Titanium 225 Harbor Freight Brand Stick Welder Reviewed

Since our Shipping Container House requires a lot of welding, we are using the Harbor Freight Brand Titanium Arc Welder.  Here is what we think about it.

Many of you asked, “is the titanium welder any good?”

My husband, a professional welder for 30+ years, had another cheap brand arc welder. But it couldn’t keep up with industrial welding. It would overheat and stop working—a real pain in the patooty when trying to get some work done. 

This year in his workplace, they were using the titanium welder from harbor freight. My husband had his doubts that it would keep up, especially since they were using 50-foot leads.  His boss told him, “you’ll see it’s a very reliable machine.”

Sure enough, after months of welding day in and day out, it didn’t fail once.

My husband was so convinced he bought one to use on our tiny house project.

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The PROs

• Affordable for under $379
  • compared with Miller Maxstar stick welder sells for $500+ used and $1000+ new
• Manual Voltage Switch for 110v/220v
  • Why is that important?
  • If the power fluctuates a lot, an auto voltage switch can prevent you from getting consistent welding results. And it can be very frustrating when you want to run a nice bead.
• No limit to welding lead length
  • On 220v, I ran 50ft of cables with NO problems. I’m sure you can run the machine with longer welding leads.
  • All the cheap brand stick welders don’t guarantee the machine will run well after 10-15 ft. of cable.
• The Cooling Fan always stays on, so your machine doesn’t overheat and doesn’t shut off.
• Overheat Sensor: it has never tripped on me yet.
• The titanium brand welder is 225 amps. 
  • Most cheap arc welders are only 160 amps; the reason they overheat easily.
• Dual Plug 110v/220v, no plug adapters needed.
• Extremely lightweight
  • Only 6-7lbs, my wife, can pick it up without much effort. She has a hard time with my lincoln MIG welder, similar in size but weighs over 40lbs.

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 The CONs

• On 110v, welding leads may have limitations on the cable length.
• Comes with short 7 ft welding leads
  • When you buy longer welding leads, chose 200-300 amp ½” cable.
• No Digital reading – it has a rheostat dial that is not as precise for particular welding applications. 
• The stinger is cheap. I broke mine almost right away, invest a few bucks in a good stinger.

The Titanium Welder from Harbor Freight  – In a few words

The Harbour Freight Titanium stick welder is a great little machine. The manufacturer went cheap where they could, but it’s still resistant to welding in industrial situations.

For all practical purposes; Why would you buy a Miller unless you have money to give away?

Buy a better Stinger and longer leads. I think you will be as happy as we are.