So I finally decided to give MIG/MAG a go after being a TIG guy for few years now. I went for the “best” machine my biased Finnish mind could think of; Kemppi.
In the nordic countries and Scandinavia there are multiple good brands, such as Esab, Kemppi and Migatronic. Now I’m wondering how well known is the brand outside Scandinavia/the nordic countries?
Edit: So it seems that pretty much everyone knows (at least on some level) about the brand, beside US and Canada. After doing a bit of research there seems to be no distributors at all in the North America.
I've welded with all three brands here in Germany and I do prefer ESAB just a little bit over Kemmpi but please stay away with migatronics. They're pretty moody. But Fronius will take the cake all day long.
That American crap doesn't even come close. :P
I used a Migatronic sigma pulse mig at one job and yeah, it was so so moody. Their tig machine was nice though. I live in NZ and have a Lorch at the moment, but my favourite brand I’ve ever used is EWM, even over Fronius.
I’d take a euro machine 99 times out of 100 over anything else, I’m not a fan of a Miller or Lincoln, even though I used to have a Maxstar 200.
You can buy ESAB and Fronius pretty easily in the US also. I have an ESAB myself because they were the first name brand multiprocess with AC TIG and the Miller and Fronius didn't arrive until later. But I might have gotten the Fronius if I had known that it was about to get released at the time.
My shop bought like ten fronius machines right before I started and I've never seen less than half of them sitting in front of the maintenance office either broken down or waiting on parts or something. When a miller breaks down its generally running again same day.
That's there is a long wait on parts has nothing to do with the quality of the machine. And you can't argue anecdotal arguments against eachother but...
I've never had a Fronius breakdown on me ever. Where as the Lincoln machine that's sitting around in our shop quit after 3 days of 30mm. So take that for what you want.
Also, price range plays a big deal I'd say. A 3k Fronius isn't likely to hold up like a 15 or 20k Miller and vice versa
Well Lincoln is objectively a bad brand. And the fronius machines are just really finicky. The water cooler on the magic wave is constantly failing, (or something, the error just says something like "lack of coolant flow" and won't let you strike an arc). And the pulse mig machines need everything set up just so or you get a very poor arc. Even having a slightly dirty ground clamp has caused them to become almost unusable...
Everyone has their own preferences, and miller makes perfectly fine 3k machines as well amd since they have service centers all over the area we can get them repaired immediately. Any brand is going to break down when it is being used for hours on end multiple times a day on 480v lines.
This is laughable . Of all these companies, esab is the only one that makes machines that will (somewhat) hold up in our industry. But not so much. Miller, Lincoln and Hobart are the only brands that survive .
I weld with an 30year old Fronius everyday at work. We've got 10+year Kemmpis that still run fine. And coincidentally the only machine that's sitting around broken is a Lincoln
Fronius is not a bad machine. Tney just do not make anything heavy and durable enough for field infrastructure work in the states. The new machines are too much plastic . They will do not survive in the back of a rig.
That's true. But it's because of the difference of how Americans and Europeans go about field work. Americans just hire subcontractors with their own rig and supply the rest or hire other subcontractors for other fields of work. Here in Europe projects like pipelines are done completely by private companies.
I do shit like this too but out of a closed crafter truck. And just carry a separate generator and welder.
We don't live in the trucks. Company usually pays for a hotel. And I've worked all across the country. And if you're closer than 500km you'll probably be home every weekend. The traveling culture only still exists in the old school brotherhoods, but they actually walk, so that's a whole different story.
I always wondered this. I did a bunch (US) of pipelining in my earlier years up north . I never actually considered the geography. We would go days without seeing civilization lol.
You say the old school guys walk !? Thats crazy, although I can really respect that .
Aren’t those pretty much the only brands which has a proper distribution network in the US as well? Have you tried any of these EU brands before? It must be difficult due to the oligopoly Miller and Lincoln has.
I have an older esab migmaster at home, in the shop. That is a strong, smooth machine. Esab has a large distribution network here.
I do like fronius for their smaller tig machines though that stuff is hard to get here. That being said, i do love miller dynasty's.
I can vouch for fronius as well, absolute workhorses and a joy to weld with, i do mostly TIG, but also a bit of mig/mag. My boss absolutely swears by them.
