I bought this American-made Lincoln Electric AC-225 welder for $269 from Home Depot in July 2009. It has been produced basically unchanged for many decades, so it has reliability and reputation in its corner. I decided to get this after my Everlast Super250P bit the dust and its warranty replacement PowerMaster 205 went up in smoke during the first 20 minutes of use. I was waiting on another PowerMaster 205 and I did not want to be without a decently powered welder while I waited for warranty repairs and replacements. My little Harbor Freight 80A Inverter just did not have enough power to stick weld aluminum and the simple copper windings inside the AC-225 should be extremely reliable for the power output.
120V Operation
I discovered that you can actually run the AC-225 on 120V AC power in addition to the normal 240V AC power. The only problem is that the open-circuit voltage is much lower and it is more difficult to maintain an arc, but I did manage to lay down several inches of weld during testing. The bottom line is that it can work at limited welding currents if you are ever in a pinch. The internal cooling fan did not seem to run at 120V and the idle supply current was 1A. The cooling fan ran at 240V and the idle supply current was 4.4A. Here are some power measurements I made while testing 120V operation.
AC-225 Currents With 120V Supply Instead of 240V
Current Setting (A)
Measured Welding Current (A)
Measured Supply Current (A)
105
60
20
225
120
29
Alternative Electrodes
I really want to try to weld some metals using argon gas instead of flux. The aluminum electrodes worked great in my previous testing, but it should be possible to weld aluminum using argon gas and flux-less 1/8" aluminum rod. The end result might be cleaner than the flux-coated aluminum electrodes. I cover this idea in more detail on my stick welding aluminum page.
Foot Pedal
Here is a really cool schematic and discussion on adding foot pedal control to the AC-225, but I have not added one to mine yet.
Untangling
The AC-225 is a heavy unweidly beast. Moving it in stock form is quite a pain. After I installed the simple wheel kit, I cut the front welding leads and rear power cord short. I was tired of trying to manage the cables every time I needed to move the thing. So, I put a NEMA 6-50P connector on the short power cable on the rear of the welder. Then I installed a set of Lenco LDC-50 Dinse-style welding cable quick disconnects rated for 250A on the welding leads. I highly recommend these modifications. Now, nothing gets caught, stepped on, or dragged when I need to roll, lift, or carry the welder. A side benefit is that I can use the same connectors, when I build a rectifier box, to switch between AC and DC operation. It would have been a bit cleaner to get panel-mount connectors, but this was much easier.
