Curious. I wonder about this notion that the big 2 (or 3) have lifelong support. Is that really true? Sure, the support will be better than a no-name chinese brand. I can believe that for sure. But can I buy parts for a 50 years old Miller? Will I be able to in the future, and especially so if the technology is changing drastically and very fast? And if available, will they be affordable? Not to mention that would we even want to fix a completely beyond the times welder with new ones having a bunch of much more useful features. Seems rather unlikely that a big company would set themselves in the position of having to stock obsolete parts for a very long time just for marketing purposes. Think of the big car manufacturers. The impression I have is that they commit only to 10 years or so of full parts support.
I can speak to Miller only.
-I bought a new/shipping damaged Econotig for $200 (2007-ish?- they had been out for 2+ yrs) that was literally dropped well over 30’ in the shipping carton & the baseplate was totalled, so much that the cooling fan was inoperable because the blades were bound on inner components. The flat base looked like a taco with ~2” rise on either end.
$75 for a new baseplate, a few hours of my time swapping over all the parts & pounding out the blue tin cover, I had a machine that MSRP’d for ~$1350-1500 then. Still have & use it.
-Fast forward to a few yrs back.
I wanted a Miller 350p, but my LWS shop said they were a problem child & commonly died & the control board was $250 from Miller & 15mins to swap. Some people were on 2nd & 3rd replaced boards.
Miller listened & fixed by the time I was buying mine, my serial # is out of the “problem child” range - but they fixed the issue as well as intro’d the AL-only version at the same time. Miller’s service line was the place I learned there was a revision & to get a serial # higher than _______ .
My Econotig works flawless still today (I figured with that machine a total loss, the Victor CFM regulator, torch, pedal, were $200/worst case scenario) - It’s no Dynasty, but for my home use it’s got plenty of amps & does AL too & parts were all available when I was fixing this one, and if I needed more parts/diagnostics the service techs were happy to help when I was ordering my baseplate.
So there’s 1st hand experience doing Miller & I called Miller when they had alot of 350p machines FS/refurb’d & they said themself that the revision was a couple months out, if I wanted to buy new & not have any control board issues - they aren’t out to fool anybody IME.
Maybe some others (I hear good about certain newer ESABs) - are as good as Miller, but to me they are an easy blanket answer to what will most likely have parts/consumables the longest - at one point (1990’s) Hobart and lower level Miller were the exact same consumables, maybe made in same manufacturing plant. Might still be.
Between service & parts, I just think Miller is the safest longterm bet.
But it’s also all I’ve ever tried to work on. Lincoln may be the same, IDK.
All the welders in the oil refineries were Miller. All I ever knew or saw.
The local community college has Lincolns for arc welding & they had a decent “soft start” feature for newbies, so you didn’t ground a fresh rod & make a sparkler out of one. But since we rarely smaw/stick’d SS in the field @ the acid plant (we build windbreaks & scratch-arc’d), we only had 2) 4pack Miller arc banks.
I’d bet on the Millers. Buy once, cry once. Prob will have parts for it still if you ever wear out something. Go 220v, unless all you do is autobody.
Ask your LWS if whatever you like the looks of if they had any issues, new or used machines (come armed with a serial number) - if you get some old & rude guy, all the better - they usually talk straight & if a particular machine has been a hooker to them & lots came back, they’ll say so.
If parts down the line are a concern, skip all the HF machines right now.
