MM 175 or MM210

[Mike]

A few months ago I posted some questions regarding which welder would best suit my needs. I am about ready to purchase as my new garage will start being constructed in the near future.

I thought I had it all figured out, I was going to get the MM210 but later decided the MM175 would probably be big enough and would be a little more portable.

After reading a lot of posts on this board, I am getting more confused than ever. What I need to know is what are the limitations of these machines. Once I find out for sure, I can read, practice, and ask questions to get the process figure out.

Questions: How thick of material can you short circuit, single pass, with the 175? The 210? What preperation needs done to accomplish this (bevel, gap, etc.)? Should I consider maybe a Stickmate AC/DC for material 5/16 to 3/8 thick? This is considering welding inside on cleaned material.

I know I ask a lot of questions, a lot of them are redundant, so I appreciate your patience. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[chub380]

Which welder

Hi Mike, are you set on these two machines? If your not I would recomend the 251 When I was getting ready to buy I did not want to be limited,So I went with the biggest one that I could afford and still be practical. In the few years I have had the machine I could count on two hands the times I even got close to using the machine to its potential;but it is sure nice not to be limited when you need it. You also could be happy in years to come that you bought a more powerfull machine as your skills and interests grow. I dont think you would ever be sorry for getting a more powerfull machine;but you may regret getting something in a year or two that may no longer fit your needs. Just think about it. If your going to be welding outside or need to move it around alot a stick welder could be the way to go. It is also alot cheaper. Plus if you get the ac/dc model you could always get a tig torch and a bottle of argon for your light/thin work. A stick welder is a simple bulletproof welder to own.I think it is also a better way to learn welding. Everyone should own a stick welder. To answer your questions a 175 is good from 24g to 1/4inch material with 1pass the210 22g to 3/8 in 1 pass 251 22g to 1/2 in 1 pass As far as beveling your matierial this gets more important as you go up in thickness of material. Try to ask yourself what you are using the welder for and what you may use it for in the future before you make your decision. I hope some of this helped. Chub380

[Dan]

Re: MM 175 or MM210

Originally posted by Mike
A few months ago I posted some questions regarding which welder would best suit my needs. I am about ready to purchase as my new garage will start being constructed in the near future.

I thought I had it all figured out, I was going to get the MM210 but later decided the MM175 would probably be big enough and would be a little more portable.

After reading a lot of posts on this board, I am getting more confused than ever. What I need to know is what are the limitations of these machines. Once I find out for sure, I can read, practice, and ask questions to get the process figure out.

Questions: How thick of material can you short circuit, single pass, with the 175? The 210? What preperation needs done to accomplish this (bevel, gap, etc.)? Should I consider maybe a Stickmate AC/DC for material 5/16 to 3/8 thick? This is considering welding inside on cleaned material.

I know I ask a lot of questions, a lot of them are redundant, so I appreciate your patience. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Mike

When you see the statement 1/4" material in a single pass this means a fillet weld.

Now ideally 1/8 and thinner is the material thickness that short circuit transfer produces its soundest welds on. However, if your doing non critical welding like for example the small bending brake that I built earlier on this site then up to about 1/4" is an acceptable thickness as long as the machine has the capability. Now if you eventually want to weld a structure made from 1/4" or thicker material that is of the critical nature, you would be better off welding this out with either globular transfer, spray transfer, self shielded fluxcore , or Gas shielded fluxcore wire. Now globular transfer and spray transfer are solid wire modes of metal transfer that are limited to the flat position on butt joints and flat and horizontal position on fillets. An E71T-11 self shielded fluxcore wire is going to allow you to weld out of position. An E71T-1 gas shielded fluxcore wire is going to allow you to weld out of position too.

Now lets take a quick look at the capabilities of the MM 175 and the MM 210

MM 175: Limited to solid wire and self shieled fluxcore.

With a shielding gas and solid wire the MM175 is a short circuit transfer only machine. Now for critical welds with a single pass in my opinion 3/16" is the maximum thickness. To weld anything critical beyond 3/16" I would use the E71T-11 and multipass the joint.

MM 210: Solid wire, self shielded fluxcore, and gas shielded fluxcore.

Now until recently the MM 210 was thought of as a short circuit & globular transfer machine with a solid wire. However, Im assuming that you saw the pictures that I posted using my MM 210 in the spray transfer mode on 3/16" & 1/4" material. So now for home hobbiest welding that doesn t occur at the same rate as production welding a MM 210 can be used in spray transfer mode. To be honest with you a MM 210 shouldn t be advertised as a machine capable of producing a 3/8" fillet in a single pass. Why they advertise this I don t know. The funny thing is that the Millermatic calculator that is sold by Miller and matches other reference material that I have states parameters for globular transfer on 3/8" steel as around 24 volts and 220 to 250 amps Now spray transfer settings are going to be higher then this. So based on reference information that I have 5/16 is about the thickest material that you should run a single pass fillet on with a MM 210. 3/8" material would be no trouble with the solid wire in multiple passes, that is as long as you were in globular or spray transfer . Now for out of position welding on thicker material you will need to switch to one of the fluxcore wires.

