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Millermatic 35

Fred Dodd

Plastic
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Location
College Station, Texas
Ok,

So this is my first time to post, and I thought I would come and ask the experts.

I have been looking for a mig for a while now and have come across and old Millermatic 35. What are your opinions on this machine? I will be using it in a home shop and on nothing heavier than 3/8" material. Are parts still available, and is this machine still serviceable? I am into wood working and collect/use the old machines so this will be used mainly to build mobile bases and what not.

Thanks,
Fred
 
3/8 might be pushing this machine quite a bit, but I use one all the time, its a great machine, durable, and makes a decent weld. As far as parts, you will have to replace the gun if its the original, I can't find alot of the parts anymore. most of the internal relays and such are availible. i'd buy one if the price was right.
 
Thanks,

I feel the price is right at 300, I think I can afford to invest a little in the machine if need be. Honestly most of my work will be in the 1/4" range. I just would rather buy an older welder than a new one if it will do the job just fine.
 
Yep, I'd buy it. If you need parts or a gun, call Larry @ Weldmart Online (800-460-6474 - Spring, TX) ...he knows all the old welders and has parts or sources for everything, including all of my old Lindes. The MM35 is a great little machine for 0.035" hard wire...have never used one with flux core (I'd definitely use gas shielded flux cored wire if you go this route also) but would guess it would run well with that too. The flux cored wire allows great side wall fusion with low power...I try to tell people new to it that it's like stick welding as far as strength and ease of use (actually easier to use). You can multipass weld about as thick as you want with cored wire. A good site to read up on mig welding is Weldreality.com - a bit hard to read sometimes, but great info, and no BS.

We use the MM35's big brother (MM200) in our shop...mostly for root welds in pipe and the odd job. We do an open root short arc weld with 0.035" hard wire, clean it up a bit, and then fill and cap with an old Linde machine running about 150 amps with gas shielded flux cored 0.045" wire...one root and two fill/cap passes fills out a 0.322" wall 8" pipe.

Steve
 
The 35 is is a 150 amp machine. Real low duty cycle, terrible wire drive. It was the first wire feed welder the market that was all in one unit.

Save your money and pick up a millermatic 180. More powerful and portable. Better feed and a warranty.
 
Thanks everyone forthe pros and cons. I have decided to buy it and we settled on $250 for the machine. It is missing a few small items that can be replaced. It also comes with a mig gun that is a year or so old, so at least it is aftermarket. He is going to hold it for me untill I pick it up next weekend, so hopefuly it all works out.

Steve - Thanks for the contact info for Larry @ Weldmart online. I talked with him this morning and he has put my mind at ease on this machine. Turns out he is about 45 min from where I am located.


Thanks Again,

Fred
 
The 35 is is a 150 amp machine. Real low duty cycle, terrible wire drive. It was the first wire feed welder the market that was all in one unit.

Save your money and pick up a millermatic 180. More powerful and portable. Better feed and a warranty.

I have a friend who uses the 35 at work for lighter maintenance items on a barge slip (mississippi river) and rock crushing operation - he loves it.

For 300 bucks you can't buy a new HH140.

You did good Fred. I'd love to find something like that to load up for sheet metal and leave it set. Everyone up here wants that much for their used clarkes...
 
I had 3 MM35's that did production and they were great machines except for the guns that came on them. The MM35 is equal to my MM185 in what it will weld but the MM35 doesn't have the plug for the spoolgun other than that its a great machine. The MM35 was the grand daddy of the mig welders if it wasn't for its sucess the rest of us wouldn't have one now...Bob
 
The 35 is is a 150 amp machine. Real low duty cycle, terrible wire drive. It was the first wire feed welder the market that was all in one unit.

Save your money and pick up a millermatic 180. More powerful and portable. Better feed and a warranty.

Millermatic 35 is rated for 150 amps at 60% duty cycle which is much higher than a small Millermatic 180. Feed mechanism was not very good on the MM35, but they still weld very nice. I'd look real hard at the Hobart Handler 210 over the Millermatic 180.
 
