Portable, battery powered welders (stick or MIG).

What are my options? I know there is the Fronius Accupocket, but want to know about less expensive options if there are any.

Goals: Ability to do medium duty welds offgrid. Short duty cycles are okay.

 

Miller has a portable MIG kit. Not battery operated. F150 not included.

 

Interesting. Amazed.

What voltage and current?

 

I'm new to welding. Whatever is needed to weld upto 1/8" mild steel in a single pass.

 

Jumper cables and welding rod. Will need at least 2 or 3 car batteries

 

If you need to do this frequently on many occasions, then a battery powered welder is probably justified. But I'm not familiar and can't help there.

If you aren't planning on doing this with high frequency, I would recommend an AC powered welder and a generator. I had a Hobart Handler 140 (120v mig welder) for around 10 years and wil do 1/8" easily in a single pass. To run it full power it needs 20 amp, 120v, which is well within the capability of a small (but not tiny) generator. I sold my Hobart 140 and bought the Hobart 210 mvp. mvp = multi-voltage-plug. If its plugged into 120v, its basically like the Handler 140. If its plugged into 240v, it's a 210 amp mig welder capable of welding aluminum. These are just a couple examples, but my point is: look at a quality 120v mig welder.


If you buy a quality battery powered unit, you'll spend a lot of money and have something that is forever limited by a battery. You can't weld longer than the battery life, and those batteries are expensive and don't last forever. Your needs easily fit within the capabilities of a small AC powered welder. If you go that route, you'll have a lot more capability, and not be limited by a battery.

I'm assuming you can drive your eqiupment to the work site, and it will be a rare enough occasion that hauling a small welder and a small generator isn't a big deal. If either of those assumptions is incorrect, go for a battery powered unit.

 

Your best and cheapest set up would be a used generator and small used 120VAC welder self shielded wire and lots of practice out of position.

Define medium welds to me that means under 3/8".

The Better battery powered welders are made for that niche market in the Big City where you need to go up 30 stories and weld 2 brackets .

 

1/8" is pretty thin still.

Why is doing it off grid a requirement?

As mentioned above, a 120v welder will easily take care of that.

If you really need a strong weld for on the budget, some 6010 or 7018 rod and jumper cables.

 

I gotta try battery powered stick welding see if it is feasible 3/32" 7018 I have never had to.

 

I'd think running 2 car batteries (done it once to show my co-worker) is best used with 1/8" rod.

I've only used 3/32" (and smaller, or larger than 1/8") on an actual welder and that stuff burns quick even at a much lower setting. The car battery welding was only 1/8"

 

I can try all 3 and 3 sizes of 6010 one has to hit the sweet spot!

 

I've done 7018 overhead; can't imagine only having 6010 and having to run overhead (under the truck).

 

This was field welded with 1/8" 6010 with two batteries. After 3 of 4 LBJ bolts snapped I welded that fucker good. Then I wheeled it like that for another 3 months. If you wheel hard you better have a field weld kit for shit like this.

 

Those days for me are long in the past.

Now I just fix others peoples mishaps.

 

6012 I have all kinds of interesting electrodes around.

 

6010, 6011, 6013, 7014, 7018, 7024, and 308L are rods I've run.

308L (stainless) runs just like 7018 does; it's so nice. But much more finicky with angles (more due to the stainless itself).

Never ran 6012.

 

Here's the one I've been eyeballing. A tad spendy but have seen them in use by the military in hummers, they work well. The company has lower cost build to fit options also.

 

There seems to be a bit of confusion in this thread, but there are dedicated units, usually requires upgrading the alternator, that are RPM based that work pretty well. Such as https://premierpowerwelder.com/shop...a-tacoma-2005-2015-4-0l-premier-power-welder/

 

Interesting but you are also getting a Higher output alternator I don`t think OP wants that much of an investment.

I need to explore this more.

 

No confusion.

A very budget-friendly solution was offered.

A few others (not super expensive but not exactly cheap) were offered as well.

Considering the OP is new to welding, I'd suggest he/she takes a course to learn the basics...or learns from a proficient welder.

Still curious as to why off-grid is important?

OP has posted various threads on the most basic of things relating to auto maintenance (in general) and basic Tacoma stuff.