by James Anderson | Last Updated on January 27, 2023
When it comes to welding, having the right equipment is crucial for achieving high-quality, precise results. Pulse MIG welders are a popular choice for professionals and hobbyists alike, thanks to their ability to provide precise control over the heat and penetration of the weld.
But with so many options on the market, it can be difficult to know which one is the best fit for your needs. That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to the top 5 Pulse MIG welders of 2023, complete with reviews and a buying guide to help you make an informed decision. Whether you’re a professional or a beginner, our guide has got you covered.
Table of Contents
Why Pulse MIG Welder is different from other types of welders and what are its advantages
As a beginner, you may be wondering what a pulse mig welder is and why it’s different from other types of welders. A pulse mig welder is a type of MIG (Metal Inert Gas) welder that uses a pulsing current to create a more stable arc and control the heat input during the welding process.
The pulse feature allows for more precise control of the heat and penetration, which can result in a higher-quality weld. It also allows for better control of the heat-affected zone, which helps to reduce the amount of warping and distortion in the metal. Additionally, Pulse MIG welding can be used to weld thinner materials and in tight spaces, which can be difficult with traditional MIG welding.
As a professional, let me tell you that Pulse MIG welding is different from other types of welding in a number of ways. One of the main differences is that it uses a pulsing current to control the heat and penetration of the weld, which allows for greater control and precision. This makes it a popular choice for welding in the automotive, aerospace, and manufacturing industries, where precision and high-quality welds are essential.
Another difference between Pulse MIG welding and other types of welding is that it can be used to weld a wide range of materials, including aluminum, stainless steel, and mild steel. Additionally, Pulse MIG welders often have a high-duty cycle, which means they can be used for long periods of time without overheating.
The 5 Best Pulse MIG Welder Reviews
1. Everlast Power MTS 251Si Pulse MIG Welder – Top Pick
Everlast Power MTS 251Si Welder is our top overall choice among all the best pulse MIG welders that we reviewed. Power MTS 251SI is said to be the most versatile digitally controlled multi-process inverter welder to date.
This compact multiprocessor welder is a Fourth generation digitally controlled welder from Everlast. Another distinct feature it offers is a touchless start mode in TIG welding. Power MTS is the market leader in the compact multiprocessor welder class offering more functionality and adjustability. The superior quality and build allow peak performance at a duty cycle of about 35%. Everlast Power MTS 251Si is ready to weld as it arrives, with all the accessories that are needed, with no extra added cost.
Key Features:
- It has Synergic MIG, Pulse MIG, Pulse TIG welding modes in addition to standard TIG, MIG, and Stick welding capability.
- Power MTS 251SI in TIG mode offers a touchless, lift start or high-frequency start that set this welder apart from the rest.
- The unit is designed in a way that makes the operation easier.
- The menu is easy to navigate, with no touch screen and hidden features that can make things complicated.
- All the controls and connections are right on the console according to the uses that take the cake.
2. HZXVOGEN HBM2280 Pulse MIG Welder – Best Value
HZXVOGEN HBM2280 MIG Welder is the machine that provides the best value among all the pulse MIG welders available in the market – in our judgment.
HZXVOGEN MIG Welder works great for general household use and automotive repair. Given the price tag, this welder is quite a bargain. No other welder of the same price range offers as much versatility as this welder. The design is simple, lightweight, and compact. This powerful welder has the capability of welding stainless steel, mild steel as well as iron effortlessly.
Key Features:
- HZXVOGEN MIG Welder is a 4 in 1 multifunction inverter welder that offers ARC / MIG / Twin Pulse MIG / Pulse MIG weldings.
- The operation interface is very user friendly with a wider LCD and achieving precise control, stable arc length, and wire feeding using the full digital control system is unchallenging.
- The smart chip turns off the machine if there’s anything stuck to protect it from overheating. Overall, it is an ideal choice for welding Aluminum.
- HZXVOGEN offers the job in a dual voltage of 110V or 220V MIG Welding with a duty cycle of 60%
- Dual voltage makes it applicable for your home voltage to do some simple home projects and as well for heavy-duty outdoor tasks.
- Its cooling fan helps to reduce heat, thus increasing machine performance.
3. Millermatic 255 Pulse MIG Welder
Millermatic 255 MIG Welder is a first-rate pulse MIG welder to consider for non-heavy manufacturing and fabrication uses for professionals.
Millermatic 255 MIG Welder comes with up-to-date equipment. The duty cycle is 60% and an output rating of 230 amps. The machine has a good selection of technological features that makes it easy to set up and use. The Auto-Set Elite and Program mode in this machine ensures high-quality welding work and increases productivity. Overall, this is a good choice for both beginners and professional users.
Key Features:
- This multi-purpose welder welds up to 1/2″ aluminum, stainless steel and mild steel.
- Its capabilities include flux-cored welding besides MIG and Pulsed MIG.
