I got a few amazon gift cards for Christmas and decided to risk it on an IGB inverter welder from Amazon.
It runs on 110 or 220v input. I don't have a welder plug or gas bottle yet so only had a chance to set up for FCAW @ 110v. I am pretty pleased with it, seems to get way better penetration than my little Harbor freight welder and welds are nice (but I need to tweak wire speed and output voltage)
After an hour of fiddling with it, my views are positive so far.


I'll update as I continue to use it

The fact that I am a bad welder aside...I think this machine will do the trick

What was the difference in prices versus Harbor Freight?

The harbor freight welder can be had for about $89 USD if you catch the right sale and a coupon that will work for the welder.
The Reboot welder was about $235 USD... it so far seems to be a much better machine.
For reference, the comparable Lincoln machine would be around $550 USD

Well ........ you are a passable grinder

LOL thanks Scuba1. The FCAW creates a good amount of spatter and I am still dialing in the settings.
Of course, my boy (7 years old) was playing with my chipping hammer the other day and now I can't find it, so I just hit the welds on a 1x30 belt.

Next test will be a rebar t-stake as I was having some issues with the smaller HF machine not getting good penetration on those welds.

For So Many years now, I've sat and pouted at how you guys can just take a trap and Weld bits to it. Like saying how ye could tie knots in smoke. Completely beyond me.

This year though, something just clicked within me. I started asking, and watching YouTube. Now? I'm all set to buy myself a decent enough little welder machine.

Following lots of input, I'm happily looking forward to This one:

Stamos

No idea what I'll do with it. The idea of being able to 'Glue Metal' just seems so great though. And, I'm probably the only person I know who can't do it!

Pest's Dad, that is a nice looking little arc machine. I first welded with an arc welder and I found it pretty easy to learn once you got used to striking your arc... the machine I bought is also capable of arc welding... you just change the polarity and swap out the mig gun for the electrode holder... not sure if I will ever have a need to do so though.

I think you'll enjoy welding, it is an interesting process

I would advise anyone to start with Ark welding first before moving to MIG. Learning it the other way around is going to be a lot harder for some reason. I leant Stick welding before MIG was a thing. It was either that or Oxy Acetylene. But I have watched quite a few people trying to stick weld after they had gotten ok dish with MIG and it was a right carfuffle. Don't ask me why, but thats my experience.

Thats important