I'm the same, it's rare enough here and usually pretty short outages when they happen that I'm just running cords. I even have a 220 extension cord made up of romax to power the well pump so we have running water, a downside of being on a well. I have a older gas miller trailblazer welding machine that has 3500 watt ac generator, so that's what i usually use. When my dad was on a breathing machine they lost power at their house, so i left work and ran it over, pretty much saved the day with the old girl.
It's a multipurpose machine, does stick (and tig since it's the same thing), mig (too small imo so I've never hooked it up), and even has ac polarity so you can get a high frequency box and tig weld aluminum. I of course don't have one, but i do so little aluminum i can either take it and do it elsewhere or simply stick weld it since that's fine for most stuff. I saved it from the dump so the price was right, took a bit of love but it's been nice to have from time to time. I'd love to get a new or bigger machine tho, most of the new stuff is 10,000 watts, big enough where you can start thinking about powering a whole house. The new stuff is inverter too, so it's clean power too. But for now it suits me fine, but it's obviously pretty heavy so you gotta do a bit more to get it around, either a baby trailer which works pretty good, or having equipment/rigging to load it which is fine too for me usually.
It's a multipurpose machine, does stick (and tig since it's the same thing), mig (too small imo so I've never hooked it up), and even has ac polarity so you can get a high frequency box and tig weld aluminum. I of course don't have one, but i do so little aluminum i can either take it and do it elsewhere or simply stick weld it since that's fine for most stuff. I saved it from the dump so the price was right, took a bit of love but it's been nice to have from time to time. I'd love to get a new or bigger machine tho, most of the new stuff is 10,000 watts, big enough where you can start thinking about powering a whole house. The new stuff is inverter too, so it's clean power too. But for now it suits me fine, but it's obviously pretty heavy so you gotta do a bit more to get it around, either a baby trailer which works pretty good, or having equipment/rigging to load it which is fine too for me usually.
But hey they have a free gift that comes with it.
On pipeline where the welder supplies the welding rig (and they don't need all that lol) most new machines are around $20,000, and diesel with 300 amp capacity. A bunch of guys had the cross country machines, and they pretty much universally loved them. I watched a guy weld up a gap you could throw a rod through like it was nothing, completely blew my mind. There's even nice millers, not really my price range or preference, but they are good machines too, especially for fill and capping. I burned a few coupons with their machines but not enough to really put it through the paces. You gotta remember when you start getting into the commercial/ industrial and later specialty machines cost becomes a much less important design feature, and so they work differently than the lower priced stuff. Usually an older machine that fits the bill is often a wayyyyyyy better machine than a more modern one that was designed to do less, especially if you can live with their limitations like less generator capacity.
The remote is super simple too, and uses an ordinary extension cord to run the remote and power tools all in one.