I learned to mig weld on a 35 and it was bulletproof. Perfect for your needs at this time IMHO. It began to coast a little and I found a shop that had the correct resistor to fix that little problem. So I found it easy to work on myself as well. It's a very simple machine. It did everything I needed it to do as a beginner. The price you paid is perfect too.
 
I got my 35 about 1982 or so, I put a bernard gun on it not long after I got it. the only other thing I had trouble with is the wire feed got slower and slower. To fix it I opened the gearbox on the motor and cleaned out the old hard grease and replaced it with Mobil 1 grease. Welds like new now. 250.00 is a great deal, I'd never sell mine for that money. mine has paid for it self hundreds of times. It welds great, I use it all the time.
 
Millermatic 35 is far from bulletproof. Bad wire drive and I dont know how many voltage tap plugs and recpts have replaced. They melt than short out. Another problem is with the age of the machine. At this point the caps are usually shot and need to be replaced. About $150 from somplace like newark or digikey.

Most people that have or are looking at a 35 are not doing anything near the duty cycle of either machine and those that would be considering a MM35 would be mostly home shop type applications where the 180 would suit 95% of what they want to do.

Looks for a millermatic 200 at least. The millermatic vintage is also good. Its kind of a modernized millermatic 135 (Old 240v machine not newer 120v machine)
 
Millermatic 35 is far from bulletproof. Bad wire drive and I dont know how many voltage tap plugs and recpts have replaced. They melt than short out. Another problem is with the age of the machine. At this point the caps are usually shot and need to be replaced. About $150 from somplace like newark or digikey.

Most people that have or are looking at a 35 are not doing anything near the duty cycle of either machine and those that would be considering a MM35 would be mostly home shop type applications where the 180 would suit 95% of what they want to do.

Looks for a millermatic 200 at least. The millermatic vintage is also good. Its kind of a modernized millermatic 135 (Old 240v machine not newer 120v machine)

lf you really want bulletproof try a Ltec 225
 
Well I bought the machine. Looks like hell but welds great. I feel that it will be fine for what I will be using it for. After it is all said and done I will have about $400 in the whole machine, I feel that is very reasonable. I will post pictures when I get it looking good.

Thanks for all the info.
 
Well I bought the machine. Looks like hell but welds great. I feel that it will be fine for what I will be using it for. After it is all said and done I will have about $400 in the whole machine, I feel that is very reasonable. I will post pictures when I get it looking good.

Thanks for all the info.

Good deal. You can buy the replacement plugs/receptacles from Miller. Just make sure it makes good contact and you should not have any problems with it.

I like the arc quality of the MM35.
 
Millermatic 35 is far from bulletproof. Bad wire drive and I dont know how many voltage tap plugs and recpts have replaced. They melt than short out. Another problem is with the age of the machine. At this point the caps are usually shot and need to be replaced. About $150 from somplace like newark or digikey.

Most people that have or are looking at a 35 are not doing anything near the duty cycle of either machine and those that would be considering a MM35 would be mostly home shop type applications where the 180 would suit 95% of what they want to do.

Looks for a millermatic 200 at least. The millermatic vintage is also good. Its kind of a modernized millermatic 135 (Old 240v machine not newer 120v machine)

lf you really want bulletproof try a Ltec 225


What're the symptoms of a bad cap?
 
Poor weld. Sometimes the caps short out dead and all you get is a humming from the machine when you pull the trigger.

Electrolytic caps have about a 10 to 15 year useful life. After that they start going bad. Sometime non-shorted caps can be "re-formed" but even then thats not 100%.

You need to watch out when buying NOS caps as well as if they set too long the need to be re-formed before use.

http://home.insightbb.com/~stephenwmoore/Electronics/Reform.htm
 
Didn't the MM35 come without a gas solenoid valve? The original gun had a manual valve in it that turned the gas flow on and off. I think the hose had a pinch in it that relaxed when you squeezed the trigger. Also the wear parts for the gun went obsolete years ago...

I had one years ago, I remember the plastic on the plugs melted a little bit...

I replaced it with a Dimension 400 and S32 feed
 
All the ones I worked on had solenoid gas valves. There is a kit from both tweco and miller that allows you to put on modern guns.
 








 
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