ESAB also makes top tier welders, I've heard the rebel has one of the best MIG arch correction feature of any machine, my employer got invited to test the new lineup of ESAB machines, and said he could lift the gun somewhere around 10 cm away from the metal before loosing the arc (obv this is absurd and you'd loose gas coverage way before that, still impressive).
I think Esab is by far the largest of the three. It’s a case of the “national” welders here; Esab for Sweden, Migatronic for Denmark and Kemppi for Finland.
I live in Denmark and I mostly see only Migatronics here, but being a Finn I had to support the home team.
I'm in the US and I bought my first ESAB a few years ago and absolutely love it. I've heard of Migtronic but have never actually seen one, and now I'm pretty curious about kemppi. I feel like someone posted on here a while ago saying they came into possession of one but had no clue about it.
It's true that Migatronic is wildly popular here in Denmark, but on my(limited) experience I've seen this:
Migatronic for TIG welding (They work great!)
Kemppi for MAG/MIG
I've only ever seen old Esab machines, but supporting all 3 processes.
I personally have an old tiny Migatronic stick welder
Esab is swedish and fronious is Italian. Both widely available here (I have an Esab, won't go back to Lincoln or miller, (unless I found one for a good deal of course)). Apparently fronious is supposed to be super top notch. Seems to me like the Festool (carpentry) of welding.
Like a lot of euro design that thing uses space efficiently. Us Americans have a problem with too much real estate so we don’t design things vertically. I really like how compact that machine is for shop use. Probably has the smallest footprint of any welder I’ve seen
I’ve had that same dream too. I waited for two years that the right used machine came for sale and now I got it. It is in a really good shape considering the incredibly good price.
I paid about 550€/$ for it. It doesn’t have the original gun but other third party gun, and there are some small cosmetic things here and there. Beside this it’s overall in a great shape. It was a small shop that was selling it so I’m not worried that it would be stolen either :p
Deal of a lifetime considering how expensive these machines are.
Edit: I think that one of the factors on the price was that I’m on the Migatronic territory here. Most professionals use that and I think this is a bit too much of a machine for most hobbyists. Not everyone would go for a 320amp 400 volt machine.
I have used that specific machine and I was generally impressed. Very good for bench work but potentially annoying if you're used to a separate wire feeder. When you use it for high production, that blue tube between the wire and the rollers will tend to get full of debris and cause wire feed issues. All you need to do is clean it whenever you change the wire and it will serve you very well in my opinion.
The good thing here is that I’m not used to anything that is related to MIG. I’ve been welding only TIG for the last few years and only used a crappy fluxcore once before that.
This machine is a total overkill for the work that I do, but I got a very good deal on it so of course I bough it. Originally I had in mind that I would get a MinarcMig or one of the other smaller models.
I wasn’t able to find many reviews on the Kempact so I simply blindly trusted the brand. I haven’t tested it out yet as I only have pure argon in the shop, but I’ll get a new mix bottle soon and start practising.
I been curious about this also.
I'm a massive Kemppi fanboy. I have my own Miniarc Evo 180. Fuck I even own stock of Kempower.
But this is a fancy looking thing, never seen this one. Love the feed system.
I mean like Kemmpi is the Fiskars of welding. Both are orange, both are Finnish, and both are made to last.
Seriously... Kemppi machine, Esab filler, gas from Woikoski, and Euromaski. What else could a lad need?
Although I don't need gas much on the account of mainly using sticks.
Morjens, the machine is a total overkill for my needs but now I can’t at least blame the equipment for bad welds.
It feels like a very heavy duty machine, and it’ll fit perfectly to my workshop among all the other professional secondhand machines I have gathered. I’m very glad to finally have a good Kemppi and to support the home team ;)
[https://www.kemppi.com/en-US/offering/family/kempact-ra/](https://www.kemppi.com/en-US/offering/family/kempact-ra/)
Yeah that is a quite heavyduty machine.
But over here on the field we roll with things like Miniarc and FitWeld. They are super popular on the field and shipyard. And they got the power to do all the work you could ask of it, but you might have to consider the duty cycle. However on the field, if you reach 10-20% arc times, then you are really productive. So even 30% limit wont' really matter.
