Customer Reviews

Campbell Hausfeld WS0970 115-Volt 70 Amp Arc Stick Welder

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

For $100? This is not an industrial welder, and not a welder you will be making go-karts or dune buggies with. For $100, it's exactly what the average tinkering home-owner needs to do a few repairs, tack welding of a bike, kids wagon or a bird feeder.

Due to the size of the rods this welder uses, the resulting weld is small, not as such with 1/8" rods on commercial or heavier duty welders. You won't be welding 1/4" angle steel roll cage tubing, but you can repair garden tools, and small items that are not stress critical. This is a hobby welder, not a commercial welder.

Using the welder out of the box is a 3 minute chore...plug it in, connect your work clamp, load a rod into the stick clamp and strike an arc. Uses rods such as: 5/64" Eazy Strike Rod-7014

Cons:

-The supplied power cord is relatively short, as are the work cords...you'll need to be within 6 feet of an outlet so clear your work area.
-The rod clamp has a somewhat loose clamp and only works with small rods (1/16" to 5/64") which limits the size of the finished weld, use of larger rods (1/8" which are more widely available) melts the clamp assembly due to amperage draw.
-The WS0970 has already been relplaced with the WS099001AV by the manufacturer on it's website, same welder, different box.
-Took away 1 star because welding clamp construction is slightly weaker than it could be -(but if it were stronger people would probably clamp up 1/8" rods!)

Pros:

-Small, compact, portable and easy to use, instruction booklet and how to weld worksheet.
-An inexpensive welder and well made for the price, best quality for the money in it's segment.
-Great for simple quick small repairs and great welder for first timers.
-Unit comes with an observer hand held face shield and 10 rods (1/16").
-Uses a standard 15 amp/20 amp household outlet just like a vacuum cleaner.
-Low gas/smoke output.

Tips:

-Some reviews note the unit is difficult to strike- the welder is a low voltage 70amp welder, so surfaces must be extra clean, and the grounding work clamp must be in firm contact with a clean work area. When the unit is applied to fresh brushed clean metal, a slow steady drag will cause an arc quickly. If the work area is painted, greasy or fouled by welding gases, you will need to brush or grind to expose clean metal to get a quick stike. The closer you can get the work clamp to the work area without interfering with the work the better.

-Buy a decent hood, don't waste your time with the romper room welding shield supplied - you'll need both hands to weld. Try a Hobart helmet for $19 (Hobart Weldit Standard Fixed Shade Welding Helmet, 4 1/2 x 5 1/4 in Lens and let an observer use the shield.

-Weld on concrete or buy a piece of tile backer board to lay out your work...it makes a great clean flat work surface and won't burn.

-Invest in small C-Clamps or metal work clamps to hold your work together.

-Use a few rods up practicing first...even with former experience, this welder requires a delicate touch and a small learning curve to produce quality welds.

Considerations:

The unit is a 20% or less service time welder - this means in 10 minutes of continuous welding (you won't be doing this), the unit will need 8 minutes to cool. In my experience of welding 3-5" beads, the unit never shut down for cooling, but longer on work time will cause the unit to go offline for cooling - the panel light indicates out of service cooling process...when the light goes out, you can weld again. In typical welding, I've yet to get the cooling light since most work I've done is not seam welding but joint welding of parts. Considering a typical 1/16"x12" rod will only produce a 5" final bead, the cooling cycle is irrelevant, since you'll be stopping to change rods anyway.

I've had no issues striking an arc as other reviewers have mentioned, as long as the metal was clean and bare. You will use up a 12" rod in a 5" bead, so plan to purchase at least a 1 lb. pack along with your welder. The 7014 5/64" rod pack works well on high.

The unit has a low setting, which I would suppose is good for small small small hobby welding (What that is I don't know since this unit produces such a small bead to begin with) but the 5/64" rods work well on High. Hair dryers have a low setting as well, but I don't know anyone that uses a hair dryer on 'low'...

My experience:

My first use of this product was to weld 3/8" square steel bars to the back of 12" wide 3/8" steel circles to make plinking targets for rifle shooting. Each 4" bead used almost a whole rod, and I had no issues striking an arc provided the surface was clean and bare. Smaller work such as affixing flat washers to the bars required a little more skill since the welder is low amperage.