Im sorry, but Im running out of time so Ill have to give a little quick info and then I need to leave. If I created anymore questions for just ask and I ll try to answer them.

In my opinion unless your going to buy a stick / TIG combo machine I would stay with a wire feed machine. And for now I would like to state that between the MM 175 and MM 210 I would choose the MM 210 because the machine gives you a much higher potential with its capabilities.

[chub380]

mig welding

Mike, I am just giving you what Millers rep told me as far a single pass capabilitys. I am sure they are assuming you have your joint prepared correctly. So if you were worried about penitration you could grind a slight bevel on you joints with a hand grinder. Also were only talking about 1/16 of an inch between what Miller says and what Dan says in both machines. That small of an amount could be the differance of joint prep. or operator skill or even how realiable your current is in your garage. And without getting a certified person to check your weld it may not pass a stess test or x-ray test. Just remember some of the best looking welds are only superficial. Just remember that the singlepass rule is just a way for a company to get you into the ballpark of what the machines capabilitys are. Not every weld you do in the real world will be laying flat waist high on a bench. Also when I got my Trailblazer 280nt tested at the shop it put out alittle over 300amps this was made and sold to only put out 280 amps max. All this to say even though you may have the same machine as the next guy it may not put out exactly the same amount of power. I know this is true because a friends 251 and my own I must use slightly different settings using same wire,gas ect, on same thickness of steel. Good luck on what ever machine you choose. Chub380

[Dan]

Re: mig welding

Originally posted by chub380
Mike, I am just giving you what Millers rep told me as far a single pass capabilitys. I am sure they are assuming you have your joint prepared correctly. So if you were worried about penitration you could grind a slight bevel on you joints with a hand grinder. Also were only talking about 1/16 of an inch between what Miller says and what Dan says in both machines. That small of an amount could be the differance of joint prep. or operator skill or even how realiable your current is in your garage. And without getting a certified person to check your weld it may not pass a stess test or x-ray test. Just remember some of the best looking welds are only superficial. Just remember that the singlepass rule is just a way for a company to get you into the ballpark of what the machines capabilitys are. Not every weld you do in the real world will be laying flat waist high on a bench. Also when I got my Trailblazer 280nt tested at the shop it put out alittle over 300amps this was made and sold to only put out 280 amps max. All this to say even though you may have the same machine as the next guy it may not put out exactly the same amount of power. I know this is true because a friends 251 and my own I must use slightly different settings using same wire,gas ect, on same thickness of steel. Good luck on what ever machine you choose. Chub380

Chub 380

I didn t mean to offend you with my material thickness statement. I was just wanting Mike to know that there is a small amount of advertising hype in the actual thickness that these machine can weld on and produce high quality welds. Along with this Im considering the experience level of the potential operator of the machine. I personally, wouldn t have any problem using my MM 210 to weld out 3/8" material in a single pass if the joint isn t going to be heavily loaded. However, not with recommended parameters. But that is another story. I just want to make sure that there are no hard feelings.

[chub380]

Hi Dan,There are no hard feelings, in fact I think this is a great forum.There always seems to be alot going on unlike others I have looked at. That is some pretty neat stuff with the spray transfer on your mm210. I am thinking about trying spray transfer with my 251. What gas would you recomend for doing this? Any info would be great. Have a good 2003. Chub380

[Mike]

Thanks for the info. I am still a little confused. Today I got to check out some welds that a friend of mine did on the bed of his Ford F-650. He did them with an Ironman 210. Most of what he welded was 2" box tubing and 6" and 8" C-channel. This is what most of my welding will be, with occasional 3/8 material and occasional thin stuff, as well as farm equipment repairs. I am going to assume that the 210 amp machine will suffice for this? How about the 175 with a stick machine for backup? This is assuming that the correct consumables are being used.

[Dan]

Originally posted by chub380
Hi Dan,There are no hard feelings, in fact I think this is a great forum.There always seems to be alot going on unlike others I have looked at. That is some pretty neat stuff with the spray transfer on your mm210. I am thinking about trying spray transfer with my 251. What gas would you recomend for doing this? Any info would be great. Have a good 2003. Chub380

My favorite gas mix to use for spray transfer is 98% Argon/ 2% Oxygen. This gas mixture allows spray to occur at lower amperage and voltage settings than any other gas mix. Generally for 1/4" with an .035 wire you are probably going to need a load voltage between about 25 to 27 volts and a wire speed between 400 to 420 IPM. You have to kind of experiment with these ranges because each machines arc characteristics are a little different. I know on my MM 250 at work I use about 27 load volts and 415 IPM. I haven test the load voltage on my MM 210 yet but I m quite certain that it is n t 27 volt. Based on the info that Miller supplies in the owners manual I would guess somewhere around 25. 5 volts to 26 volt possibly. And I think I was running 410 IPM on the wire. The strange thing is since the MM 210 has an overall better arc then the MM 250 the spray arc fans out much nicer on the MM 210 at the assumed lower voltage setting , and it still fanned out nicer when I increased the IPM to 420.

