Migs, Liquidarc or Cigweld, Migomag.

[henry]

Ok i know there are lots of talk bout which mig you all like. Unimig seems to be popular on this board, maybe its pricing maybe not.
Liquidarc is made in Sydney, thats a plus to me. Cigweld is made in Malaysia. they are priced exactly the same in the 220 range.
Liquidarc Easymig $1575.
Cigweld Transmig $1575.
Does anyone have any comments on these migs, favourable or not all feedback will be taken on board. or if you have another welder of this range and you love it let me know. i will keep an open mind up till the point of deciding which one to buy. Thanks all. Nik.

[Daisy]

WIA

MigOmag

are the other two very good ones i can think of.

[eliteforce32]

What are u trying to acheieve with the machine, what size(amps) are u looking at, say 200 to 300amps single or three phase many options available, have used like daisy migomag,wia, cigweld, fronius, and kempi and also used or secound hand depneding on price range.

cheers
simon

[brooksy]

I have used Cigweld only in Industrial 3phase so single phase units on both you mentioned I have no personal experience.
I have WIA 250 single which is the best in its class & Aust. made although not the cheapest. I have a Cigweld VRD Tig however that I cannot fault although can be complicated to set-up but once settings have been established it is a very good reliable unit. So basically I am saying that if the single phase Migs are of the same standard as the Tigs it would be my choice outside a WIA & then Lincoln.


brooksy

[henry]

I am using it for home fab so single phase. Usual uses, barwork up to 10 mm. Panel work, exhaust.

have been told wia are top quality but they are very expensive compared to cigweld and liquidarc of same output.

Liquidarc are made in Padstow Syd. Same place as Lincoln. they have warranty with Lincoln. Im looking for a welder with no inherent faults, or known quality issues. Something that lays down i nice weld and not too expensive.

[bubs]

I have a lincoln 255, liquid arc is under the lincoln brand so I would go with that

its a personal preference when you are dealing with Lincoln, migomag, wia, cigweld, liquid arc etc the good brands

btw my lincoln is about 8 yrs old now, never had a problem

[ausyota]

I have the CIG Transmig 220 and it is a brilliant welder!
I also sell them at my work and we never have any come back with problems ever.
The small handyman machines are sometimes back for repair but I have never seen a 220 (or bigger) back in the shop for repair.
The CIG 220 is the starting model in their single phase profesional range anything smaller including the 200 is lighter duty by far.

I have used mine for everything from panel steel to about 1/2" thick plate.
Have run both 0.8 and 0.9mm wire in mine with gas.
Paul.

[ANDY_M]

I recently just bought a 220 Liquid Arc. I have only used it a hand full of times, but i like it.

Very simple 3 controls, ON/OFF, wire speed and heat.

Hasnt fucked up yet. Im no pro welder but have used a few different brands. I bought it mainly for home fabwork in mind, it has plenty of grunt for me.

Made by Lincoln Australia and has a 3 year warranty on everything but comsumables im pretty sure. Was told all parts inside are Lincoln.

I say go for it

[Ruggers]

ive got a migomag 210 i reckon its a good welder has a great warranty, and was only $1500, it will easly weld up roll cages and other heavy duty stuff, i always get a good weld, easy to use have even cut open a few weld to make sure i was getting go penitration not just a sexy looking weld, it also has better duty cuty's than unimig 250, i also use a 260 minomag at work which is what peswaded me to get one.

[henry]

Thanks for all the feedback. All the welders you have recommended i agree are good welders. I looked at the migomags today. the monomig 215 compact has great looking build quality, cast alloy wire feeder parts, all high quality, but not cheap at $1710 inc. duty cycle of 30% @ 200 amps.
Cigweld transmig 220 round the $1575 inc is 25% @ 220 amps. Must say the migomag looks better made with a 5 yr warranty on transformer and 3yr on everything else but 12mth on gun and lead. Most offer 3mth on gun and lead.
Unimig all plastic feeder holder mechanism. You get what you pay for.

