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Buffalo20
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Yes, I’m experiencing that new welder smell in the shop. Thursday, on my monthly trip to the LWS, to pay for last months charges and to pick up some Sigma Green (Rex-Cut) grinding wheels. I ended up walking out with a new Miller Maxstar 161S welder. A 120/240 vac, 160 amp DC stick welder, that weigh 13#.
With the travel case, the welder and the 2 power cords (one for 120v operation and one for 240v operation) 40 feet of ground lead and 50 feet of stinger lead, the whole package, weighs in at about 44#.
The welder I bought is the base line stick model, the also offer a stick/tig model and a stick/tig model, with advanced features, as the welder will be part of the service truck inventory and we never tig weld in the field, the basic stick model is perfect for my needs.
Friday, I made a 25foot long, 10 ga wire, extension cord and a wiring pigtail. Then ran the unit for 2-3 hours, running various types and sizes of welding rods, 6010, 6011, 7018 and MG600 (stainless steel repair rod). The performance of the welder, exceeded my expectations (or hope), the weld quality was on par with the much larger Miller and Lincoln welders I own. I had demoed an ESAB 120/240 vac and Lincoln 120/240 vac welders, earlier this month, and felt the performance levels, left a lot to be desired. Both had issues running 6010 welding rod, and the Lincoln’s build quality (case construction and assembly) seem somewhat cheesy, so the Miller became the viable option.
1 - the welder
2 - case closed up
3 - 7018 test weld
4 - a mix of 6010 and 6011 test welds
5 - in the case
With the travel case, the welder and the 2 power cords (one for 120v operation and one for 240v operation) 40 feet of ground lead and 50 feet of stinger lead, the whole package, weighs in at about 44#.
The welder I bought is the base line stick model, the also offer a stick/tig model and a stick/tig model, with advanced features, as the welder will be part of the service truck inventory and we never tig weld in the field, the basic stick model is perfect for my needs.
Friday, I made a 25foot long, 10 ga wire, extension cord and a wiring pigtail. Then ran the unit for 2-3 hours, running various types and sizes of welding rods, 6010, 6011, 7018 and MG600 (stainless steel repair rod). The performance of the welder, exceeded my expectations (or hope), the weld quality was on par with the much larger Miller and Lincoln welders I own. I had demoed an ESAB 120/240 vac and Lincoln 120/240 vac welders, earlier this month, and felt the performance levels, left a lot to be desired. Both had issues running 6010 welding rod, and the Lincoln’s build quality (case construction and assembly) seem somewhat cheesy, so the Miller became the viable option.
1 - the welder
2 - case closed up
3 - 7018 test weld
4 - a mix of 6010 and 6011 test welds
5 - in the case
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