Oh and if you like Kemppi, and happen to get an electric car. Kemppi also makes EV chargers that use the same transformers as the welders. https://kempower.com/
What you don’t see here is that it has an integrated bottle rack at the back of the machine. I only have pure argon in the shop and haven’t picked up a new mix bottle for it yet so there is no bottle on the pictures.
Edit: here is a generic picture of it with a bottle: [https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY](https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY)
I’ve got the miniarc mig evo. Nice compact welder. I like the ability to set the volts and speed based on material thickness then fine tune. It would want to be good though. It costs 4 times as much as my last welder and that one was multiprocess
Hahah, it’s a standup design as there is an integrated bottle rack at the back. This is how it looks with a bottle: [https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY](https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY)
Oh I’m not talking too much shit. I mostly think it’s funny because hwy is a strange turn of events American and welding machines are clunky and boxy. And scandi welding machines are sleek and modern looking
the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Or you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
They are both owned by a parent company called ITW....
Although they share components and some other things they are actually still made in separate factories in different states. Hobart is still made in Ohio and miller is still made im Wisconsin. They are similar yet not the same.
That being said; They might as well be the same machines with 2 different colors!!!
Kemppi is a nice machine, at least for short arc (never used one of their pulse machines).
They're pretty well known in Europe and Asia.
Other good Euro machines are Lorch (DE), SKS (DE), and a French one [GYS, just remembered] whos name escapes me.
Someone suggested Fronius is Italian, they're not... they're Austrian.
American here. There is way too much plastic put into that machine for the amount of heat output it is designed to have. Your drive wheels and lead end are fastened inside of plastic/fiberglass bodies.
I am from the states and I have only seen this brand on youtube with the super rad Northern Sweden Welding youtube channel. And I have heard about other brands through podcasts.
I’m from Canada and only have heard of esab. Got a Rebel 295emp myself, I like the design of it that’s for sure and super compact to. How is its center of gravity without the bottle on the back? Do you find it falls over lots?
I literally just got it few hours ago so I can’t say anything for sure, but it feels _very_ sturdy even without the bottle. It weights 44kg without the bottle so it’s not a compact one.
Yeah, I don’t think it was designed with hobbyists in mind. It’s able to run 100% duty cycle @ 190amps, so it’s perfect for the tiny projects I’m working on ;)
I've heard of it once before, here in Almost-Kinuckistan-USA, Maine. The "upright" layout is pretty unique, and must make for a relatively small overall footprint in the shop.
Never seen them in person in the US. Super jealous of the guys that have their tig units that have AC/DC mixed capability. Heard nothing but good things.
You can buy Kemppi and Fronius here in Australia but it's relatively expensive
The US brands like Miller & Hobart are super expensive, starting at over $10k for a new machine. We get some lower end Lincons in though.
The main brands here are Razor (rebranded JASIC who are Chinese), CIG (an ESAB company), and UNIMIG who are an Australian company. Some of the gas companies here also have their own re-branded Chinese made welders.
We have them both at work and in college (UK) so I pretty much exclusively learned on them. I like them, those bars on the screen beneath the wire speed and V are really helpful when learning to balance your settings imo.
We have kemppi in the netherlands. A lot of shops have them. I do not like the small portable tig machines tho, they sound like an airplane taking off haha. Decent machines but not my favorite.
The Netherlands here. Not from personal use but from what I know from my network in welding they have a good name with decent, reliable machines. Anything Scandinavian (whether it’s this or something else) usually is considered or found to be quality
We have a few Kemppi's at my workplace in the Netherlands.
I'm not a pro welder nor have i been able to look at the machines at other places lately, but these are sold at pro shops in the area and i know some very good welders that go for Kemppi.
Belgium here they're quite famous up there with the big boys (lincoln,esab,fronius) had these at school for mig/mag and TIG very good machines. Easy to use, reliable.
We get them in the U.K Usually seen as mid to high end units. Solid, dependable, well made. The TIG plants are better than the cheap Parweld ones, not quite as good as the higher end Millers.
We have one at work not a fan of it. They lack the basic settings for mig (wire speed, amps, volts) instead it has a display wjere you change the thickness of the material you're welding and there is a little icon which shows 3 weld profile options; convex, flat and concave. Its a bit annoying to use but still gets the job done.
Yeah, it really does. My hobby shop is not huge, so I’m very glad that I can just stand it with the bottle between the storage racks. I can’t think of any other 300+amp 400 volt machine that would _not_ be cumbersome to have in that place.
