Miller 350 P to buy?

Looking to upgrade from an older Miller 250, I have a Miller 200 Synchro and occasionally do some mig welding of aluminum with the 250 and a spool gun.
Question is how beneficial is the pulse for welding mild steel? Or is the pulse feature just for aluminum?
I like the idea of having more power available for thicker metals, mostly I weld 3/8" and 1/2" but just small welds, not welding all day long.
Looking for some real world feedback not just sales brochure crap.

I burn through a 30 lb roll of .045 shielded flux core about once every 6 weeks.

Thanks,

Michael

You will be super happy with A 350P. I have one and love it.

Hi Brad,
thanks for posting and welcome to the site.
Could you be more specific? What setup do you have and what do you like? What type of work do you do?
Your reply sounds a bit like advertising hyperbola, which is what I was trying to skip past and get some real information.

Cheers,
Michael

We have one of the 350P push pull miller welders. The Aluminum MIG gun works wonders on material thicker than 3/16". I don't not like it on thinner aluminum (1/8" and less).
I don't weld much; I'm the programmer so I can't give you a detailed review. For welding steel, it seems to do really well. I doubt you'd be disappointed with this machine.

Hi Micheal,
I bought one (miller 350p) about a year ago. I don't do a lot of welding, but love the pulse spray mode for steel. It has good control, very little splatter, and quite a bit less smoke than standard mig. Have been running 0.045 solid core, with 90/10 gas. Mostly 1/8"-3/8" thick material. I have yet to try the machine on aluminum. The spool gun is still new in the box

CougarMountain said:

Hi Micheal,
I bought one (miller 350p) about a year ago. I don't do a lot of welding, but love the pulse spray mode for steel. It has good control, very little splatter, and quite a bit less smoke than standard mig. Have been running 0.045 solid core, with 90/10 gas. Mostly 1/8"-3/8" thick material. I have yet to try the machine on aluminum. The spool gun is still new in the box

Click to expand...

Cougar,
The solid core, is that a metal core? I have some rolls of metal core that I tried on my 252 and it was quite amazing although I felt the machine didn't quite have the power to properly use that wire, it tended to spatter quite a bit at the start and then settled down a bit. It is about twice the price of regular flux core.
I prefer the flux core for the low spatter and very clean looking welds, very flat as well, no loafs of bread but you have all the slag all the time.

Also thanks Rstewart for the review on aluminum. I would be welding mainly 1/4" and thicker as I have the tig for thinner stuff.

I am pretty sure I would be happy with a 350P, just wanted some real feedback before I spend the big bucks.

Michael

Yes, solid metal wire, no flux. The machine has a lot of adjustment to how rounded or flat, or how stiff or fluid you want the weld. Good for out of position work.

I bought one about 6 months ago, use it just for steel, no aluminum. The machine has been a bit frustrating to dial in but once we got settings we liked for production runs it works well. In production it's just welding 14 gauge square tubing, we've done a couple 1/2" plate jobs with the spray, factory settings work fine for us in spray mode. Last week the machine died, sounds like a board but I haven't had time to take it in for warranty repair yet. Called Miller and had a good experience, guy was helpful but confirmed it needs to go to a service center for repair.

I've been happy with Miller in general, we have two of their tig machine and love them. My Dynasty has been running for 6 years without any trouble at all, less a W20 torch that gave out after 5 years. I'm confident the warranty repair will go well, Miller's really good with warranties, but I'm hoping the 350P will not continue to have issues after the warranty runs out.

All good info so far, not so good about the dead machine. That is a real hassle no matter if it gets fixed or not, still a lot of down time involved.

There red is a Miller dimension 452 coming up at auction, no idea what it will go for but there is a nice feeder for sale separately ( of course) as well.
Any thoughts?

Hi Michael,
The dimension is a heavy duty beast... a bit of overkill from what your saying your needs are. It would be damn near indestructible though...
We have a miller 350p at work. I barely use pulse on steel... its not really needed if your playing with in position welds. Pulsed steel works best with out of position welds on stuff too thick for normal short circuit...The advantages of pulse on thin stuff is kinda lost when running it manual. You almost need a robot(or at least a turntable if doing round objects) to move it fast enough to gain any real benefit versus short circuit.
I have ran more than a few spools of steel and stainless flux core (.045 to 1/16) out of the 350 at work without any complaint. The only time it really protested was when I ran 1/16 solid low alloy(110psi vs 70psi tensile) wire through it and was spraying it at 27 something volts and 400ish WFS... It got rather upset after a few passes (22" long) and shut right down without a help code and would not turn on for the rest of the day. It kicked on the next morning thankfully...
On top of it all you need to run a different gas for pulse. Pure argon for Al(50/50He/Ar if running Real thick plate...), but on steel you need something with at least 80% argon(the 5% makes a bit of a difference...). Fancy helium blends are Not necessary. 80/20 Ar/Co2 would work and be fairly close to the 75/25 Ar/Co2 short circuit people are used to on steel if you turned off the pulse.
Kinda the same sentiment on aluminium... I can spray wire up down overhead and sideways without a hiccup all day long on 3/16" and up... and its a lot quieter than the buzz of the pulse. I use both the XR push pull and a 30A spool gun, sometimes switching between the 2 on the same part depending on circumstances... I kinda prefer the spoolgun... it weighs less than the XR and its giant freaking cable...
A bunch of what I said goes out the window if your using metalcore wires or are running enough production to warrant spending some serious time effort and testing to dial in your process... I live in a job shop where I have to bounce from various materials on a daily basis some times... very little time for playing and dialing in odd processes.
Regardless, the 350p is a solid machine and it will fit your described needs well(Don't get the Al Specific version!). All of that being said I personally prefer the Red 350mp... but that's me
-Clif The welder

I have one with the xr alumnapro gun.

