Portable Welder

[mingoglia]

So what do you guys think of these:
http://www.off-road.com/chevy/gowelder/goweld.html

Now that I'm proficient with the stick welder I was going to just grab some 7018 welding rods and some jumper cables for the trail but this portable mig is kinda intriguing. They retail for $799 and 4x4groupby had them for around $765 if I remember correctly. Kinda steep for a trail use piece of equipment...

Mike

[danno]

Interesting, I hadn't seen this one before. I wonder how it compares with the Ready Welder II

[mingoglia]

I don't know. It would be nice to find out. An advantate to the Read Welder is the price and the size. The Gowelder is a bit bulkier.

[Stu Olson]

During 6AJUMR last month, two different repairs required welding (broken control arm brackets). In both cases, a Ready Welder II was used (a couple of the guys had them).

Having watched the RWII in action, I was quite impressed. The GoWeld has better controls (you can only control wire speed on the RWII). However, the physical size of the GoWeld would have made it very difficult for getting into the limited space available on the upper rear control arm bracket. The RWII, which has a much slimmer design at the working end, was not all that easy to correctly position. It would seem the GoWeld would have had one heck of a time.

[mingoglia]

That's my initial impression as well Stu with regards to the larger size of the GoWeld. Hmmm...

[Antman]

I really liked the one that Walt (Jeepnut) had up in Moab. Although he had left it at the condo when we needed it that day on Moab Rim. It even had its own batteries included! I think he said it has been discontinued though. Maybe he'll jump in here and discribe it for us. We used it for welding loose u joint caps when we did our after hours jeep pm's. :)

[Craig]

I'll sing the praises of the RWII. I have had one for 3 years and it works great. And size does matter! There have been a couple of times where we could not get the RW into position and had to stick weld with jumper cables. I wouldn't want anything bigger than what I already have! :D

[mbuckner]

Mobi Welder or Ready Welder?

Which is the better of the two for trail use?

Mike

[Stu Olson]

Mobi Welder or Ready Welder?

Which is the better of the two for trail use?

Mike
I would be inclined to say the Ready Welder.

I say that because the RW can be used anywhere as long as you have a couple of 12V batteries. Yes, that means that you need to remove a battery from a vehicle and take it up to where the welding is being done (one assume you will use the battery in the broke down vehicle). That also means that you do not have to try to move a vehicle with the built in welder (Mobi) next to the broken down vehicle. I can think of many trails where trying to move a vehicle up or back multiple positions would be impossible. And don't forget, the vehicle that requires the welding will ALWAYS be in the worst possible spot. ;)

Troy welded Bob's control arm bracket on Die Hard a couple of weeks ago. If you watch the movie, you'll see the absolute worst spot that Bob's TJ decided to break. I could not imagine having to have shuffled vehicles around on that seciton of the trail in order to get a welder close to Bob. As it was, I unscrewed the wing nuts off of my Yellow Top and carried it up to Bob's TJ....out came the RW from its plastic case and we were ready to weld. (it doesn't get much easier than that)

Also....if you buy an old stick welder, you can connect the RW to it and use it in your garage with very little additional expense.

[mingoglia]

Also....if you buy an old stick welder, you can connect the RW to it and use it in your garage with very little additional expense.

...as long as the "old" stick welder is a DC unit. Just figured I'd throw that out there in case someone is considering running with this type of setup.

[Stu Olson]

Yes....good point. By old stick welder, I was referring to the old DC boxes my Dad used when I was a kid. Thanks for clarifying.