[Daisy]

ive got a migomag 210 i reckon its a good welder has a great warranty, and was only $1500, it will easly weld up roll cages and other heavy duty stuff, i always get a good weld, easy to use have even cut open a few weld to make sure i was getting go penitration not just a sexy looking weld, it also has better duty cuty's than unimig 250, i also use a 260 minomag at work which is what peswaded me to get one.

Yup. I personally own a migmag 240 single phase for home use, and use a migomag 315 3 phase at work every day. We have 2 x 315's, 1 x 415 and 240 migomags at work as well as a WIA. All good welders.

[henry]

The migomag 240 would be pretty expensive i guess. I did'nt price it up but it would be over 2 grand would'nt it?

[zagan]

the monomig 215 compact has great looking build quality, cast alloy wire feeder parts, all high quality, but not cheap at $1710 inc. duty cycle of 30% @ 200 amps.

Cigweld transmig 220 round the $1575 inc is 25% @ 220 amps.

Must say the migomag looks better made with a 5 yr warranty on transformer and 3yr on everything else but 12mth on gun and lead. Most offer 3mth on gun and lead.

Unimig all plastic feeder holder mechanism. You get what you pay for.

It really comes down to what your wanting to do with it.

I take it your wanting to mainly do 5mm Mild/SS steels maybe doing 8mm stuff here and there? You'll be pushing to do decent 10mm thick steel with a 220amp welder.

Anyway, you should look at what the 100% duty cycle is as this means what amps you can weld at all day, without tripping the power board at the house.

I don't have a welder at home yet, but the ones I've been looking at are the 250 to 300amp welders single phase, I quite liked the unimigs they have plently of extra features the others don't have like computer controlled amps, with pre/post gas settings plus pre-burn and back burn settings plus have the traveller and are fairly cheap they are also Australian made welders.

good set of ranges for corse/fine and wirefeed.

The Cigwelder I used at work for 5 years straight, is a 3 phase 330amp that has a plastic wire feeder it works fine but then again...
I've killed the wire feed motor 3 times,
killed the traveller once,
killed 2 main boxes in the main welder, on the second time the guy replaced all the boxes inside so it wouldn't die a 3rd time,
and the last thing to go was the fan.

As for the gun I've had the outer casing replaced twice, and ended up blowing the inside core out the side, it arced up and the outer plastic coating was too thin or was cut, so the whole gun has been replaced.

I'm now using a liquidarc welder, another 330 3 phase at work, so far seems to be good, has more settings than the cigweld welder, but I'm getting used to it's settings and power ranges.

it's a fairly new welder so nothing has been killed on it yet.

[henry]

Yes zagan the only time i will touch near 10 mm steel is when i weld in new engine mounts for the chev. But they may be 6mm or 8mm depending on design. Most of the time it will be under that. Body steel, 3mm bar work. Usual stuff.

[80lsy gq]

look out for a second hand welder...Daisy got an awesome deal on his Migomag240 from a really nice bloke (me obviously) and i picked up a WIA 255 that has done sweet F A work for half the cost of a new one..


my personal prefernece after using a lot of different welders would be

1 WIA
2 Migomag

dave

edit..the other thing you should also consider is the availabiltiy and price of parts...WIA are the cleanest welder but parts for them are very dear..if you dont want to spend a million dollars then go for a migomag and always buy the biggest welder you can afford (actually it is best to work out what the biggest one you can afford is and buy the next size up) buy right the first time and you never need to buy again

[henry]

If you know of a wia or migomag that fits the bill i would be interested.

[bru21]

i have a unimig 240 - cannot rate it highly enough. only drama is weld consistancy vs duty cycle on big stuff after a few hours welding. I have put 15x15kg rolls throught this machine, done s/ steel, alloy and steel.
$1340 with wire. digital control great for setting up if not used every day

I then bought a magomag 260. Bloody brilliant apart from no pre gas and short burn back time. very consistant and well worth the $2300. (who pays the 3k+ RRP???) with long lead to and very good drive rollers

cheers bru

[Cliffy]

Have used Wia 255 amp machine not in the same legue as the migo mag 260 amp machine. both are aound the same size but the mogomag seems to have more amps. Purchased a mogomag about 7 years ago for farm use, mind you the amount of repair work we do its alot.