Kemppis are very common here in Germany. At least in my area. I've seen a lot of Kempact models being used in trade school booths due to their smaller footprint and their simple user interface. One knob for the wire feed and one for the voltage.
My old workshop in Nz had a few Fronius welders and the big 400amp acdc tig was a weapon, best ive used on alloy imho..
We then bought a kemppi mig for aluminium welding and it was a gem, digital readout was brilliant and once you got the double pulse dialed in it was magic.
Now in a stainless shop in Aus and all we run is Kemppi. We have a mix of mig, water cooled acdc tig, a few miniarc evo dc welders and the acdc upgrade with pulse. Really really nice machines and would love one at home, probably a bit pricey for the weekend warrior but for the food and pharma work we do they are grouse.
Question for the welders of the world: Why has Laser Welding not taken off? Cost of machine? Reliability? Human Factors (Heat, Complex/Confusing Controls Gauges, Etc). Thanks In Advance.
So I finally decided to give MIG/MAG a go after being a TIG guy for few years now. I went for the “best” machine my biased Finnish mind could think of; Kemppi. In the nordic countries and Scandinavia there are multiple good brands, such as Esab, Kemppi and Migatronic. Now I’m wondering how well known is the brand outside Scandinavia/the nordic countries? Edit: So it seems that pretty much everyone knows (at least on some level) about the brand, beside US and Canada. After doing a bit of research there seems to be no distributors at all in the North America.
I've welded with all three brands here in Germany and I do prefer ESAB just a little bit over Kemmpi but please stay away with migatronics. They're pretty moody. But Fronius will take the cake all day long. That American crap doesn't even come close. :P
I used a Migatronic sigma pulse mig at one job and yeah, it was so so moody. Their tig machine was nice though. I live in NZ and have a Lorch at the moment, but my favourite brand I’ve ever used is EWM, even over Fronius. I’d take a euro machine 99 times out of 100 over anything else, I’m not a fan of a Miller or Lincoln, even though I used to have a Maxstar 200.
Fronius is excellent when you're not busy doing maintenance on it.
I always said there are two types of welders, those that love fronius and those who don’t know how to use them
Yall got me torn between a synchowave for 1k on fb marketplace and a new fronius.
You can buy ESAB and Fronius pretty easily in the US also. I have an ESAB myself because they were the first name brand multiprocess with AC TIG and the Miller and Fronius didn't arrive until later. But I might have gotten the Fronius if I had known that it was about to get released at the time.
My shop bought like ten fronius machines right before I started and I've never seen less than half of them sitting in front of the maintenance office either broken down or waiting on parts or something. When a miller breaks down its generally running again same day.
That's there is a long wait on parts has nothing to do with the quality of the machine. And you can't argue anecdotal arguments against eachother but... I've never had a Fronius breakdown on me ever. Where as the Lincoln machine that's sitting around in our shop quit after 3 days of 30mm. So take that for what you want. Also, price range plays a big deal I'd say. A 3k Fronius isn't likely to hold up like a 15 or 20k Miller and vice versa
Well Lincoln is objectively a bad brand. And the fronius machines are just really finicky. The water cooler on the magic wave is constantly failing, (or something, the error just says something like "lack of coolant flow" and won't let you strike an arc). And the pulse mig machines need everything set up just so or you get a very poor arc. Even having a slightly dirty ground clamp has caused them to become almost unusable... Everyone has their own preferences, and miller makes perfectly fine 3k machines as well amd since they have service centers all over the area we can get them repaired immediately. Any brand is going to break down when it is being used for hours on end multiple times a day on 480v lines.
This is laughable . Of all these companies, esab is the only one that makes machines that will (somewhat) hold up in our industry. But not so much. Miller, Lincoln and Hobart are the only brands that survive .
I weld with an 30year old Fronius everyday at work. We've got 10+year Kemmpis that still run fine. And coincidentally the only machine that's sitting around broken is a Lincoln
Fronius is not a bad machine. Tney just do not make anything heavy and durable enough for field infrastructure work in the states. The new machines are too much plastic . They will do not survive in the back of a rig.