- It has Bernard AccuLock S contact tips that ensure superior spray and pulsed MIG arc performance
- The AccuLock liner ensures a smooth way for the wire feed which is consumable and perfectly aligned.
- This machine features a color screen that is great for effortless and quick machine setup and parameter selection.
4. Solary Inverter Aluminum Pulse MIG Welder
Solary Inverter aluminum MIG Welder applies to an array of materials- steel, HSS high strength steels, stainless steel, galvanized sheets, aluminum alloys. The double-pulse technology of this machine makes it ideal for welding aluminum.
The machine is not heavy. It comes with a duty cycle of 60%. If you like to work on or repair car body parts it’s an appropriate choice. We found this MIG Welder to be very suitable for automotive repair.
Key Features:
- Suitable for soft wire such as the Alsi5 or Alsi12 making it the first choice for car enthusiasts.
- IGBT inverter, soft switching control technology and fast arc ignition system ensures steady and efficient welding with less deformation and splatter
- The memory function can store and recall up to 6 sets of customized welding setting
5. Lincoln Electric POWER MIG 210 MP Pulse MIG Welder
Lincoln Electric Multi-Process Welder is the small-sized welder in our list that pops up in every pulse MIG Welder reviews I have ever read or watched as a novice, no wonder it is an outstanding MIG welder for non-heavy users like small contractors, hobbyists or any beginner for home and commercial use.
Lincoln Electric POWER MIG 210 MP Multi-Process Welder is a solid, well-built machine and should be your ultimate first choice If you are not a professional heavy user, just starting. Setting up this welder is very easy using the Intuitive push-and-turn digital controls. It has advanced control and setting option with a large color display. Given that it has every attribute a newbie can ask for as a reasonable price range, we consider buying this a wise investment. It gives a beginner a large room for gaining experiences and growth.
Key Features:
- Lincoln Electric POWER MIG 210 MP Multi-Process Welder offers a lot more functionality than Just MIG welding, which includes stick, TIG, and flux-cored welding.
- This machine offering color display screen and push-and-turn digital controls makes it more user friendly.
- The machine is pretty tough with all-metal wire drive and sheet-metal construction and suitable for any job in or outside the home.
- Overall, it is a good quality machine with excellent features that are also priced accordingly.
Buyer’s Guide: Things to Consider While Buying a Pulse MIG Welder
In this day and age, we have more options than ever before for buying anything, so we must use a bit of our time to realize our needs and expectations from a product that we are considering buying.
There are too many options for choosing a Pulse MIG Welder in the market with different specifications- build quality, power, duty cycle, longevity, use, etc to cater according to different customer needs. So, we suggest you to realize your needs and choose accordingly. Here goes a list of things you might want to consider before you settle on one-
The Material You Use & Your Job Type
This is quite coherent that there are major differences in the need of a novice and a professional welder according to the job they do. Some people can buy a welder for irregular home and car fixes. Others can buy for regular heavy use that requires more power and functionality. Then again, it is important to know the material you want to work on because not all the welders available in the market can be used on a large array of metals.
The quality of a welder gives away the idea of it. You have to look for the AMP range and the power supply compatibility according to the materials you use.
The Build Quality of The Welder
The build quality of a welder has the most significant effect on its job performance. So inspecting the build quality is crucial. Most welder is tested based on the functions it is supposed to provide.
There are destructive and nondestructive methods to test the quality of a welder. For regular using purposes, the nondestructive method is the most relevant and practical. While visually inspecting a welder, we have to notice several things- the welder size, contour and finish, cracks against our custom standard, overlap rate, undercut, level of spatter, and the accuracy of the standard and code the welder is supposed to provide.
It is a very inexpensive method to check the quality. But if the welder is for industrial use, we suggest the destructive method that can be quite costly. Our suggestion is to look for a warranty while buying welders because it gives you more downtime with less repairing costs throughout several years.
The Power Source of the Welder
The power source of the welder is the next most important thing to consider before buying a welder. Mostly constant potential or voltage power sources are used in MIG welding, in some cases, the generator is used. A welder can have an AC power source, a DC power source, or both the power sources. We suggest getting the one that has both the power sources so there are less limitations while working.
User Friendliness
Most of the time, the interface of the welder gives away information regarding the aspects of user-friendliness. The other things to consider are the placements and functionality of the dials and the ease of adjustments and how long it takes to switch up according to different needs. A novice must be careful about choosing a user-friendly product that offers better guidance than the rest.
Duty Cycle
The duty cycle is a welder specification that defines the number of minutes a welder can safely produce a specific welding current within 10 minutes. The welder that has a greater duty cycle is more capable of providing smoother operations. This is an important aspect that has to be figured out according to the job type.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: What is a pulse MIG welder?
