It’s a Millermatic 141 mig… it’s my first welder . I thought it would be a good place to start… I like the idea of plugging into 110 and it also has a lot of adjustability .
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My miller 211 is probably 10 years old now and has always worked as it should. With welders like anything else you get what you pay for . I believe the rebel is another fancy China welder . Stick with miller or Lincoln I think the victor was also a good one and a few others . Either way if you buy a miller or Lincoln you’ll get a life time of good service
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Definitely a firm believe in that.
I’m probably going to do the Miller but I learned to weld with an ESAB (at a tech school) so they’ve always had a special place in my dark little heart 
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From what I’ve heard Miller owns Hobart. I’ve heard people say they go down the same assembly line but I’m not sure I believe that. My first welder was a Hobart and was a great welder. I’ve welded on probably over 100 welders since that Hobart, with most of them being Millers, and Millers just weld better. There’s nothing wrong with a Hobart for home use though.
esab have the best welding rod Steve. Especially 7018. Buy a Miller and then buy esab consumables whether it be stick, tig wire, or mig wire. Then you’ll have the best of both worlds…lol
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Actually Hobart own miller . The smaller ones like the 211 and smaller do go down the same assembly line mostly. The biggest difference is the drive assembly and running gears. Plastic in the hobart and metal in the miller. The other difference is the warranty. There was no warranty with the Hobart and 3 years with the miller . Because I paid with a Buisness account
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Three year warranty is nice. I’m surprised Hobart doesn’t offer a warranty at all.
From my understanding The Hobart Brothers only sold off the rights to their welders but still manufacture wire and rod.
Hobart does have a warranty but not for commercial. They consider paying with a Buisness account commercial
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Miller and fronius just about make the best machines that money can buy. Thers a huge difference between good and outstanding welders with what’s available today.
I’m about one heartbeat away from the new miller 255 it’s there smallest welder with pulse weld . I weld a lot of aluminum and pulse is awesome. Use to cost about 8k to pulse weld aluminum. The 255 is under 3k . I’ve pretty much run out of reasons why I don’t need it 
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What the heck is a Fronius? Did you just make that word up?
Is that sarcasm or?
If you do a lot of aluminium you should consider a double pulse mig, very nice to use In a vertical pass with zero bead sag, corner joints are great also no drilling required to avoid the dreaded lump with very minor distortion of thin aluminium sheet in double pulse mode. I believe the 255 is only a single pulse. I’ve used a few Kempi double pulsed migs and the vertical weld quality is excellent with very little distortion on the factory synergic settings, they can be tweaked to your liking but they all generally have the settings bang on for the thickness you dial it. With a few hours on it you won’t be able to tell the difference between a mig bead and a tig bead.
I’m not familiar with double pulse . I’ll look in to it . I mig mainly 11 guage and up . Anything thinner I’ll tig . I’ve been having to send out for tig work because I don’t have one . The 255 is a multi process. It has both mig and tig AC/DC
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Don’t feel bad, I had to Google it. Never heard of Fronius before.
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I’ve been welding for different contractors in power plants, steel mills, oil refineries, etc for years and I’ve never heard of Fronious. All the contractors rent around 30 4 packs or, 120 welders for so for each outage that we work. I’ve never once seen or heard talk of one. Maybe it’s popular in New Zealand or Australia. @MuscleMyHustle also just mentioned Kempi. I can’t say I’ve heard of that manufacturer either. It kind of sounds familiar but not positive. We mainly stick and tig weld at the power plants because we sometimes have to run a few hundred feet of lead to get to where we’re working so maybe they’re known more of mig welders. We do mig when welding large tanks but that’s not very often.
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Dang and I thought I was big pimpin’ with my Harbor Freight flux core welder lol
I’ve used a stick welder a couple of times. Just one of those old tombstone AC/DC units but it was pretty cool. My welds were terrible but it was just a skateboard rail lol
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I’ve been using a HF Vulcan 220 multi process for a couple of years now. Mainly TIG, but a little MIG. It uses mostly Lincoln parts, have replaced a lot with higher quality things, it works great. My brother’s a welder and he loves using it… not 1 issue either, and I’ve ran it pretty hard, and probably 5 bottles of gas through it w/ TIG. Just don’t use their jackstands. 
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Fronius is an Austrian brand, they don’t make any homeowners grade machines there all higher end machines for heavy duty work, very common in the automated welding industry such as vehicle plants in Europe and large scale around the clock manufacturing it’s all trickled down into machines you and me can buy. It’s the European version of a miller, you buy it once and have it for 20+ years.
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