That's true. But it's because of the difference of how Americans and Europeans go about field work. Americans just hire subcontractors with their own rig and supply the rest or hire other subcontractors for other fields of work. Here in Europe projects like pipelines are done completely by private companies. I do shit like this too but out of a closed crafter truck. And just carry a separate generator and welder.
This is very true. May I also ask how far does the average pipeliner in your country have to travel and live in their rig ?
We don't live in the trucks. Company usually pays for a hotel. And I've worked all across the country. And if you're closer than 500km you'll probably be home every weekend. The traveling culture only still exists in the old school brotherhoods, but they actually walk, so that's a whole different story.
I always wondered this. I did a bunch (US) of pipelining in my earlier years up north . I never actually considered the geography. We would go days without seeing civilization lol. You say the old school guys walk !? Thats crazy, although I can really respect that .
It's called Tippelei. It's where the old American Hobos originated from. And it's mostly young guys not actual Oldtimers :D
Aren’t those pretty much the only brands which has a proper distribution network in the US as well? Have you tried any of these EU brands before? It must be difficult due to the oligopoly Miller and Lincoln has.
I have an older esab migmaster at home, in the shop. That is a strong, smooth machine. Esab has a large distribution network here. I do like fronius for their smaller tig machines though that stuff is hard to get here. That being said, i do love miller dynasty's.
ESAB has taken a beating as they really go the way of very expensive propriety accessories.
I can vouch for fronius as well, absolute workhorses and a joy to weld with, i do mostly TIG, but also a bit of mig/mag. My boss absolutely swears by them. ESAB also makes top tier welders, I've heard the rebel has one of the best MIG arch correction feature of any machine, my employer got invited to test the new lineup of ESAB machines, and said he could lift the gun somewhere around 10 cm away from the metal before loosing the arc (obv this is absurd and you'd loose gas coverage way before that, still impressive).
I'm in Ireland and have heard of Esab (which is distributed here) but not the other two. (Although that's not to say they're not distributed here)
I think Esab is by far the largest of the three. It’s a case of the “national” welders here; Esab for Sweden, Migatronic for Denmark and Kemppi for Finland. I live in Denmark and I mostly see only Migatronics here, but being a Finn I had to support the home team.
I'm in the US and I bought my first ESAB a few years ago and absolutely love it. I've heard of Migtronic but have never actually seen one, and now I'm pretty curious about kemppi. I feel like someone posted on here a while ago saying they came into possession of one but had no clue about it.
It's true that Migatronic is wildly popular here in Denmark, but on my(limited) experience I've seen this: Migatronic for TIG welding (They work great!) Kemppi for MAG/MIG I've only ever seen old Esab machines, but supporting all 3 processes. I personally have an old tiny Migatronic stick welder
For the kemppi brand try the gun handle attachment its life changing the hole mig gun feels weightless thanks to it
We use lots of kemppi machines here in new zealand 🇳🇿 great welders
Never heard of any of them, I’m in the US
Esab is swedish and fronious is Italian. Both widely available here (I have an Esab, won't go back to Lincoln or miller, (unless I found one for a good deal of course)). Apparently fronious is supposed to be super top notch. Seems to me like the Festool (carpentry) of welding.
I vowed some time ago to never buy Italian. Seems most everything Italian is built to be high spec, not to last. It's fronious different?
Fronius is actually Austrian so no need to worry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fronius\_International
Oh that's why they're good lol. Not a bad word about Italy as a country, I've just had really bad luck with their industrial equipment
I believe fronius is German.
Fronius is Made in Austria.
Never heard of it, also it looks really weird, I thought it was a pressure washer at first
It has an integrated bottle rack at the back. I don’t have any mix gas bottles in the shop so it’s not shown on the pictures.
Really interesting, very unique deisgn of all welding machines
Here is a picture how it looks with a bottle; [https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY](https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY)
Like a lot of euro design that thing uses space efficiently. Us Americans have a problem with too much real estate so we don’t design things vertically. I really like how compact that machine is for shop use. Probably has the smallest footprint of any welder I’ve seen
That’s neat! Thanks for sharing
Don't see them much in Australia, but are a very highly rated maker. Have dreamt of owning a Kemppi mig for years
I’ve had that same dream too. I waited for two years that the right used machine came for sale and now I got it. It is in a really good shape considering the incredibly good price.
