-> I bought a 100 from Northern. It works great on anything up to about
-> 1/8 inch thick. I mainly use it on .035 wall, .058 wall, and .083
-> wall tubing. No complaints here!
I have a Century 90/130. The two settings are for if you have 15A or
20A breakers in the wall sockets. I have 30A in the shop, so no
problem. <grin> It welds the sizes you mention with no problem. I
also do a lot of 1/8" flat and angle, but I've always ground a chamfer
on the edge to be welded. I don't know if it has the oomph to do it
otherwise. I have a bunch of 1/4" to do, but I expect to make multiple
passes in sizeable chamfers.
Though the Century is a "cheap" welder I've been fairly happy with it
so far. The wire speed control is a bit touchy, and the ground cable
was only half the length of the welding cable for some reason. I have a
much longer piece of heavier-guage cable but haven't installed it yet.
Whatever the duty cycle of the thing is, I haven't run into it yet. It
never seems to get hot. There is a big hinged door to get access to the
wire feed mechanism and spool, and it will take a full-size spool
instead of just the mini size.
Since it's quite humid around here and I don't weld much I have
problems with the wire oxidizing, and it doesn't feed well or weld well
with oxidized wire. I have several pounds of silica gel and some foam
weatherstrip tape; when I get around to it I'm going to seal the wire
compartment with the tape and hopefully the silica will absorb any
moisture that makes it in.
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