Is a gasless mig welder with 125 amps strong enough to weld suspension brackets? Or do I need to dave up and get one with gas? I am going to redo the suspension on my air bag truck but nuthing major. Just link bar tabs and etc?

 

Are you using flux core wire?

Also does your welder have the hookups for gas?

 

no gas hook up. And yes im using fluxcore.

 

On the inside of your welder it should have a chart of the thickness of steel you can weld with it using Flux-Core. Just figure out what thickness of steel you're going to be using and use that chart to see if your machine can handle it or not.

 

125 amps, or 125 volts? Big difference. Does it plug into a regular household outlet? If thats a yes, then I would say no personally. Also if it is a cheaper one then they usually put out alot less than their advertised output.

We have a little 120 Volt Miller at work that I use for packing to the job sites, and the little 1/4 inch work I have done, it works OK. But I would have liked to see alot more penetration personally. The machine is rated to do up to 1/4 I think, but it just doesn't seem to lay in quite enough.

But if you plan on doing more suspension work, I would just save up for a bigger one.

 

That's what she said.

 

Or just get a stick welder.

 

..or weld a larger surface area if possible. It *can* do it if you really need it to, but to handle the bare minimum means running the machine at its maximum capacity so you're only going to be able to weld at about a 10% duty cycle, so even if it is handling it your machine is going to run warm and it might take a while. Being that its a 120v unit also brings challenges of its own as a standard outlet isn't designed to handle the power. I don't know if you've run into issues yet, but it may not be a bad idea to upgrade an outlet in your shop to 12 ga wire and throw a 20 amp plug/breaker on the setup to handle the welder better.

125 amps is pretty small, but I did build my first utility trailer 15 years ago with a ~130 amp flux core 120v Lincoln and its still holding out fine (all 1/4" construction and it regularly sees heavy gravel/dirt loads). Its not the most ideal setup, but if you prep everything well and have a little bit of patience then you should be ok. Do some test welds on similar material and post up some pics so we can see how they're looking. LR

 

Ok I will have to get some wire and should I get .035 or .030 the welder can run either? And wait on this 9'' of snow we just got to go away. Then I will weld a T joint and post some pics.

 

.030 should be fine, I run it through my 185 Miller and its fine up to 1/4". I don't know if fluxcore is any different, but you might get a better bead running slightly thinner wire in the smaller machine. Check the specs though, as it might recommend .035 for higher settings. LR