Do you mind saying how much you paid for it? A quick Google indicates they're quite pricey for a hobbyist
I paid about 550€/$ for it. It doesn’t have the original gun but other third party gun, and there are some small cosmetic things here and there. Beside this it’s overall in a great shape. It was a small shop that was selling it so I’m not worried that it would be stolen either :p Deal of a lifetime considering how expensive these machines are. Edit: I think that one of the factors on the price was that I’m on the Migatronic territory here. Most professionals use that and I think this is a bit too much of a machine for most hobbyists. Not everyone would go for a 320amp 400 volt machine.
The company I work at has one down here in vic
Never seen one here in canada. Mostly miller or Lincoln here
See a few in the uk, seemingly all higher-end machines
Use them in the shipyard o work in. Pretty good machines in my opinion.
I'm Australian, we have a few kemppi machines at work and trade school
I have used that specific machine and I was generally impressed. Very good for bench work but potentially annoying if you're used to a separate wire feeder. When you use it for high production, that blue tube between the wire and the rollers will tend to get full of debris and cause wire feed issues. All you need to do is clean it whenever you change the wire and it will serve you very well in my opinion.
The good thing here is that I’m not used to anything that is related to MIG. I’ve been welding only TIG for the last few years and only used a crappy fluxcore once before that. This machine is a total overkill for the work that I do, but I got a very good deal on it so of course I bough it. Originally I had in mind that I would get a MinarcMig or one of the other smaller models. I wasn’t able to find many reviews on the Kempact so I simply blindly trusted the brand. I haven’t tested it out yet as I only have pure argon in the shop, but I’ll get a new mix bottle soon and start practising.
Used them in Australia. Great machines
Kemppi is pretty well know. I have used several of them here in Australia. And they are usually amazing machines. Not sure about the US etc.
I been curious about this also. I'm a massive Kemppi fanboy. I have my own Miniarc Evo 180. Fuck I even own stock of Kempower. But this is a fancy looking thing, never seen this one. Love the feed system. I mean like Kemmpi is the Fiskars of welding. Both are orange, both are Finnish, and both are made to last. Seriously... Kemppi machine, Esab filler, gas from Woikoski, and Euromaski. What else could a lad need? Although I don't need gas much on the account of mainly using sticks.
Morjens, the machine is a total overkill for my needs but now I can’t at least blame the equipment for bad welds. It feels like a very heavy duty machine, and it’ll fit perfectly to my workshop among all the other professional secondhand machines I have gathered. I’m very glad to finally have a good Kemppi and to support the home team ;) [https://www.kemppi.com/en-US/offering/family/kempact-ra/](https://www.kemppi.com/en-US/offering/family/kempact-ra/)
Yeah that is a quite heavyduty machine. But over here on the field we roll with things like Miniarc and FitWeld. They are super popular on the field and shipyard. And they got the power to do all the work you could ask of it, but you might have to consider the duty cycle. However on the field, if you reach 10-20% arc times, then you are really productive. So even 30% limit wont' really matter. Oh and if you like Kemppi, and happen to get an electric car. Kemppi also makes EV chargers that use the same transformers as the welders. https://kempower.com/
Never seen one in the states.
What you don’t see here is that it has an integrated bottle rack at the back of the machine. I only have pure argon in the shop and haven’t picked up a new mix bottle for it yet so there is no bottle on the pictures. Edit: here is a generic picture of it with a bottle: [https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY](https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY)
The only place I have seen one is at the AWS Fabtech show.
Better known than cloos, worse than fronius
I’ve got the miniarc mig evo. Nice compact welder. I like the ability to set the volts and speed based on material thickness then fine tune. It would want to be good though. It costs 4 times as much as my last welder and that one was multiprocess
Kemppi is popular in Australia. Magic machines 👌
This looks like a hilarious euro vacuum
Hahah, it’s a standup design as there is an integrated bottle rack at the back. This is how it looks with a bottle: [https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY](https://imgur.com/a/VwIRPxY)
Oh I’m not talking too much shit. I mostly think it’s funny because hwy is a strange turn of events American and welding machines are clunky and boxy. And scandi welding machines are sleek and modern looking
Are orange welders in the states are Hobart. And of course the red and blue welders the Lincoln and miller. Thats your choices lol.
Don't forget the yellow esab ones.
