Time was when gasless MIGs were regarded as inferior, producing spattery welds lacking asthetic appeal and attracting derision from the pros. However, looking at what's available today it seems they might just have cracked the problem, given that the gassless variants now seem to outnumber the others, so I'm guessing they're doing something right. Is it still worth shelling out the extra money for those that require bottled gas?
Has the technology changed? Not that I am aware. Assuming that is the case, I'd have thought that a sufficiently skilled welder would always do better with gas than gasless, at least indoors.
I used gasless in around 2000 and had no weld quality problems. It was easy & neat.
no they still make, "spattery welds lacking asthetic appeal and attracting derision from the pros." and are not cost effective if you need to use them regularly there only attribute is if you need to use a Mig outside on a windy day you can make quite satisfactory welds indoors with Co2 pub gas bottles which are cheeeeppp to refill
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Maybe. But what's more likely to have improved (perhaps) is the flux in the wire. Or the placement of the flux in/around the wire. or the composition of the flux. MIG welders used to be ginormous things when they first came out, but the widespread adoption of inverter (switcher) technology using IGFETs & MOSFETs for current control and higher operating frequencies has shrunk them in size considerably.
Really find me an inverter MIG welder that takes flux cored wire
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That was my thought too, but ICBA to do research.
And I am not convinced that fluxes would have changed much either.
Plenty of inverter migs will *also* take flux cored wire.
they may well now that they are making 0.8mm flux cored wire but that was not always the case
and then you have the question of polarity to answer
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Look at some like the R-Tech range - they allow the polarity to be flipped and specifically state they are suitable for fluxed wire.
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