Bought this to keep at the house for small repairs on my garden tractors and hobby metal art projects. We have high end Lincoln machines at the farm for the big stuff, just wanted a cheap standby for home use. The enclosed manual is plain junk. Also when unpacking it, take the included roll of wire and trash it. Replace with a good name brand wire from your local welding supply and you'll be much better off. Ground clamp is pretty cheesy but that's an easy 5 minute fix as well. You definitely want to mount this to some kind of rolling cart, as the ground cable and gun lead are both REALLY short. Biggest complaint is the wire coming out of the gun is constantly hot, not switched with the trigger like our SP-135 Plus. Also the manual says to plug it in to a 10A circuit, seems kinda light to me, as on full power it tripped a 20A breaker out at the farm a couple times (but that breaker is getting old and weak so may be the fault of the breaker). All in all for hobbyist and occasional use this is a great machine for the money

For 100 bucks shipped to my door? Worth every darn penny. The wire that comes with it was great for sheet metal work. My buddy borrowed it and put the cheap harbor freight 30 wire in it, and the thing just cranks out welds. She's no professional unit, but for the occasional user or home gamer, the thing is a champ. Having 4 heat settings and infinite wire speed control is the reason i tried this one instead of slightly more expensive home gamer brands like it. I made a good decision.

The wire is always live. Be careful where you lay down your gun. For 99 bucks, it's really not a big deal. I'm not a beginner. I just needed a cheap toy for home projects. Was expecting cheap garbage that didn't work, but was pleasently surprised by the welds a $99 machine can lay down. If you are a beginner, don't kid yourself. Buy a cheap mask too, because the face shield thing it comes with makes a better shovel than it does a welding shield.

I'd say if you want a machine to use a few times a year under 400 bucks, choose this one over any of the others. If you wanna do any kind of production work or use it daily, do yourself a favor and spend some actual cash on an actual name brand though.

Like many other reviewers, I know next to nothing about welding. I was apprehensive, but the first time up I was able to successfully join two 1 1/2" pieces of square tube together with a strong (though ugly) weld. This thing works and works well.

A couple of tips I picked up from an online video (I don't remember the site but he deserves the credit. Sorry.) First, the mystery of the two switches on the front labeled "high/low" and "1/2": there are four power settings which are enabled by their relative positions. When switched to low and 1, the lowest power setting is enabled. Switch to low and 2, and the second lowest setting is enabled. Switch to high and 1 and it's the third highest setting. Finally, high and 2 give you the highest setting.

Another tip from the video is this: the shroud around the tip of the wire at the business end of the welder is really unnecessary. On a mig welder this is used to direct the gas to the weld. Since this is a flux core welder which uses no gas it can be removed so you can actually see the wire and its contact with the joint better. (The manual that accompanies the welder has been badly translated into broken English and gives very little instruction on using the machine. It instructs you put the shroud on the tip before welding but other than looks and perhaps some legal reason it works better without it.

Go ahead and buy this machine. For the price and ease of use it is a no-brainer.

for the price - this is awesome
this is my first time welding and my first machine.
I made the mistake of trying to run this from a long extension cord, and the power "bounced" wa-wa-wa, and I thought the product was bad...
I eventually figured out my problem when Plugged straight into the wall (the plug is a little annoyingly short).
I did instantly replace the welding wire with some from HD, however more recently I got some INETUB from amazon and it seems even better...
I have had more success on thicker mild steel, like 1/4 - 1/8 tubing. I tried thinner stuff and can tell it takes MUCH practice (and maybe a different tool) to not blow through - however small quick spot welds can be made to work.
My welds are still ugly - but that is my fault. For just over $100, I am very pleased.
I will admit that I have already put a 200A rectifier on it to make it DC for less than 30 bucks.
When I did this, I wired the fan to the wall-power to always be on if it's plugged in - i figured it's better to keep cooling all the time...
This way -for me- the power controls if gun is HOT or not (As you have probably read in other reviews - this sucker is HOT ALL THE TIME THAT IT IS ON... will certainly get your attention if you accidentally touch the tip to the grounded surface - but just be careful and you will be fine).

Ok, so let make this clear. If you are expecting this to burn through metal and expecting this to hold 70,000lbs go buy another welder. This welder is good for around the house, and little projects. But by no means is this even close to trustworthy with load bearing work. It is good for building a headache rack or roof rack or a bumper bracket. But this isn't going to do much more than that. Also if you're demanding a lot out of it, the welder will over temp and shut down, and it happens fairly quickly. In my case, about 5-10mins of on and off filler welds, beads, and tacks. I converted it to DC with a 200a rectifier, and 2 15,000uf 50VDC capacitors and filter chokes and Lincoln NR211 wire, this made a world of difference, but as the welder warms up, the arc cools down and you lack the penetration you had when the welder was cool when you first fired it up. So needless to say, it will burn way heavier metal than what it's meant to do now, but if you want to stay in the butter zone on the duty cycle, long periods of rest are a must. But I'm overall happy with the welder and its performance for my current needs. However, I will more than likely buy a 220v mig.