180 Amp Dual Voltage Inverter MIG/Stick Welder

The unit was returned after it worked on 120v, but failed on 240v. 9 cubic feet of black smoke bellowed out. The manufacturer referred me to point of original purchase, Home Depot. I was grateful that Home Depot took unit back and performed the warranty work without hassle. My $ was refunded.

Very happy with my purchase

Original unit arrived at store broken requiring a reorder and delayed pickup. Other than that, unit performs satisfactorily as described. No issues with it so far.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Some dents on the case when arrived as noted by others. Made a couple test passes using 110V, and 220V. The 220V seemed to weld smoother with less splatter, but being able to use 1110V if needed makes this welder very versitile. Welded several patches on a snow plow using flux core wire with good results. Have yet to try solid core with gas. Overhall I am satisfied with this welder for my needs.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

For most of the things I review for Home Depot, I rate myself as an advanced user, but for this I am a beginner. Before today I had limited welding experience and that was long ago on borrowed equipment under very controlled circumstances. So before I jumped in to the world of welding I called on the expertise of my father-in-law who helped his grandson and me learn the ropes with this welder. I also bought and read several CC level textbooks on welding and watched a number of YouTube videos before diving in. In the end, I was comfortable using the machine after about 5 minutes of coaching and demonstration, and while my earliest welds looked pretty nasty, by the end of four hours my work was markedly improved. After making some of the practice welds recommended in the text I moved on to a simple garden structure made from 1/2", #40 rebar, and then some simple repairs. Every joint I made survived vigorous destructive testing. I limited myself to manual metal arc welding with stick electrodes, using, in particular, 1/8" 6011 rods. I started with the power set in the middle of the range at 5, and then bumped it up to 6 and this was adequate to weld up the 1/2" rebar structure. I played a bit with the wire feeder, but didn't actually weld anything with the supplied rolls of sample wire. I won't actually use the wire feeder until I get a proper gas cylinder set up. The supplied power cord did not fit any of my existing 220 volt outlets, so I used the supplied adapter to run this welder on 110, and kept my welding periods short, well within the 30% duty cycle recommended by the manufacturer. Nothing special is required to change over from 220 to 110, just plug the 220v jack into the 110 volt adapter cord and plug that into a standard wall socket. My shop circuits are all wired for 20 Amps. Overall the machine is easy to use and the manual instructions are certainly adequate. The only complaint I can muster is that while moving the welder in and out of the pickup a few times, I wished the manufacturer had supplied some sort of "winding ears" to stow the power cord. I also found the power switch on the back panel to be a bit awkward to reach. But I will soon be welding up my own proper welding cart and welding bench. Once the welder is settled into it's permanent home in my shop, these complaints will vanish. The machine appears to be well built. Although there was a slight mis-alignment of the front panel, I suspect this was a result of the beating the package took in shipping. The box was badly beaten, but it did it's job well. Aside from the slightly askew panel the welder arrived in good shape and the misalignment did not affect the operation of the machine in any way. It did however, give me an excuse to remove the panel and look into the innards of the machine. Inside, everything looked good. I did find one loose screw floating around inside the machine but could not see any place where a screw was missing. The front panel was easy to remove and reattach and once I did this, it lined up perfectly. Overall, I am delighted with this new tool.

This is a very well built machine, with good quality materials and finish. It was pre-assembled, and I did a quick dis-assembly to take a look at the build quality and I have to say they did a great job. It's a dual purpose machine, it has both a 120v plug and a 220v plug (although the adapter is a bit odd), and gas lines/inputs... that lets you switch between stick and gas welding as your material/job site changes. There is some "setup" required by the end user, but that's to be expected. You need to load a wheel of wire into the feeder, connect the gun, and appropriate electrical or gas connections. Sounds easy... except the book is absolutely worthless. The pictures next to the instructions appear to be for another machine, and they are rotated/on the wrong side. This made loading the wire wheel a real frustrating experience with lots of mistakes. Depending on whether you use gas or electric to weld you need to switch the polarity inside the machine! Once you make heads or tails out of the book this ends up being a pretty easy task that requires a phillips head screwdriver and switching two wires. That said, I anticipate switching between the two often enough that I find this very tedious. I wish they had made the switch a tool-free switch. It welds as good / better than my old machine, although I'm a real hack when it comes to welding. Most of my stuff is for shop tools or temporary supports... not mission critical stuff. So any flaws in the weld are more likely my fault than the machines. All around, not a bad machine at all... just has some quirks that make initial setup annoying.

We are complete amateurs about welding. I took one welding class decades ago and haven't touched a welder since then. The book included in the box was nearly worthless for me, but keep in mind that I have never even touched a wirefeed before. The book is written for a machine that opens on the other side, so all of the photos are reversed or upside down. It took awhile to figure out how to load the wire. Someone who has some idea about these things would likely have found it all a bit easier, but I'm reviewing from the point of a complete novice. There are a couple of adjustments that have to be made between welding styles (mig vs. traditional) and, although the book addresses them, it wasn't clear to me at first. The option between 110v and 220v is nice for our shop and for being portable. Once we got things put together, we actually did manage a few beads, although we need a whole lot more practice before we build anything. We found a used self-darkening helmet which is a must because the shield included in the box is awkward to say the least. A big plus for me is being able to carry this around. We only tried the flux core because we haven't made a trip to the store yet for rod and we don't have bottled gas yet. I think this is a nice package for homeowners and it might be five stars if the book was improved substantially to help get started. Obviously we would benefit from some instruction, but that will have to wait for another day, so I bought a "welding for dummies" book to get by.

This is a neat, handy unit to have around. Dual voltage with a handy adapter cord supplied. Stick, MIG and flux-cored. It does it all. You can handle most jobs on the farm and in the shop with this one welder. The operation procedures are familiar to those who have used similar machines before. The operating manual is easily understood and has more helpful information than I expected. Everything works as expected. No issues with wire feed, it's smooth and predictable. If you want a welder that does it all. This is the one. If you've been thinking about getting a welder, as a beginner, and not really sure if you can learn to weld, this would be the one to get. The manual is an education in welding himself. I can't say anything bad about it. It's a performer.