Changed my mind on inverter welders after that Kiewit job

I used to swear by my old transformer machines, figured inverters were for guys who couldn't handle the weight. Then we had a 2-week shutdown in Gary, Indiana, and my partner let me run his Miller inverter on some overhead work. The arc control was night and day, plus I could lug it up three flights of scaffolding without throwing my back out. Has anyone else switched over later in their career, or am I the last guy off the boat?

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anderson.gavin2d ago

...and honestly what finally sold me wasn't even the welding itself, it was the fact that I could fit the whole machine in the back of my truck without having to take out my toolbox and the spare tire and that old cooler that's been sitting there since 2019. My buddy Richie still talks about his Lincoln tombstone like it's a family pet, but I watched him try to drag that thing up a wet ladder in the rain last fall and he nearly took out the foreman below him. The inverter just sits there quiet and light, and you don't think about it until you're on hour ten and your arms already feel like noodles. I still keep the old transformer in the garage for when I'm playing with thick plate on the ground, but that Gary job showed me there's a time and place for both. Now I just gotta convince my back that the old girl didn't do me any favors all those years.