Overall:

There are many welders in the $299+ range. Many of them require a dedicated circuit, are larger and have a longer duty cycle. They are more commercially rated in their intent, and weld large beads efficiently. The quality of this unit is high and as a small welder it fills it's segment well. At 1/3rd the price, it has a duty cycle and produces a weld at 1/3rd the size. Many reviews I've read rate this welder up against a larger higher amp heavy duty welder. Think of this as a small 4- cylinder pick Up versus a commercial welder as a two ton 4 wheel drive duelie...they are made for a different purpose, and produce different results.

As the product does *not* hold itself out as a heavy duty welder, I consider this product an excellent purchase for the $'s in it's segment.

I found this stick welder good for VERY small jobs, like tack welds. Don't expect to do more with it. It only uses small welding rods and it overheats and kicks off after a minute or two if you try to use it continuously. Don't expect to build a barbeque grille with it! Also, go right to high power to strike an arc or you'll end up with a bunch of rods stuck to your workpiece!

I would recommend it. Not bad for 100 dollars, plus it plugs into a regular socket and it's easy to carry. Remember it's a 100 dollar welder, so you're not going to fabricate a building but, you can do some little jobs quite well. Good service from them also.

Great little welder for fixing things around the house. Stores easily in a cabinet & runs off of a regular outlet with no modifications to the circuit. Only regret is not buying it a year ago

Can't do any type of frame work because it only does 1/8" steel max. It also shuts off after about 1 1/2 inches on a proper bead, so long beads or whatever aren't good with this.

I had only done welding at work with big powerful
welders, however I have no expirience with wire, so
I got this little stick unit. It works great !
Set-up consists of taking it out of the package and
plug it in. The rod that came with it is a good GP
rod and I got some 6013 1/16 and it is about the same.
Quick delivery from Summit

just tested it out last night on an old bike frame I found. Seems to work great. I ran it on low power (15 amps) and ran a couple beads with it plugged into my apartment power outlet (was welding out on the fire escape). One thing that's a little annoying is that there is a three position switch for 'low power' 'Off' and 'High power'. 'Off' is the center position of the switch and it's a little hard to be sure if you've turned the thing off or if you switched it to high power. That's a little dangerous, but I just unplug it too if I'm going to be messing around. I think it's great for the price, I'm just going to be doing hobby stuff (making robots, etc).

Again I have received great service from Amazon. I have purchased other Campbell Hausfeld items in the past and I am very pleased with the quality and value I get from them. The reviews are more than helpful when I decided to buy this welder. I encourage everyone who buys from Amazon to take the time and state their opinion of the items they get.
The welder does what I need it to do. I am not a professional welder but I know enough to see it was well worth the low price. If you are thinking of buying one, remember it is small and requires small welding rods. I found 5/64" #6013 rod to work the best with this welder.
Thanks again Amazon for the great service and product.
KHOP

I always wanted to learn how to weld. I had read some stuff on it; but I had never actually done it. I got this welder refurbished from another website for $75. I bought it on an impulse. Of course I ended up spending twice that on a decent helmet, welding apron and gloves and some more welding sticks.
This unit works very well. It does need to be set to high; striking an arc at the low setting is very difficult.
All in all I taught myself to make decent welds in a weekend. It took me a good hour before I struck my first Arc. I can strike an arc without any issues right now.
I've welded some bicycle frame parts together as well as electrical conduit. This unit seems to do well up to about 3/16" generic steel with 6010 sticks. I usually use 7014 sticks for a nicer looking weld.
The machine does have sucky uptime; but then I'm not good enough of a welder; and my jobs are too small for that to bother me right now.
Was it worth it? You bet. I have a new skill; if I ever need a bigger (more expensive) welder I will have some decent idea of what I'm looking for for the $75 invested in this one. And I'll probably still use this one for small jobs.

This is one sorry piece of equipment that I was not able to return when it quit working after the third use. This item is not something you would use everyday so the return length of time is not approriate. As stated above -- I only used this three times and now it is a piece of trash. Very unsatisfied with the quality and the seller of this product. As a matter of fact I would not even rate it with one star except you have to pick atleast one.