MIG welding also referred to as GMAW or Gas Metal Arc Welding. Pulse MIG welder is a variant of a traditional MIG Welder in which the current is pulsed. The pulse function was initially introduced for getting control by modifying the metal spray transfer. The metal spray transfer works at low current levels imposing high current pulses in short durations.
Q: What to choose between Regular MIG vs Pulse MIG?
A regular MIG welder is a refined machine that is generally used for conjoining two metal objects by generating heat at the ends that we want to join the two objects. But we wish the job was as easy as it sounds. The intense heat, the weld pool, spatter and fume, and the cleaning that the job needs to take away a lot of time, money, and energy of the user.
To eliminate these issues, MIG welders soon replaced most traditional welders for their unique attributes of greater welding capability in all-position, good weld bead, ability to join a wide range of metals that vary in thickness, less weld splatter and easy learning option. But naturally, it has disadvantages too- it produces sloppier and less controlled weld and is not portable for its heavyweight of external shielding gas.
So, to improve the quality, save more time, energy, and reduce wastage pulsating MIG welding machines were introduced to the market.
Q: What is MIG welder used for?
MIG welder is generally used for joining aluminum with aluminum or copper, lead, nickel, tin, titanium and zinc, alloys such as brass, etc. A welding machine is highly used in making appliances and different parts and even in making jewelry besides just conjoining thick objects. Welding is highly used in aerospace, automotive, construction, electric appliance, and mechanical industries in a large scale and air conditioners, automobiles, and even in plumbing in low to moderate scale in our everyday life.
Q: Why should one use Pulse MIG welding?
Pulse MIG welding is the latest technology available in the market that offers better quality MIG welding that also boosts productivity by offering Heat, spatter and fume reduction as well as wire and gas savings in the job.
A regular MIG welder is just constant-voltage DC, on the other hand, pulse MIG welding is the updated process that allows more than just Short-arc and Spray Transfer modes, it offers clean spray transfer welds with much lower heat input and feedback unlike the regular MIG welders even though the techniques are very similar. Basically, a Pulse MIG welder will be there to save the day no matter what you are up to- repairing or fabrication for home or industrial use.
Q: How to use a pulse MIG welder?
Pulse welding is the newest tech addition in the welding industry. Pulse welding basically means welding with a welding current that constantly switches between high (peak) amperage and low (basic or background) current allowing welding thinner metals and high conductive metals without destroying. To weld anything using a pulse MIG welder, we form a droplet of molten metal at the tip of the electrode per pulse and push that droplet into the puddle applying the right amount of current.
Q: How to set-up Pulse MIG welder?
Even though there is a lot of similarities between regular MIG welding and Pulse MIG welding, it is not unusual to find the MIG welding challenging.
We have noticed that the MIG welders available in the market do not always come with a prefixed mig-welding-inductance setting. The preset ones are better for the beginners because the weld-inductance setting is proper for regular usage, no need to kill your time finding the appropriate setting. Some MIG Welders offers adjustable weld-inductance setting. In this case, you have to make sure the manual is easy to follow.
The best decision would be to buy a MIG Welder that comes with both options. Another suggestion is to get metal plates of different thicknesses and testing them by working on different inductance, wire speed, voltages, and writing it down to use at a later time when needed. This way you can also find the setting that works the best for you.
Q: What are the ways to Improve Pulse MIG welder Life and Efficiency?
The life and efficiency of your Pulse MIG welder depend on the way you treat it. To improve the quality of you work and durability of you Pulse MIG Welder, we suggest following these tricks and tips-adequately preparing the metal and cleaning the welder afterward, taking care of the workspace, ensuring a smooth flow of current, noticing the welding sounds and finally reading the beads for adjusting heat inputs.
Bottom Line
We hope that our pulse MIG Welder review has provided you with the technical knowhows enough to decide on the one you should buy. If you are still confused, we are here to help you further to make the right decision.
We have mentioned only the best pulse MIG welders available in the market filtering hundreds of other products so it has been very tough for us to choose one that we liked from all the bests. In our eyes (and hands) the Everlast Power MTS 251Si Welder is the one that can fulfill all the welding needs more efficiently than any other welder mentioned in the list. By offering both AC and DC power supply type, with a dual voltage of 120V and 240V, a duty cycle of 35% at 250amp is the most useful among them all, again with all the other above-mentioned unique features, this welder definitely takes the cake.
HZXVOGEN HBM2280 MIG Welder is the runner-up in our list providing the best value according to its specifications. The other welders- Lincoln Electric POWER MIG 210 MP, Solary Inverter, and Millermatic 255 MIG Welder- are great for novice users, automotive enthusiasts, and non-professional welders- respectively.
Hi, I am James Anderson from Sandy, Utah. Welding has always been part of my life and I love to share my wealth of experience. I have a team of professionals who are knowledgeable about different welding processes. I hope you will be educated and informed on this website, to become better welders.