[Dan]

Originally posted by Mike
Thanks for the info. I am still a little confused. Today I got to check out some welds that a friend of mine did on the bed of his Ford F-650. He did them with an Ironman 210. Most of what he welded was 2" box tubing and 6" and 8" C-channel. This is what most of my welding will be, with occasional 3/8 material and occasional thin stuff, as well as farm equipment repairs. I am going to assume that the 210 amp machine will suffice for this? How about the 175 with a stick machine for backup? This is assuming that the correct consumables are being used.

Mike,
You should be able to multi-pass 3/8" material with a MM 175 using a 71T-11 self shielded wire. Your aren t going to have the duty cycle that you would with a MM210.

If I remember right you were possibly wanting the MM 175 too, because of portability issues that it will give around your barn. Needing to reach areas on my Dads farm equipment that my Ck Systematics 175 couldn t get to, because it is a 200 amp machine that is similar in size to my MM 210, is one of the reasons why I bought my HH 175. The gun on these machines only reaches 10 to 12 feet from the welder. If something is up in the air beyond the reach of this distance a 200 + pound machine is a little more difficult to get closer to the job then a smaller 75 lbs unit.

[Mike]

Thanks Dan, Chub. I appreciate your replies. You have kind of cleared things up for me.

Dan, you have a HH175. Can you comment on the comparison of an HH175 vs MM175? In other words, is the MM175 worth the extra $$. Looks to me, if an experienced weldor like yourself does ok with the Hobart then why should an inexperience farm weldor like myself spend the extra dough on the Miller.

Thanks again,

[Dan]

Originally posted by Mike
Thanks Dan, Chub. I appreciate your replies. You have kind of cleared things up for me.

Dan, you have a HH175. Can you comment on the comparison of an HH175 vs MM175? In other words, is the MM175 worth the extra $$. Looks to me, if an experienced weldor like yourself does ok with the Hobart then why should an inexperience farm weldor like myself spend the extra dough on the Miller.

Thanks again,

Mike

Are you aware that Miller and Hobart are part of the same company. My understanding that the MM 175 and HH 175 are made in the same production plant. The Hobart line is oriented more toward the home hobbiest weldor and the Miller line is oriented more towards the professional. I ve never ran a MM 175, but I have checked one out at my local supplier. From what I ve seen both the MM 175 and HH 175 are quality machines for there intended markets. Actually, Im probably insulting the HH 175 by calling it a hobbiest oriented machine. I have had mine for close to two years now and have used it for some pretty demanding jobs on a couple ocassions. One such task involved welding up two seven foot long T joints 100% for a water tight joint. The material thickness was 3/16". Now I welded these joints out in about 45 minute to an 1 hour without taking a break. the only rest the machine received was the amount of time that it took me to move back and forth from joint to joint and to jump back and forth from one end of the joint to the other since I was skip welding the joint too. I never did have a duty cycle issue with these joints.

Also,in opinion, based on my experience with inexperienced machine operators , a tapped voltage machine like a HH 175 is a much easier machine for them to tune in then a machine with variable voltage control. Now a variable voltage control can give an experienced operator some slight advantages. However, I have six different machine that I run and only one of them has a variable voltage control. If I were to run a weld on the same joint design with all six of them you would notice very little difference between the welds.

So, my opinion has been that a HH 175 is a good machine for the home hobbiest weldor. Ive pretty much always preached to take the extra $75 to $100 that you save by get a HH 175 over a MM 175 and put it toward a bottle of shielding gas.

Im attaching some sample welds that I ran with my HH 175. Also, if you haven t seen them yet, I just ran some sample welds with a self shielded fluxcore wire on my HH 175 for Bitternut. You should be able to find them in this processes section too.

Anyway, lets get to those pictures. Now I ve shown some of these in the past so for those of you who have already seen them please be nice, I just trying to show Mike what the machine is capable of producing. Mike, all the joints that I show you are going to be T joints, and they were ran with a solid wire and C25 shielding gas. This first picture is a joint made up of .120 wall sq tube and an angle iron with a 1/4" leg thickness

[Dan]

This second picture is the exact same joint design as the first but a different weld. Just showing you that the results is repeatable

[Dan]

This 3rd picture is 1/8" to 1/4" material

[cope]

Miller VS Hobart

They are made by the same company, but check out the comparison on the Miller site between the two units. The Hobart has plastic parts in the wire feed roller assembly whereas the Miller has metal.

[Dan]

This last picture is a peice of 5" channel and 3/16" flat bar. Please be aware that the rust that you see along the edge of the welds occured after welding the joints. I live in Oregon were we get alot of rain, and this peice of equipment has been setting inside of my shed that lacks heating so the things starting to get a little surface rust in a few places. I guess I should bead blast it and put a coat of paint on it soon.