Arccaptian MP250 Welder unboxing -- Better Than I Expected!

Can this sub $500 welder actually handle the real shop or is it just junk? Today we're going to figure that out. I need a welder that can actually handle real shop projects, not just look good online, not just look good in reviews. Today we're going to find out if the R Captain is legit or if it's for the landfill. I'm not sponsored by Arc Captain. They didn't pay me. They didn't send me this. I bought this on Black Friday to do a review for you guys. So, without further ado, let's get it open. Let's start burning some rod. right. What comes in the [ __ ] Art Captain box? You get a Arc Captain. You get a 10 foot MIG whip, which is had it on the table. 10T MIG whip. Ow. Okay. You get a ground clamp. Kind of a shitty ground clamp, not going to lie. it. Uh, I'll talk about it more as we go, but I'm not a fan of the ground clamp. You get a stinger for stick welding. Holds 7018, 60 series, 70 series. It's got all different positions. It's pretty nice clamp. Toss that to the side. You get some tips. Looks like a 035 030 and a little tool to take the contact tips off of the MIG whip. Um, pair of welpers work just as well, though. You get the 220 to 110 adapter. Now, keep in mind that this does lower your amps at what you can weld at. So, if you can try to run at uh try to run 50 amps like I got going and you'll get the most out of your welder. Put that over there, too. So, it does come with drive rollers. Now, they're not in [ __ ] English, so you got to do some different calculations, but you have a 1, which is 40, and then you have a 9, which is 35. You have an eight, which is 30 0, a six, which is 23, and then you have your knurled rollers for uh flux core. You have a 35 and a 3 0 for flux core. So, when I first got this welder, oh [ __ ] a week ago now, probably I [ __ ] ran flux core on it right out the box. And this is I gotta say this is the best welder that I've ran for flux core. It I'll I'll drop some videos of that right now. Just some old flux core I had sitting in there. So, in the box also includes a gas line, but no regulator. So, I just hit up Harbor Freight, picked up a regulator. I have it set at 10 right now. Oh, I got to turn my bottle on. I didn't drain my line last night. I forgot about it and I was too lazy to drain it. Um, I have it set at about 11. You can go up to 12 if you wanted. Um, but yeah, so it comes with a gas line. It doesn't come with a regulator. So, your on switch is right here. Immediately fires up. The fan will run for a minute or so. It's not that annoying. Get this out of the way. [snorts] All right. So, I have my joint set up here. Also, Miller. Check what it is. Looks like it's 3/16. So, I'm going to go to my app here. Mix solid wire steel 316. Give me my settings. So, we're going to go inches per minute, and we're going to go to 3 4 3 21 to 21 to 22 volts. So, let's go with 22 volts and we should be good. So, we got it at 340 in per minute, 22 volts. We're running uh 316 in steel. Let's uh let's get this tacked in and then we'll run a beam. So, that was kind of a trash bead. I think I want to turn my inches per minute up a little bit. I might even go with 24 volts and uh we'll run it on this backside and see how it goes. So, I went up to 23 volts, 370 in per minute. I always like to cut that little glob off at the end. Gives me something fresh to start with. And uh I'm pushing, not dragging. Uh keeping that gas out in front of me. So, I'm going to try this one and see how it goes. Look at that. So, here's that weld we just laid down. Pretty good. Looks like we got pretty good penetration. Yeah, see that was that lower settings. You could tell that it just needed to be bumped up a little bit. And I was running even kind of a little fast [music] in here, too. This is this isn't too bad. But, um, that's that's really good. I'm going to run the rest of this plate here and see how it goes. So, here's our here's our start. I definitely could have whipped in a little further in there and gotten that continuously, but um that'll be fine. [bell] Keeps going through here. We could even go up maybe a little bit more on our inches per minute and it would probably flatten out a little bit better. So, let's talk about the things that I like and the things that I don't like about the Arc Captain. So, things I like about it and things I don't like about it. This MIG gun I like. Super lightweight. Love the ball. Um, love the other end. Runs really good beads. I don't think [music] personally don't think after running Millers um that it's truly 250 amps. I think it's a little bit lower. I think you'd be pressed to get half inch out of it. I Yeah, I don't I don't think it runs at 250 amps. I really don't. Um, seeing that my Miller app showed me to run it like what, 340 and I had to bring it all the way up to like 390 to get the sound and and weld penetration that I wanted. Um, but I can't [ __ ] that much for the price. Um, it seems like a sturdy box. The stick electrode holder here, the stinger seems very sturdy. All the lines seem sturdy. Everything seems sturdy for the price. Now, things that I don't like about it is one, the ground clamp. I was welding Tuesday. I was welding and we were welding it pretty good at work and dialing in the settings and [ __ ] and that ground clamp got hot and that cord is super small. So, I think that's one thing I'm going to have to update. Now, it does come with the Dins connectors, so I can just swap out grounds super easily, which my Yes Welder has a little bit better of a ground clamp that I think I'm going to swap it out with and try it. Um, so I definitely think I need a new ground clamp. Um, the door on the side [ __ ] pisses me off. I know the two latches are probably good, but it falls open and if you don't get it right, it it just doesn't close right. Um, the table on the inside of the housing pisses me off. I don't know millimeters and [ __ ] cuz I'm not [ __ ] whatever that is. Uh, I like my American inches, 045 point that [ __ ] I like my 3/16, my quarter, my 1/2 in. Keep it all that. Um, so I don't [ __ ] with that door at all. I just use the app, pull it up, and then adjust, run some plate quarter inch before I weld like my trusses and [ __ ] Um, what else don't I like? It's hard ground clamp table on the door. I think that the welder I wish it had, and I'm comparing it to Miller here. I wish that it had better like preset features like the Miller preset where I just punch in like 8 inch plate running 35 running MIG like this gas whatever and it sets your amps and inches per minutes and [ __ ] volts whatever perfectly. I wish that this kind of had something similar and it might. I just haven't figured it out yet. Anyway, that's my review of the Arc Captain. The video is probably super boring. There's hundreds just like it. Just remember, they did not send me this. Um, I'm just testing it out cuz I needed a welder and 500 bucks, just [ __ ] it, spend it. But anyways, without further ado, I'm going to go weld some [ __ ] and uh I'll talk to you guys later. Peace.