I know most of you guys don't do this sort of thing, but as part of my alarm business I have often found myself having to weld a handle on a gate after installing a spring bolt and access controlling it. My original 120V welder did a dozen of them on the first job site I ever took it on, and it paid for itself. (I only had to do two, but the property owner saw my work and asked me to do all of the gates on the premise with the same type handle.)
Anyway, here is what I have to say about that original welder and its replacement.
For years I used a Harbor Fright 120V machine for this sort of thing. After I cut a huge hole in the case and put a giant fan on the back of it, it was useable. It was also cheap. After about 15 years I got frustrated with it yesterday. I was fitting a trailer fender between two steps, and I was going to tack the inside liner plate in place with the China box, and then after it was locked into shape, unbolt it to finish welding in the back of the shop with the Miller 212.
I made a couple practice welds to make sure I had it right and then I slid under the trailer. It made an arc, and then quit feeding. Somehow the wire got stuck in the liner. I had no issue taking the tip off. It was seized in the liner. Cut to the chase. I set it aside and looked on line to find that Lincoln has a little 110V wire feed that is JUST for flux core. No gas at all as near as I can tell. Since I never used gas on the portable stuff anyway I figured why not. Better yet it was on sale.
Holy crap. This thing welds about 100 times better that the Harbor Fright China box and has at least ten times the duty cycle, and it was cheap.
Pro Core 125. Anything heavier than about 12ga will require multi pass (I'm used to that), but it does it. Holy crap. I made about a dozen tacks on the bottom inside the fender to hold the back plate on. Only 2 didn't look good, and only one did I have to go over. A mix of a dozen vertical and overhead welds from a crappy hack welder (me not the machine) and they were
90% good and good looking. Wow! I took the fender off to weld some beads on the backside and get it ready for paint. All the welds look decent. I only had one issue. It was going so fast and clean that I got a little cocky and burned a tiny hole in to. I was able to stack 3 little spots and filled the hole so easily I had to stop and stick a scratch awl in it to make sure it had really welded up.I didn't even take that fender in the back of the shop to finish. I just finished the whole thing right there with the Lincoln.
This is my portable anywhere field welder from now on. Its not something I would want to do lot of plate welding with, but this thing will make short work of things like gate handles for access controlled gates.
Wow! What a pleasure to use.