Re decked our rotary dairy platform had a wia machine (supplied by local engineering firm) and our mig o mag, the tradies would use the mig o mag every time over the wia machine, mind you the job consisted of 4 tonnes of 6mm checker plate.

The machine was expensive at around $3000 but that had two guns and remote wire feeder, so you could go to internal wire feeder. to make it a bit cheaper.

Also have used a mates 200 amp liquid arc machine, burnt the board, and he has just burnt the board again. they are are a cheap lincon, made in china I bet?????

Go the migomag you will have it for a long time.

just my 2 cents

[zagan]

Also have used a mates 200 amp liquid arc machine, burnt the board, and he has just burnt the board again. they are are a cheap lincon, made in china I bet?????

just my 2 cents

Lincon is an US company and make their welders in the USA.
same with Miller.

Liquidarc is a side company of Lincon, so same welders just a different name, that's the main reason why they are dear.

A problem some people get with Lincon (Liquidarc I suspose as well) is that if your only doing thin metals all the time it burns out the grounding coupler in the main box and it won't work properly or stops it dead and needs that coupler to be replaced.

This doesn't normamlly happen all the time as most people are using all sorts of thickness of steel to weld up, so if you have a Lincon or Liquidarc and only doing thin stuff all the time, it'd be best to do a couple of runs on thicker stuff every now and then, this stops the coupler from burning out.

I don't like lincon welders myself, I've used 330amp and 450amp welders it's not them burning out but because of the A, B, C, D settings I prefer the numbers for the settings.

[Cruza62]

The best migs are:
Lincoln
WIA
Miller
Thermal Arc
Fronius (Bit hard to set up)

They are the better brands we have at work....Thermal Arc = without a doubt the best welder I have ever used.

[matthewK]

best welder are

miller and
lincoln

[De-Ranged]

I run a Liquad Arc 210i and wouldn't recomend it to a beginer or someone doing light work .... It has no subtlty it is a beast I've had to weld 25mm with it, on a short time frame so I ignored duty cycle and it impressed me I was so far past duty cycle it was silly and it just kept going my 45 amp shed fuse tripped in the end regually do 10-12mm and have been for over 7yrs now with it so its good for punishment
Problem is it has all these adjastable settings 2 range settings and 10 power settings and they are pretty much a waste of time if you want to weld light stuff adjust your techneque

Used a couple of similar Max-mig and found them to be more adjustable but not as much grunt and more splatter (less copacitors causes this)

Got a chance to play on a 255 Uni-Mig for a couple of months while back and that impressed me very grunty, adjustable but similar issue with splatter (thought these were sposed to have extra "caps" in them ) not something I'd like to do presentation welds with

Oh and for the books I won't touch Lincoln they are crap I had the top of the range inverter Tig ($6K ) after two yrs of light use it was one issue after another in the end I gave it away, since heard alsorts of issues with lincoln gear
If you have the money Miller .... Solid qaulity, massive service and all the tech you need

Cheers Reece

[andrew e]

Lincon is an US company and make their welders in the USA.
same with Miller.

I'm staying out of this discusion as i work for lincoln and may be a bit biased. However, the liquid arc models mentioned above are made here in padstow along with heaps others. They are also made in the us, which is pretty much the same (apart from supply voltage etc) but if you buy it in aus, your best chances are its made here. Some of the other machines ie SP 170 (which is an awsome home and workshop welder) are made OS and imported, aswell as plasmas etc.

Andy

Ps i cant get a discount for OL members ive already asked.

[henry]

Ps i cant get a discount for OL members ive already asked. [/quote]

Thanks for trying.

As much as i would like to buy the best welder out, and spend every cent i have and some i dont have, price will play a deciding part in how far i go...

[Bentzook]

What do you welder nuts think about this unit. The warehouse is just up the road from me, so its easy to pickup but I know jack about mig welders.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/250-AMP-INVERTER ... dZViewItem

[Mouse]

I had a Migomag 260 but didn't like it at all. The rep told me the transformers aren't being made in Australia anymore and ever since they've been crap. I now have a Lincoln 255 and its a weapon. Can't go wrong with WIA or ESSAB and Cigweld are not bad value.