When I learned how to weld, a portable welder was a Lincoln SA-200 engine drive in the bed of a Ford F 350. Since then I have had a variety of heavy welders, including a Lincoln AC225 Buzz Box, a Lincoln Ideal Arc and a Linde HeliArc HF250 AC/DC Tig / Stick welder. I bought an inverter thinking that it would be nice to have a more portable welder, but the Thermal Arc / Tweco / ESAB Fabricator 211i weighs 57 pounds after you remove the 30 pound MIG wire spool and MIG gun and disconnect the gas line. It is just a little to much to make me want to lug it around, so I was looking at cheap and light weight welders in the $130 - 150 range on Amazon a few weeks ago. Up popped this tiny 120 / 240 volt stick welder that claimed to put out 135 amps for $72 ( it is up to $90 now). It is the Tooliom 1355 and it only had 3 reviews and only one was detailed, but it indicated that it could weld with 3/32 rods on 1/8 inch steel on a 120V 20 amp circuit. The reviewer sounded like a welder who knew what he was talking about and he gave it 3 stars, so I bought one. It weighs about 4.5 pounds and 7.5 pounds with the leads, ground clamp and stinger
I tested on both 120 and 240 V circuits under a real world backyard situation on a 50 foot extension cord. Like the review noted, it is a little hard to strike an arc on 120V. You have to do a scratch start and a light tap or a peck and lift start just results in the rod sticking. Starts were a little better on 240V, but not by much. This is typical of low open circuit welders but I checked the OCV and it is 75V on both 120 and 240, which is right up there with my Fabricator 211, so that doesn't explain the difficulty starting. Still though, scratch starting is not that big of a deal and it could run 3/32 6013, 7018 and even 7014. It could even run 1/8 7018 on 240V with the amperage set to 135, but it seemed cold, like it was actually 115A or less. For some unknown reason, I could not run 3/32 6011 rod unless I turned up the current so much that the rod was red hot half way through. Maybe it is the off brand US Forge rod that my local steel supplier sells, but I don't particularly like 6011. Maybe it is because of all the 6010 rod I had to burn in welding class.
The bottom line is that while it is small, light weight, cheap and it can weld, this is probably not the welder you would want to learn stick welding on using 120V because with the difficulty starting. The best way to use it would be on 240V using the adaptor so you could run it with a 100 foot 120V extension cord. Just remember not to plug your angle grinder into the 240V.
I tested on both 120 and 240 V circuits under a real world backyard situation on a 50 foot extension cord. Like the review noted, it is a little hard to strike an arc on 120V. You have to do a scratch start and a light tap or a peck and lift start just results in the rod sticking. Starts were a little better on 240V, but not by much. This is typical of low open circuit welders but I checked the OCV and it is 75V on both 120 and 240, which is right up there with my Fabricator 211, so that doesn't explain the difficulty starting. Still though, scratch starting is not that big of a deal and it could run 3/32 6013, 7018 and even 7014. It could even run 1/8 7018 on 240V with the amperage set to 135, but it seemed cold, like it was actually 115A or less. For some unknown reason, I could not run 3/32 6011 rod unless I turned up the current so much that the rod was red hot half way through. Maybe it is the off brand US Forge rod that my local steel supplier sells, but I don't particularly like 6011. Maybe it is because of all the 6010 rod I had to burn in welding class.
The bottom line is that while it is small, light weight, cheap and it can weld, this is probably not the welder you would want to learn stick welding on using 120V because with the difficulty starting. The best way to use it would be on 240V using the adaptor so you could run it with a 100 foot 120V extension cord. Just remember not to plug your angle grinder into the 240V.
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