Welder on board, power supply advice

[Kita]

Originally Posted by JamesReid

Thank you so much everyone in advance for advising me.

Look into a TIG setup.. It is an art truly, get good with that & people will love you.. Good for stainless & with the right stuff aluminum also... A mig is easy to learn but limited on a boat.. Research Miller backpack tig welder..

[stimpsonjcat]

The stick/TIG rigs would be my choice. Stick is hard to beat for structural welds and you can get rods anywhere. Tig for all the stainless.

Welding up custom/busted railings and such onsite could make you very popular.

[Adelie]

If you are from the US I would get a 110-120v machine. If you bring a generator it will almost certainly put out 110-120v. Given available power sources are likely to be somewhat limited I would go for a lower capacity machine, 100-120amp. Saves money on purchase price and storage space. The tradeoff is smaller electrodes that take longer to lay down a given volume of weld. If you are geared to use small electrodes it may be possible to work off of a 3000-4000W inverter powered off of batteries.

Wire feed is a non-starter on a boat, too many mechanical and electrical parts to succumb to the marine air environment.

Everything you might want to do can be done with a Stick machine including stainless and aluminum. It’s not optimum, but it’s doable. If you need to weld a dirty cast iron item such as a cracked exhaust manifold then there is at least 1 set of stick electrodes specifically intended for this.

That said MIG does a better job with stainless and aluminum. It is possible to buy a cup and gas feed system to use with a stick machine.

Finally, if you welder fails it is possible to stick weld using 2-12v batteries in series. Not wonderful, but in a pinch it may do.