Bought it for a large aluminum job and it's great for that.

I asked about pulse on steel before I bought it but didn't get any really good answers.

I tried it (pulse on steel) when we got it and didn't see any reason for it on what we do vs regular...looks nice I guess.

It's great on aluminum thick and thin...I can weld 16 ga sheet together easily.

Supposed to be good for SS as well.

These pics are from when we first got it...so these are some of the very first welds playing around.
Pulse on 3/16" steel and aluminum on some dirty 16 ga.

Plasma,
That is some very good info there, thanks for your time.

Cliff, that aluminum weld looks excellent. Why is a stack of dimes so pretty? I like the look of those steel welds and as I suspected the pulse is way less important for steel.

Cheers,
Michael

Michael
I have a Hot Rod and car resto. shop. I do frame fab. and sheet metal work. The welder
is setup with 200 amp Miller gun for up to 1/4 in. A 450 amp Bernard gun for heavy work.
A 30 amp spool gun for Alum. This machine covers all your bASES. The pulse feture is
also quite handy

I've been welding for 40 years. the kids at work love the pulse turned up going like a house a fire on 1"+ steel. I f'in hate the sound.

in other words i can't help on this one

Update!
I waited and watched for a deal and found a Miller Dimension 452 with 70 series feeder for $1000 plus a trip on the ferry.
It is a fairly late model- 2003ish, I haven't called Miller yet with the serial number.
I just powered it up and ran a few test beads, everything works as it should. A couple of oddities, someone tossed the spare jumpers for setting up the different voltages, I just used some 12 gauge wire and jumped the terminals, should I get the proper jumpers?
Also a strange waxy substance was in the end of the wire guide (deep), I could not insert the wire! I had to drill out the opening with a very small drill and then scrape out and clean the orifice. Very odd how that could get contaminated as otherwise the machine was very clean and has hardly a scratch on it anywhere.

Needless to say I am quite happy with my purchase! It did not have any stick cables or anything tig so I will have to acquire all the bits and pieces to make it a truly versatile machine. The feeder did have a near new Bernard 350 amp gun with the centerfires tips that I already use on my MM250 machine, bonus!
First task is to get it wired properly, I only have 208 three phase and at full load this machine requires a 90 amp service.

Any tips on setting this up with tig and stick accessories?

I know the drill, it is just hearsay if there are no photo's, just too busy at the moment. I will post some soon.

Michael

I have the 350P-Aluminum, I cant do steel with mine, I wanted a machine that was dedicated for Aluminum only.

We use it on pulse aluminum and love it, We are a general welding shop which means we welds on about everything you can imagine, we have relined 3 aluminum gravel train boxes with it along with several other jobs.

I have been in business since 1988 and have tried other machines over the years and are by far the happiest with this machine.

On this machine when on pulse mode there is no need to touch the dials on the machine, there is a knob on the gun and you turn it up and down to seat your heat and the wire speed adjusts itself.

Its the most hassle free aluminum mig welder I have ever used, if someone were to steel it tomorrow, I would buy the exact same thing again.

I have an XMT 450 Mpa, your 452 should run on 60~70 amps for everything under 400 amps. I almost bought one of those before I stumbled on to the XMT. The big Miller inverters are sweet, you will be spoiled! What feeder do you have?

Steve

Steve,
I thought the Dimension was a transformer type machine? It certainly is beefy like a transformer machine.
I have the 70 series feeder, just waiting for new rolls and tubes. I only have the .035 setup on the machine right now and did some test welding.
It does look like this machine can do everything, so now I can sell my Synchro 200 and my MM250. My 250 came with a spool gun and I can run that on the 452 with a WP24 control box.
I also am trying to buy a 251hd-1 high frequency arc starter that should be good for all non-ferrous tig welding.
It is going to take a little time to get it fully set up but well worth the effort.

Portable, you should get a kickback from Miller after that glowing report! I almost bought a regular 350P but hesitated and now I have the Dimension which suits me a bit better with all it can do.

Michael

Michael,

You are correct, I was thinking Invision, not Dimension. Even the inverter in the larger size are not exactly light.

I have a Smith proportional mixer for Argon and CO2 and Argon/ Helium either will work for most gases with a conversion chart. I roll my own mix and it is really nice to not have to buy a special bottle for this and that. My shop is in an area where the local Air Gas is horrible, I get my bottles 70 miles away. Having the flexibility to do a custom mix at turn of a dial is great for spray arc and, Tig.

Steve