Lincoln SP250

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Was there a reason the Lincoln stopped production on this unit?Is there a common problem regarding the cpu controls/display panels?The reason I ask is that there is one locally available, for $750 firm.Do NOT want to buy a machine that may be an ongoing challenge to keep running.'sides, I'm more of a Miller guy in the first place, but $750 for a 250 is somewhat alluring.If'n it was blue, I'd be the owner already.-az-
Reply:I guess I'll hang onto my money for now.
Reply:Hey there RedneckJazz,I've got one of these. I've been running it for about 6 months and it seems very capable. I have really only tried to run .035 steel wire through it with C25. I have had no problems, except, you may have great difficulty finding the circuit board for this unit (as an add-on option) that controls a spool gun. I ran into this a few months ago since I was/am planning on trying some aluminum. Good luck. I talked to Lincoln and they stopped production on circuit boards for this unit a long time ago and have no stock left on the shelf. I scoured eBay and other sites looking for the board to no avail. I finally opted to get a spare torch (the shorter the better), put a teflon liner in and try to push Al. wire through it. It works. No jams or birds nests yet. I'm out of Argon so I haven't really tried welding with the Al. yet. Your mileage may vary.Good documentation is still available on the Lincoln site. The front panel is all digital. No knobs, just menus and up/down buttons. I'm kind of old school in that I prefer to have a knob to turn but that's just me. Another minor complaint is that by default, the machine has a slow run-up to full wire feed speed. On some of the later production units Lincoln made this a menu selectable option but not on mine. So, when you squeeze the trigger the wire feeds at like half the selected rate for the first 2 seconds, then it jumps to the selected feed speed. No big deal to get used to really but it kind of bugs me.I know the machine can take some serious abuse. Mine sat in someone's trailer outdoors for nearly 10 years through summers/winters here in Michigan. I took it home, plugged it in and let her rip. No worries.I didn't pay anything for it so I can't tell you if the one you're looking at is a deal or not. Tell the guy to throw in a can of blue spray paint and its a deal!!! Hope that helps.Eric
Reply:Excellent. Exactly what I needed.Thanks!-andy-