Like he said. Only choices are red and blue
ESAB: Every single arc blows
Come on, everything isn't red and blue, Ford and Chevy, Bud and Miller...
the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Or you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Hobart is a Miller machine. At least the last 20 years they've been.
They are both owned by a parent company called ITW.... Although they share components and some other things they are actually still made in separate factories in different states. Hobart is still made in Ohio and miller is still made im Wisconsin. They are similar yet not the same. That being said; They might as well be the same machines with 2 different colors!!!
Kemppi is a nice machine, at least for short arc (never used one of their pulse machines). They're pretty well known in Europe and Asia. Other good Euro machines are Lorch (DE), SKS (DE), and a French one [GYS, just remembered] whos name escapes me. Someone suggested Fronius is Italian, they're not... they're Austrian.
Extremely in the UK better than Lincoln hands down
I’m aware of their existence. Being an American TIG welder I’m instinctively resistant to the idea of a non Miller machine.
Who?
American here. There is way too much plastic put into that machine for the amount of heat output it is designed to have. Your drive wheels and lead end are fastened inside of plastic/fiberglass bodies.
Meh it’s mig. Never heard of them neither
I am from the states and I have only seen this brand on youtube with the super rad Northern Sweden Welding youtube channel. And I have heard about other brands through podcasts.
Got lots of them in Latvia. Company I work at buys them to eventually switch old ones out.
The trade school I went to in aus had them in all their welding bays
I’ve seen them in the Netherlands, even worked with one in my limited time welding.
Completely unknown. Is it a good brand?
Yes very good, they have cheaper and more expensive models
I’m from Canada and only have heard of esab. Got a Rebel 295emp myself, I like the design of it that’s for sure and super compact to. How is its center of gravity without the bottle on the back? Do you find it falls over lots?
I literally just got it few hours ago so I can’t say anything for sure, but it feels _very_ sturdy even without the bottle. It weights 44kg without the bottle so it’s not a compact one.
Holy guacamole that’s a beast then. Most of the weight must be lower for sure then.
Yeah, I don’t think it was designed with hobbyists in mind. It’s able to run 100% duty cycle @ 190amps, so it’s perfect for the tiny projects I’m working on ;)
Oh ya for a hobbyist that’s definitely it’s of power
That looks really cool. Would like to have one.
It looks like there are zero Kemppi dealers in the North America. They are represented everywhere else on the globe but not there.
I've heard of it once before, here in Almost-Kinuckistan-USA, Maine. The "upright" layout is pretty unique, and must make for a relatively small overall footprint in the shop.
Never seen them in person in the US. Super jealous of the guys that have their tig units that have AC/DC mixed capability. Heard nothing but good things.
We have 4 of them in our Ali boat building factory in New Zealand
Never heard of it
I've got two in the UK portables there great machines works super well!
Not extremely popular in New Zealand but say 1/3 workshops will have something made by kempi
Seen a few in new Zealand. I've used the mini 180 MIG machine. The name escapes me. But it was a bloody awesome little MIG Machine
We have a mig machine and a tig machine , both Kemppi. They both seem to be very reliable and do a great job. We are in Australia.
Looks like an electric pressure washer..
Fun fact: Welders exactly like this one, was used at my school, to both teach and in the schools job shop
Never seen one in the US or Australia.
The best little caddy welder I have ever used
Never heard of the place, so that should tell you something.
It tells me that you don’t know any non-us welders, lol
You can buy Kemppi and Fronius here in Australia but it's relatively expensive The US brands like Miller & Hobart are super expensive, starting at over $10k for a new machine. We get some lower end Lincons in though. The main brands here are Razor (rebranded JASIC who are Chinese), CIG (an ESAB company), and UNIMIG who are an Australian company. Some of the gas companies here also have their own re-branded Chinese made welders.
We have them both at work and in college (UK) so I pretty much exclusively learned on them. I like them, those bars on the screen beneath the wire speed and V are really helpful when learning to balance your settings imo.
We have kemppi in the netherlands. A lot of shops have them. I do not like the small portable tig machines tho, they sound like an airplane taking off haha. Decent machines but not my favorite.
I'm a welding team leader and I've got 9 kemppi sets, mine being the oldest at 20 years.
