

while i do have a htp that i bought years ago (my very first machine) , it doesnt get used any more as ive since bought new fronius machines. until i have a legitimate reason to go another direction , im staying on the fronius wagon.
but i fully understand your point of view. its just not the same as mine.

My experience is going from a Miller Syncrowave 300
to a ThermalArc 185 Inverter.
On the new machine...
The AC waveform balance seems to have more effect.
I use 80% cleaning and 20% penatration to prevent
the amuminum puddle from spreading out.
Another thing that helps with this, is with the inverter,
I do not use pure tung and ball the end. I use thoriated
and do not ball the end. With the inverter, it does not ball
or if it does, only slightly. I really like welding with a more
focused arc, from both factors of the waveform balance
being adjusted towards the cleaning side and not having
to run a balled tungsten. I have not stick welded with my
inverter machine yet. It is 42 pounds and resides on the
foot shelf under my welding bench. Making the big welder
go away is like 100% free floor space in the shop. I don't
even notice the ThermalArc under the welding bench.
It was space I was not using before anyways, so net win.

I have a big old L-Tec Linde 200a Mig. Bought new in the
1980s. It welds 1/4" plate and up great. It is real difficult
to do a sheet matal (body work) job with it. I think a new
inverter Mig in the same 200a range would work better
for thick and thin. The inverter machines have pulse Mig
and what I am really excited to try, is high frequency Mig.
I saw a video where the guy was using high freq Mig and
I think argon-helium mix, and it can go into spray transfer
mode at stupid low amps. I used to use a 400a Miller Mig
and Spray-All-Day was the word. If a machine can control
the puddle parameters way down low, I am all-in !
I think it was a Fronius machine, I don't remember.

--Doozer

I don't personally care for pulse mig. It has uses, but I've never been impressed.
What does impress me is the stability of the arc from the new inverter machines (Miller 255) which allows you to weld very cold, with long stickout, at weird angles, etc. The electronic inductance control can also give you far more inductance than an actual inductor on a transformer welder can.

The nicest welding (as in arc) machine I’ve ever used was a Miller 330A/BP. Remember they went to the moon with sine wave.

Inverters are great they are awesome machines.

In your case you already have an inverter and no longer use your transformer so can understand selling. However if you only had the transformer and it was doing everything you needed and you were only considering it to have something new I would be answering differently.

No matter what inverters I buy in the future I will keep every transformer I own now and may own in the future because I one day want to create a welding museum.

i screen shot this from the fronius site. while its not a gaurantee , it does give the buyer alot of confidence the inverter machine should last alot of years

Yup ^^^ One shop is buying qty (5) to keep qty (4) running.
They started with the Miller 350 amp inverters, after many failures, moved up to 450 amp machines, and now are running Lincoln 650 amp inverters...and on simple short arc and flux core work, no air arc.

fish123 said:

I will keep the ancient Lincoln idealarc TIG 300/300 for heavy work.
Would like an inverter TIG for light work on Al, Ti, Stainless & mild steel. Not production work, just random jobs.
No idea what to look at.

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I have it's successor, the Square Wave 355, as well as an Invertec V-160t. I greatly prefer welding with the 355.