About to pull the trigger on a portamig…what mig £600-800?

[DegsyE39]

Hi all hope everyone is good on the blue..

I'm about to buy my first welder looked at used machines etc but decided on a portamig..welder will literally be used for bodywork and car repairs and will be used on the mains of my house (single phase)
think im plumping for one of these..

https://www.weldequip.com/portamig-mig-welders.htm

is the portamig 186 powerful enough for doing cars or should i go for the bigger ones?

[B'stard Child]

DegsyE39 said:

Hi all hope everyone is good on the blue..

I'm about to buy my first welder looked at used machines etc but decided on a portamig..welder will literally be used for bodywork and car repairs and will be used on the mains of my house (single phase)
think im plumping for one of these..

https://www.weldequip.com/portamig-mig-welders.htm

is the portamig 186 powerful enough for doing cars or should i go for the bigger ones?

I have an older Portamig 185 - it's more than powerful enough for all aspects of car repairs

You'll need to avoid the top 2 power settings if you are running off a 13 amp plug but you will be trying to weld 6mm steel at that point

[E-bmw]

B'stard Child said:

DegsyE39 said:

Hi all hope everyone is good on the blue..

I'm about to buy my first welder looked at used machines etc but decided on a portamig..welder will literally be used for bodywork and car repairs and will be used on the mains of my house (single phase)
think im plumping for one of these..

https://www.weldequip.com/portamig-mig-welders.htm

is the portamig 186 powerful enough for doing cars or should i go for the bigger ones?

I have an older Portamig 185 - it's more than powerful enough for all aspects of car repairs

You'll need to avoid the top 2 power settings if you are running off a 13 amp plug but you will be trying to weld 6mm steel at that point

Way more than needs for home work on cars.

I have a little old 110 amp Sip & that will easily weld 4mm steel with full penetration to make up fence post repair angle iron.

[DegsyE39]

Thanks for the replies chaps, so the portamig 186 will be adequate im guessing.. im going for a spot timer as an extra as i haven't done any mig since my engineering college days and i think that might be useful for a novice like myself? help stop me blowing through the metal!

[GreenV8S]

If you're aiming to do bodywork repairs then I would have thought you're more interested in how well it works at the bottom of the power range.

[DegsyE39]

GreenV8S said:

If you're aiming to do bodywork repairs then I would have thought you're more interested in how well it works at the bottom of the power range.

Goes down to 15 amps apparently.. i've done a deal on the portamig 186 anyway they dont have any others in stock and its a mig that everyone seems to recommend so im throwing my hat in!

regards all!

[Evoluzione]

Perversely a big amperage welder will work better at low power on thin stuff than the opposite.
Your new Portamig won't run on a normal house/garage circuit very well though, expect regular blown fuses and tripped RCDs.

[B'stard Child]

Evoluzione said:

Perversely a big amperage welder will work better at low power on thin stuff than the opposite.
Your new Portamig won't run on a normal house/garage circuit very well though, expect regular blown fuses and tripped RCDs.

Mine ran on a normal house garage circuit fine as long as you don’t run it on top two settings

Previous SIP tripped stuff on a regular basis but it was and still is a POS

[E-bmw]

Evoluzione said:

Perversely a big amperage welder will work better at low power on thin stuff than the opposite.
Your new Portamig won't run on a normal house/garage circuit very well though, expect regular blown fuses and tripped RCDs.

I had a separate supply on a spare RCD which I fitted a 20 Amp breaker with 6mm cable for exactly this reason, frequent trips when it was supplied by just the normal ring main.

[aland75]

I bought one of these for a restoration project:
https://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/mig-welder-r-tech-...

Been great, using it with ArgonShield gas from BOC. Plenty of power for bigger stuff also, but at the lower end for bodywork it's well controlled.

[DrDeAtH]

Although Portamigs are a good machine, they are very bulky when compared to a modern Inverter mig.

If I was in the market for a new mig now, I'd be getting an Inverter one. They take up a lot less space, easier to move about, and have a much better control over the current settings so you can effectively fine tune it to what you're welding.