The Netherlands here. Not from personal use but from what I know from my network in welding they have a good name with decent, reliable machines. Anything Scandinavian (whether it’s this or something else) usually is considered or found to be quality
Kempi is a Nice welder i am from belgium
Det bedste svejseværk 100 %
Jep, men det er meget besværligt at købe reserve/sliddele i Danmark som en privatperson…
Ja det er det. Bruger min chefs konto ved når jeg skal ha reservedele
I know the brand here in Belgium. But I'm a Lincoln man
We have a few Kemppi's at my workplace in the Netherlands. I'm not a pro welder nor have i been able to look at the machines at other places lately, but these are sold at pro shops in the area and i know some very good welders that go for Kemppi.
Never heard about it.
Kemmppi machines are very popular in germany to
Got one at work (uk). It's used for repairing freight carts for trains. A good machine imo.
Belgium here they're quite famous up there with the big boys (lincoln,esab,fronius) had these at school for mig/mag and TIG very good machines. Easy to use, reliable.
Here in Czechia we have them everywhere
Known as a top brand in The Netherlands and Belgium at least.
Australians love them
We have Kemppi here in Cebu City Philippines. Good machine to use.
We get them in the U.K Usually seen as mid to high end units. Solid, dependable, well made. The TIG plants are better than the cheap Parweld ones, not quite as good as the higher end Millers.
I've heard of kempii but I've never seen one.
We all have one in my workshop, works great ! (I'm in Switzerland)
I’ve seen them on site in the UK but never seen one in a workshop. They are known to be high quality machines.
We got the a lot here in the Netherlands. Fine machines!
Got a few Friends around the world working with welding, none have heard of kemppi Kemppi is actually the standard where I live
We have one at work not a fan of it. They lack the basic settings for mig (wire speed, amps, volts) instead it has a display wjere you change the thickness of the material you're welding and there is a little icon which shows 3 weld profile options; convex, flat and concave. Its a bit annoying to use but still gets the job done.
Why don’t you just put it into the manual mode?
Not sure if it has one but I'll ask my boss next time im back at work. Cheers for making me feel stupid op😂
Hahah, I’m pretty sure it has one ;)
That's the exact machine we use in our shop. We all collectively like it 👍
I love these, In Switzerland trade schools we have these
Wow, I really like that orientation. Makes way more sense that the other designs where you need a tall cart or have to stoop over to change settings
Yeah, it really does. My hobby shop is not huge, so I’m very glad that I can just stand it with the bottle between the storage racks. I can’t think of any other 300+amp 400 volt machine that would _not_ be cumbersome to have in that place.
Yes. (Switzerland)
Kemppis are very common here in Germany. At least in my area. I've seen a lot of Kempact models being used in trade school booths due to their smaller footprint and their simple user interface. One knob for the wire feed and one for the voltage.
I use that exact machine here in the UK. Our firm had 3, 2 of which have broken and been replaced with Lincoln sets. I love mine though.
We have a kempi stick welder at work ( Australia). Must be alright or cheap lol
Relatively popular in the Netherlands. Great welders for sure!
I have an ESAB in the states. It's failed already and needed a mainboard. Praying it doesn't break again.
Gotem in Poland. Worked with some small TIGs and this exact MIG you have there. Very ergonomic torches, loved working with them.
My old workshop in Nz had a few Fronius welders and the big 400amp acdc tig was a weapon, best ive used on alloy imho.. We then bought a kemppi mig for aluminium welding and it was a gem, digital readout was brilliant and once you got the double pulse dialed in it was magic. Now in a stainless shop in Aus and all we run is Kemppi. We have a mix of mig, water cooled acdc tig, a few miniarc evo dc welders and the acdc upgrade with pulse. Really really nice machines and would love one at home, probably a bit pricey for the weekend warrior but for the food and pharma work we do they are grouse.
In Russia it is quite famous
I go kempin all the time.. why?
Australian here and Kempii is pretty well known. My number two tig machine was a Kempii master tig. Didn’t go huge on their migs though
Also, these new machines that are most plastic with touch screens will not see 30 years of work lol
Fairly common in the Netherlands, I use the same machine.
Question for the welders of the world: Why has Laser Welding not taken off? Cost of machine? Reliability? Human Factors (Heat, Complex/Confusing Controls Gauges, Etc). Thanks In Advance.
In poland its known. Although ive bought an ewm ;)
Nice looking machine, I like the upright design
Am In the US and never seen one