Thread: New Welder

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New Welder


Well my Harbor Freight (Chinese - Chicago Electric) MIG welder gave up the ghost the day before yesterday. This was my first MIG, it cost what I could justify at the time and I figured if it lasted a couple of years at least by then I would know what features I wanted when I bought a better unit. You can say what you want about HF (and frankly I’d probably agree) but the darn thing lasted 22 years and welded more sheetmetal, brackets and exhaust systems than I care to remember. Honestly if they still made the same unit I’d buy another in a heartbeat.

So yesterday morning was spent checking out the local welding supply store and 5 local box stores that sold welders, then coming home and checking prices on line. I settled on a Hobart 190 from one of the box stores.

This is what it looked like after 3 hours of putting the cart together and setting up the welder (and the obligatory trip back to town to pick up stuff you didn’t know you needed).


There were a few minor aggravations when I got my new welder home. My old HF unit was one that had its own wheels and built in bottle rack …..the Hobart unit requires a cart. I’m happy the style of the cart, It’s kind of low compared to others but it’s a good height for doing under car work with a vehicle up on jack stands. The only real problem with the cart was the predrilled holes for the self tapping screws were too big and the supplied screw wouldn’t tighten down……. a few larger screws solved that problem.


The welder was supplied with a new gas regulator, but when you read the fine print you find out that it’s for Argon and mixed gas and not straight CO2 like I use……so I ended up using CO2 regulator from my old unit.

My last complaint was that the power cord was only about 10 foot long and of course used a completely different plug than what I’m set up for. It was a simple problem to solve but required another trip back into town to get an appropriate receptacle so I could use the longer power cord I had added to my old welder.



I’ve run a few test welds with it and it does good. I’m reserving final judgment until I’ve used it about a year and see how well it holds up.


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